A myriad of emotions swept over me as Justine hugged me. I was angry, confused, heartbroken, sad, and shocked all at once. Stepping back from the embrace, I took stock of myself and the situation. Had Justine used this revelation as a way to cement our new arrangement? It didn't seem to come from a place of guilt, but from a place of vengeance.
"Fuck you, Justine!" I spat as I pushed her away. "Why? Why would I fucking need to know that now? Huh?" I said with all the rage inside of me spilling out.
"Just so you can use me as a fucking tool of your personal revenge? What the fuck Justine? What the fuck was this morning? Just a fucking show you put on to get me to this point? No! No fucking way. Get the fuck out of my house. Go back to your cheating husband and get your own revenge or whatever the fuck you want with him. Leave me the fuck out of it!" I shouted as my face grew hot with rage.
She started to sob and cry uncontrollably as she started for the door. A felt a pang of sorrow as she was slinking out of the house. That was quickly replaced by the return of my rage at her poisoned words. She'd fucking tried to manipulate this situation the whole fucking time. Fuck her.
She walked out of the door while looking down at the floor with a defeated posture as tears streamed down her face. Through her tears, before she closed the door behind her, she looked up at me.
"I'm sorry," she meekly sobbed as she averted her eyes and closed the door.
What the fuck had just happened? Justine ripped my heart out, and now I was feeling bad that I had gone off on her? Jenn sucked Grant's dick drunk and everyone knew but me and no one ever said a fucking word? I just had the emotional roller coaster of a lifetime and I still wasn't even wearing a stitch of clothes?
I retreated to my bedroom and grabbed my phone on the nightstand to check it. Amanda had texted earlier:
Curious if you ended up watching....
Laughing to myself, she had no fucking idea. I texted her back:
Got a minute?
I looked afterward and felt a tinge of text remorse. It was well after midnight now, but soon my phone lit up and started ringing.
"Hi," her voice beckoned to me.
"Sorry for texting so late. I didn't realize the time, Amanda."
"Did you watch it? Did she watch it with you?"
"Yes," I gently hissed.
"Well, I'm not your therapist anymore so I'm not going to give you the silent treatment."
"We watched and things progressed as I'm sure you expected, but things took a turn for the worse soon after we were done," I relayed to her.
"Wait, start from the beginning," she excitedly exclaimed.
I spent the next few minutes retelling her the story. Starting out calmly and the anger returned at the end when I was telling her about Justine's revelation. She listened to me without interrupting, and when I finally finished telling her about sending Justine home, tail between her legs, Amanda sighed and then spoke.
"I don't know what to say, Matt. That's an awful situation for her. Dr. Atkins would tell you to let them work it out, but Amanda and Mandy want to explore it with them. I thought watching this together with her would serve as an entry point for me with her. To have her see me at my most vulnerable and that way she'd be more accepting of me with you and with this whole situation. I didn't see her being jealous of me right off the bat though. I also didn't see her intentionally hurting you, but I don't really think that was what she was trying to do."
This was twice now Amanda had talked about her alter egos in the third person. There is something disconcerting about your ex-therapist speaking this way, but I rationalized it by telling myself that someone in that position had to compartmentalize a lot. While I was trying to take in her summary, I realized something I thought was important... her plan. She just admitted to having a plan with the three of us. I wondered what exactly the plan was, and I tucked that bit away for later.
"So what do I do, Amanda?"
"You have to look at it from her point of view. Her husband is cheating on her. She's broken and sees you as a liferaft. She's got a strong emotional attachment to you and to Jenn. I came in the picture and she probably thought she was going to lose what she had with you. I think she did what she did because she loves you. It just probably didn't come out that way for her, and it sounds like she was realizing that when you kicked her out.
"Do you trust me, Matthew?"
"I do."
"Give her another chance then," Amanda pleaded. "Then, I think, I have a way to give everyone what they want," she insisted.
"And that is?"
"When are you leaving for your conference?"
Confused to where she was taking this, I replied, "I'm leaving Monday morning."
"Good. I want you and Justine to come over to my apartment for lunch tomorrow. Can you do that?"
"I suppose, but what if she doesn't want anything to do with me after throwing her out of the house tonight?" I asked.
"Relax. If I'm right, she's probably more afraid of losing you now than she was before. Give her a chance and she'll jump at it."
"What exactly are you planning with this lunch, Amanda?" I tentatively asked.
"I'm planning on getting to know you both a little better, and sorting out Justine and her motives before we dive into this thing. Just a friendly lunch that I have a feeling you will enjoy. You said you trust me, trust me on this now," she emphasized.
"Sure, I guess I've got nothing left to lose. Amanda, if you want a shot at us, why do we need Justine and Grant? We could make this so much simpler," I stammered.
"Nothing's ever simple, Matthew. There are a few things I think you need to learn about yourself, and a few things you need to learn about me before you and I can have a chance at a happy ever after. I do want that, more than you know. This is a way forward for both of us."
I was still confused about all of this, but what real choice did I have at this point? I'd already come this far.
"I guess we both deserve a shot at a happy ever after. I'll try," I reassured her.
"I'll text you the address and the details. Tomorrow at noonish, just you and Justine. Goodnight, Matthew," she said as she hung up without waiting for my response.
I put the phone down and sat on the edge of the bed looking at my clothes strewn around the room. Picking up my boxers, I heard something distantly coming from the front of the house. I put on my boxers, found a pair of shorts to throw on, and went out to investigate. As I got closer to the front door, I realized it was coming from just outside the front door and sounded like an someone sniffling. Peeking out the window in the front door I saw nothing. As I opened the door, Justine almost fell into the house as she must have been leaning against it sitting there.
"Jesus, Justine," I remarked.
She looked like hell. Puffy red eyes, sniffly nose, and hair a mess, she looked completely different from the confident bitch who had just ripped my heart out. My stomach turned. While she had done this mostly to herself, my reaction hadn't helped and it felt awful to see her like this. All of this hit me hard, and I bent down and scooped her up in my arms and carried her to sit her on the couch. She didn't look at me once and kept crying the entire time.
"Did you go home?" I asked.
She just nodded no, again avoiding eye contact of any kind with me. I leaned in and held her close. I rocked her in my arms for some time until I heard a tender but weak whisper from her.
"I'm sorry," she repeated over and over until she just trailed off.
"Stop it," I said forcefully and lifted her chin until our eyes met. "You're not going to lose me. Justine, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
She dove her head back into my chest and squeezed me tight. Slowly, she started to come out of her cocoon against my chest. Justine forced a smile at me as she sat up and I kissed her lovingly on the forehead while I held her hands in mine.
Through my anger, I had missed it. Amanda had seen it and made me realize that she was far more wounded and scared than me. I could not begin to imagine how the knowledge of Grant's adultery was eating her up inside. Just the thought of Jenn with Grant was tearing me up. God knows what it was doing to her.
"So how do you know?" I asked her with outwardly calm, but internal chaos.
"Matt, they told me. Both of them separately," she said slowly gaining strength in her voice.
"No, I mean about the rest with Grant," I redirected her.
She wiped her nose with her arm and sniffled. Surprisingly, she chucked to herself with the thought of that question.
"Oh, he's an idiot. We got an iPad last year and when he set it up, it linked his iCloud which hooked into his messenger. One day I was on it when he was out of town his text messages started popping up on the screen. He's hooked up with a co-worker and some random whores that I think he's getting from Tinder or something similar. I think it's been going on longer than that, and now I can't even touch the iPad when he goes away."
I now felt worse. Not only was I crushed with the revelation about Jenn, but Justine's situation was considerably worse. I had lashed out at her, about Jenn, and she didn't deserve a fraction of it from me. She deserved a fucking real husband and I wasn't sure if Grant could be that for her now.
"We don't have to do this, J. I mean this whole thing with you and Grant," I said remorsefully.
"Are you fucking kidding? Of course, I have to fucking do this. Matt, you have no fucking idea. I feel fucking worthless, that I'm not good enough for him. I've been nothing but a good wife and he's out fucking whoring away from home. You, this, it finally made me feel like I was wanted. Like I was worth something. I felt I was worth something to you, and even in some small way, to him."
Tears were welling up in her eyes and suddenly, my own heartbreak didn't seem so bad. I reached forward and pulled her head into my chest and hugged her tightly again.
"So what are you going to do about it now?" I softly asked. "This can't be the answer, right? Revenge? That's not you, that's not me either. You can't do this for that."
Justine fiercely pushed me back from the embrace, tears now streaming from her eyes once again.
"Fuck you, Matt. I can do whatever the fuck I want to do to him, and he'll still deserve worse," she spat. "It's you I can't lose."
Those words hung heavy in the room. Amanda, in all her doctoral wisdom, had been right on the money. That thought was quickly spun out of my head as she continued.
"You know, these messages, the browser history? It's all about him wanting to be dominated. He wants a woman to run the show. He's been in fucking chat rooms and Reddit asking in forums about how to get his wife to cuck him. He fucking cries to strangers about not knowing how to get me to do it. Apparently, I was too passive, too submissive in bed for him, so he sought out these other fucking home-wreckers to fill that little need of his. Well, guess what? I'm going to fill that need and more. He has no fucking idea what he's gotten himself into. At one point he was asking this whore to pound his ass with a strap-on like a little bitch. I've poured over his browser history. I know the dark stuff, and I'm going to give it all to him. What you saw this morning, that's just the fucking tip of the iceberg."
