Oh, oh...and then there was Laurel and the dreaded triangle.
Revised, rewritten, and continued from chapter 02:
Her name was Laurel. She definitely had a much better name than Barbara, my name. When I thought of her name, I thought of a field of heather. When I thought of her name, I thought of a crown, a white headpiece, and her standing at the altar next to Daniel ready to marry my man instead of me. When I thought of her name, I thought about them talking over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With the excuse that they were working, I imagined them together night and day.
As much as I envied her name, I envied her. Unless he didn't tell her we were engaged to be married, obviously she was a bitch for being with another woman's man. How dare she? What kind of woman would do that, steal another woman's man? She was now my enemy, the dirty bitch. If ever she made a pass at my man, I'll go there and clean the floor with her. As I found out later by questioning, okay, interrogating Daniel over the phone in the way that only a jealous fiancé can, she was someone he knew from college.
'Okay. So?'
They both attended and graduated from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
'Not okay. So?'
Obviously, for her to attend and graduate from MIT, she was as much of an egghead as he was. Normally, I'm able to compete with any woman by my beautiful face, shapely body, and my slutty ways, but she had something that I didn't have. She had a big brain. Obviously, for her to have a fancy job and earning a lot of money with Exxon, she was a scientist and/or a geologist too and I was just a lowly, unpublished, amateur writer. Then, something that I was surprised he told me but, he confessed that they dated for a time.
'What? I beg your pardon? Seriously? Are you kidding me? They dated for a time? What the fuck? Fuck me! Oh, no. Are you fucking kidding me? And now she's there in Alaska working with him. Did he recruit her? Is that why he needed to stay the winter? This is just getting worse.'
Acting more like Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, a fictional character who had two PhD's by the time he was 14-years-old, what Daniel had in intelligence, he lacked in commonsense. He was better with rocks than he was with people. Obviously, he didn't know that he should never tell his woman that he had dated the woman he was working with now. What was wrong with him to tell me that? Obviously, he didn't understand that him working with his ex-girlfriend in fucking Alaska would upset me while I was living in fucking New York.
'Duh? For someone with such a big brain, sometimes he was so stupid.'
I couldn't help but imagine all sorts of nefarious things. Was he playing me while fucking her? Maybe he was playing her while being engaged to me. I never thought of Daniel as a player. Too much of a nerd, he was too open and honest.
Maybe with him having two women in his life, something he obviously had never experienced, his head was completely turned around. My only question was; why would he propose to me when he knew he was leaving me to be with her? Maybe he hoped that proposing to me before he left would prevent him from having an affair with her. Maybe proposing to me before he left would be his excuse to resist her.
'Good luck,' I thought. 'How's that working for you...Daniel? In my mind's eye, the eye of a creative writer who imagines everything, I can see you. I can feel you just as I can imagine her.'
I imagined them having breakfast, lunch, and dinner together every day. I imagined them talking and laughing as if they were lovers instead of co-workers. I imagined them having sex in the office. I imagined them having sex out in the field and on the rocks while examining stupid rocks. I imagined them having sex in a cave or in an underwater submarine.
'Sex, sex, and more sex, I couldn't stop myself from imagining him fucking her and she sucking him,' I thought while growing angrier.
I must have had rocks in my head to let him go to Alaska alone. Yet, I can't babysit my man. I need to trust my man. He's a grown man old enough to make his own decisions and his own mistakes. I can't be there to watch him every minute of every day.
Just as some men are chick magnets with their good looks and their hot body, Daniel was a chick magnet because of his high paying job. He'd provide a good living to whichever woman he'd marry. With his and Laura's income, they'd be solid members of the top 1% of the upper echelon of rich, white Americans. While I'd still be languishing writing my never ending book, should they marry, they'd be living the good life, high on the hog.
'God help me. I hated being so jealous,' I thought while unable to help myself from being so possessive. 'Why am I doing this to myself by imagining things?'
As if they were the bachelor and bachelorette, I imagined them making out in the backseat of a helicopter. I imagined them living together in a seedy Alaskan hotel or Exxon renting them a house while they were there working, fucking, and sucking. I imagined them having sex. I couldn't help myself from not imagining them having sex.
It didn't matter where I imagined them having sex, it was bad enough that I imagined them having sex. Even though I had his engagement ring on my finger and even though I was now officially his fiancé, to say that I was jealous would be a huge understatement. I was murderously livid. For me to be hung up thinking about this, I must have been picking up on something coming through the Skype screen.
And now here they are, ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend, alumni from the same college, working together out in the field, and with me a sixth of the width of the planet away. I just knew it was only a matter of time before they came together as lovers instead of co-workers. I just knew it was only a matter of time before they rekindled their lover affair. I truly believe that it was only a matter of time before I'd be left out in the cold.
They had something that I didn't have. They had a history and memories of being together when they were younger. Even though we had a history and memories too, obviously, he was ready to throw all of that away. Obviously for him to cheat on me with her, if that's what he was doing, they had something special.
'What the fuck?'