…
Hours passed or maybe it was just a few minutes. I couldn’t be bothered to check the time while I was busy trying to talk myself out of murdering Jason. Either way, I didn’t realize Kim had joined me in the bathroom until she was standing right in front of me as I sat against the bathtub. I’ll be honest, the first thing I did was look for a weapon in her hands. I wouldn’t put it past her to want to kill me if she knew I was sleeping with her husband, but she wasn’t holding anything except for a box of tissues.
“Are those for me or for you?” I asked, pointing to the box.
She pushed them toward me. “I’m so sorry.”
My eyes flew up to hers. “What? Why are you sorry? I’m the ‘other woman’.”
Instead of answering me, she positioned herself against the bathroom wall and then slid down to sit on the floor. “I was out of line back there. I purposely hurt your feelings when I should have told you the truth.”
“You aren’t Jason’s wife?” I asked, hating how hopeful I sounded.
She winced. “Technically I am.”
I held up my hands for a time-out. My body couldn’t handle the back and forth. I needed a straight answer or I was going to lose it.
“I came to ask him to sign the divorce papers once and for all,” she explained.
Her words sank in slowly, as if from a dripping faucet.
Jason was married.
Jason was still married because the divorce papers weren’t signed.
Jason hadn’t signed the papers.
Jason didn’t want to be divorced.
“While I appreciate you trying to set me straight, I kind of just want you to leave.”
Her mouth fell open at my direct approach.
“I’m sorry, that sounds terrible, but I just want to pack up my stuff and get the hell out of here. You have your own shit to work out with Jason, but he and I are over. Or we never started because let’s get real, Jason is a one-man show. I was never really with him to begin with.” I stood up off the ground. “So thank you for the tissues, and thank you for being so pretty. I want to hate you because of how pretty you are, but I can’t because you’re also nice, which sucks.”
She smiled, but then bit down on her lip to conceal it.
“Ugh, and you think I’m funny,” I said, raking my fingers through my hair. “Great. What the hell am I supposed to be doing right now?”
She shrugged, but kept silent, aware that I was going through some kind of existential crisis and needed to find my way out on my own. She stood up and stared at me with pity for a few seconds before moving toward the door.
“For what it’s worth, I think you guys would make a really good couple.”
I laughed, “I don’t even know what to do with that statement, so I’m just going to tuck it away with the other weird shit I’ve heard today.”
…
I’d never been so happy to have an assistant that could make anything happen than I was that afternoon. As soon as I informed Summer of my need to “get the hell out of Dodge”, she booked me a private plane for 1:00 P.M. It was just the right amount of time to pack up all of my stuff and say goodbye to LuAnne, Derek, and Dotty. I had plans on slinking out when no one was looking in an effort to avoid Jason, but when LuAnne told me he’d gone into town to talk with Kim and Lacy, I took my time giving her a giant hug.
Yes, I was totally giving Montana the ol’ Irish exit, and sure, maybe I should have stayed and listened to Jason say “I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry for everything.” But the fact is – I wasn’t totally sure that he was. He’d told me he didn’t want complicated. He told me he didn’t want a relationship, so why would he feel the need to come groveling back to me? I would have really, really enjoyed hearing him apologize, which is why I couldn’t stay on the off chance that he wasn’t sorry at all.
Just thinking about that outcome made it that much easier to leave Big Timber behind. I’d really miss my time in Montana. If my downtown condo had a horse stable and a couple acres, I would have taken Dotty back with me, but alas, I had to leave her behind with a handful of sugar cubes to remember me by.
I would have cried as I stuffed my guitar case into the trunk of the car waiting on the gravel drive, but I had no tears left. I looked back to where LuAnne and Derek were standing up on the porch steps. Derek was just as sweaty as the day I’d met him, but he had his cowboy hat resting over his heart and a solemn expression masking his features. A part of me wanted to think that Jason didn’t deserve these people, that they were too good for someone like him. A liar.
But I knew better.