My phone rang on my nightstand.
“Hey, how are you today?” Alexa asked after I answered it.
“I’m fine. Feeling sorry for myself, but fine.” I yawned.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Yeah, that’s all I did, actually. I went to bed early so I couldn’t think about it.”
“Have you been up today yet?” she asked slowly, cautiously.
“No, I’m still in bed. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Liar. What?”
“Nothing, really. Call me after you’re up and moving.”
“Alexa Renee … I listened to you lie to your parents daily growing up. Don’t pull that ‘nothing’ shit with me.”
She was quiet for a minute before she let out a heavy sigh. “He went.”
“He went where?”
“To the dinner.”
I laughed. “I knew he would, Alexa, it was for one of the charities he sponsors.”
“He … didn’t go alone.”
“Oh.”
A bomb went off inside my stomach, the tremors reaching all the way out to my fingertips. The thought of him taking another woman to the dinner I was supposed to go to, walking the red carpet with her, holding her hand … made me ill. I got off the phone with Alexa and grabbed my laptop, trying to talk myself out of looking the whole time I typed ‘BRODY MURPHY’ into the search bar.
The most recent link was from late last night. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I clicked on it.
My heart sank.
Brody looked delicious all the time whether he was in workout clothes, blue striped pajama pants, or in a black tuxedo like in this picture. His hair was shorter, making his smile look bigger, more defined. He grinned at the cameras and I could tell from this picture that he was “on.” He was in superstar mode.
A gorgeous redhead was beside him, beaming like she’d just won the lottery. She was with Brody, so I suppose she had. She wore a long, hunter green dress and had boobs to die for. Her lips were painted fire engine red to match her nails. His fingers were intertwined with hers and they both flirted with the cameras like a couple of models. She certainly rocked that red carpet way better than I did. She was beautiful, and I hated her.
I didn’t want to see any more of them together, but what did I do? I clicked on the next picture, and that’s when my heart stopped beating.
Her head was thrown back slightly, laughing at whatever Brody was whispering in her ear. His arm was around her waist, pulling her in close. They definitely knew each other, they were comfortable together. Very comfortable. I couldn’t take anymore, I shut the laptop and stomped out of my room.
“Good Morning.” Mom smiled as I entered the kitchen.
“Hi.”
She stared at me, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Are we out of oatmeal?”
“I think so, I’ll get some on my next trip into town.”
I slammed the cabinet loudly, not saying a word.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Where are the girls?”
“They went out back to play while Fred mows the yard.”
The sentence wasn’t even out of her mouth yet when the girls came running into the house. “Mom, can we go swimming?”
“Sure.” I sighed, “Let’s get dressed and put sunscreen on.”
I really just wanted to crawl back in bed, but it wasn’t fair of me to deprive the girls of a good day because of my bad mood.
We marched down to the lake, the girls complaining the whole way that they had to wear their floaties.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like swimming right now. I’m going to sit on the shore and read so you have to wear your floaties.”
They looked disappointed, but I was the mom and got the final call on that one, though I suppose I could have said it nicer.
As I parked my rear on an old tree that had fallen over years ago, the girls set out for the water, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My emotions were out of control today, going one hundred different directions. I was jealous, for obvious reasons. I was angry, mostly at myself for lying to Brody about how I felt. I was upset that I had been stupid enough to torture myself and look at those pictures even though I knew it was going to hurt me. A small part of me was angry at Brody for taking that girl to the event—he could have fought harder for me. When was someone going to fight for me? Why was it so easy for people to let me go?
Bringing my book out here was completely pointless; I couldn’t take my eyes off of Lucy and Piper when they were in the water. Plus there were a group of idiots out on the water this morning, driving their WaveRunners around like lunatics. Twice now they had come in too close for my liking. On the third trip around the lake, I stood up and screamed at them at the top of my lungs.