WHERE ARE YOU? the text demanded.
I looked up briefly from my morning beverage, and ignored it. Like I'd been ignoring Juan's texts and voicemails for the last week.
When I was driving home from the party, my phone had beeped. It was Oscar, texting me, telling me he was really glad he'd met me, and to please stop reading texts while driving. And if I'd already been in a wreck, to please call him to come rescue me.
I had to laugh. I had to stop crying long enough to laugh. But I also noticed additional texts, and missed phone calls, which I didn't bother to check while I was driving.
By the time I was home, I had convinced myself the texts and missed calls were from my husband or some other people, but I was right only in one case. Two missed phone calls from Juan, plus two voicemails, and three texts, all of them in the time from after I got to the party until I had left.
I had no idea what to do about Juan. Maybe I would just ignore him forever, until he went away. I was completely raw, actually. All I had to do was picture him going into his bedroom with those two young women, the turning of the lock, and hear Oscar telling me that Juan had hooked up, and my resolve tightened.
What I didn't want to hear again was what else Oscar had told me, about the woman that Juan was crazy about, so that he spent almost no time with her when they weren't in the sack, and how she drove an Audi. I argued with myself. Maybe it was me. Maybe it wasn't me. I wasn't entirely sure. Either way, it hurt.
I was also debating what, if anything, to say to Juan. It felt too impossible to tell him the truth: I saw you go into your bedroom with two women, and it really hurt, although logically, I have no right to feel that way. I consider a vaguer approach, like saying that it was just too bizarre, too wrong to suddenly be integrated into his real life, and that I needed to back off now, permanently. Or saying that I regretted what I was doing to my husband, and to the well-being of my family, so I couldn't see him any more. I even considered telling him I was now more interested in Oscar than him, but that was mostly a revenge fantasy.
(I had texted three times with Oscar now. Mostly just check-ins β we hadn't made a plan yet. Part of me felt like a complete asshole β though my association with Oscar was still innocent, I was effectively cheating with the good friend of the guy I was cheating with on my husband.)
So for now, I let Juan hang. I didn't really owe him anything. Right?
I finished my coffee, took a shower, brushed my teeth and briefly considered what I was doing with my day. My husband came in to the bathroom, told me he was going off to meet his sponsor, then one of his friends at a coffee place, but he'd be back sometime after lunch and before our kid got home.
About ten minutes after he left there was a knock at the front door. I knew for a fact that people were knocking on doors during the day to ascertain who was at home, and who they could rob. Not going to happen again, god-fucking-dammit. So I answered the door quickly, hoping I looked threatening or at least crazy.
It was Juan. He had about three distinct emotions: relief, rage and hurt.
"What the fuck?" I asked. "Are you kidding me?"
"Why haven't you called me back?" he demanded. "Why have you shut me out?"
I groaned, rolled my eyes. But I unlocked the security door, walked away from him as I headed into my own kitchen and he followed me. I almost offered him some coffee, and then decided not to.
Folding my arms in front of me, I asked in the coldest, quietest voice I could manage: "What are you doing here?"
He was really upset. For just a second, I was a little frightened of him.