Think Again

by Isabel Lucero

  “Alaska sounds interesting.”

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you, but don’t ever feed them, don’t leave food or trash outside, and never get close to mommas and babies.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I’ll call you to save me if I ever find myself in a wildlife predicament.”

  “Don’t call me. I don’t go near those things,” I say with a laugh. “I love looking from my car, though. Or through a window in my house.”

  “Do you go hiking or anything like that? I imagine there has to be encounters while being outdoors for an extended amount of time.”

  “I haven’t been hiking in a while. I do love to go, though. There’s a gorgeous waterfall that I’m in love with. It’s a bit of a hike, but it’s not too bad. You can get extremely close to the falls and feel the spray of the water hit your face. It’s refreshing. I need to go back before winter comes.”

  He nods, but it looks like he’s in thought about something.

  “There’s also some glaciers you can hike to. One of them has a stunning glacier water river running alongside the hiking path. The water is phenomenal! There’s always signs posted that say a black bear has been seen in the area, but I’ve never encountered one.”

  “What do you do if you do come across one?”

  “Well, there’s bear spray. It’s like an extreme version of mace, and it has a long spray range.”

  “Bear spray? Jesus.”

  We pull up to Moose’s Tooth, and as we’re approaching the door, he asks, “Why haven’t you been hiking if you love it so much?”

  The real answer is because Aaron doesn’t like to go, and my friends are busy with work.

  “I just haven’t had time, I guess.”

  “Aren’t you off on the weekends?”

  “Mostly. I work some Saturdays, but yeah.”

  We get lucky and get seated almost right away this time. I let Chris order the food, and just order a Sprite for myself.

  “Are you an outdoorsy kind of guy?” I ask.

  He shrugs one shoulder. “I suppose so, but I have a feeling being outdoorsy in Washington is different than being outdoorsy in Alaska.” His smile lights up his face.

  “Maybe just a little. I can recommend a ton of places to go if you want. You should definitely see everything before the snow starts.”

  “Which is when?”

  “Last year it started on Halloween. The year before it started on Thanksgiving. It varies.”

  “Are you volunteering to hike with me?” he asks.

  “Uh . . . no. I shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” His eyes stare deep into mine, and I can tell he’s waiting for me to announce my relationship status.

  “I just . . .”

  “Here we are,” the waitress announces as she places our pizza on the table. “Can I get you guys anything else?”

  “I think we’re good,” I say, looking to Chris for confirmation.

  “Yes, we’re good. Thank you,” he tells her.

  We don’t go back to discussing why I shouldn’t go hiking with him, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, we talk about the food, more about things to do in Alaska, and a little about work. Lunch goes by quickly, and before I’m ready, we’re heading out the door and back into his car.

  When he isn’t making me squirm in my seat from his sexual innuendos or winks and smiles, he’s an eloquent speaker and extremely intelligent. He talks about his work with charities back in the lower forty-eight, and how he’s an animal lover and is looking to adopt a dog once he’s in his house. He has a good relationship with his parents, and doesn’t have any siblings. I wasn’t lying when I said he’s a good catch. Not counting his looks, career, and education, he truly seems like a genuinely good person. Manwhore, yes, but what do you expect? I’m sure women drop to their knees fairly quickly when they meet him.

  I’m putting my seatbelt on when his hand comes up to touch my face. Instinctively, I back up with a furrowed brow.

  “You have something on you,” he states with an amused look on his face.

  I relax a little, but then his thumb grazes the skin next to the corner of my mouth. His touch is soft and slow, and combined with the way his eyes are boring into mine, he lights a fire within me and makes my heart race.

  Our eyes stay connected for several seconds before his eyes roam over my face and land on my lips. I know what usually happens next. I can barely bring myself to move, let alone speak words.

  His hand drops slowly, but his thumb traces a path down the rest of my cheek and chin. I lick my lips as I look into his eyes and finally find words.

  “Thanks.”

  His mouth turns up on one side. “You’re welcome.”

  I sit back in my seat and he brings the seatbelt across his torso before driving off.

  Being alone with him is a dangerous game.

  His eyes hypnotize me.

  His lips call to me.

  His body begs me to touch him.

  I need to stop seeing him alone, because I fear I won’t be able to keep a handle on my self-control for much longer.

  Chris turns on the GPS in his car to direct him to where he needs to go. He used it on the way here as well, even though I told him I could tell him where to go. He insisted that using this would help him remember the streets more.

  “Eventually I’ll get the hang of where everything is, but until then,” he gestures to the device, “this will be my best friend.”

  “It shouldn’t take you too long. Anchorage is pretty spread out, but it’s not too difficult.”

  When we’re just a couple streets away from the office, I spot another moose.

  “Stop!”

  He slams on the brakes. “What?”

  “Pull over.”

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a moose over here. I just saw it.”

  Luckily this isn’t too busy of a street, and there aren’t a lot of cars on it right now. Chris pulls onto the shoulder and puts it in park. There’s a ditch holding some rain water, then some grass, and then a section of trees. The moose comes out of the wooded area, walking towards our car.

  “Oh wow,” Chris breathes.

  He pulls his phone out and starts snapping some pictures. I do the same, because no matter how long you live in Alaska, seeing a moose is still pretty amazing.

  She pauses, looks around a bit, and then walks towards the ditch. Following behind her are two baby moose.

  “Oh my god! Look how cute! They’re so small,” I exclaim.

  “Damn, this is insane.”

  He leans closer to me to get a better look at the moose and take more photos.

  The momma and babies make their way to the ditch and begin drinking the rain water. We snap a ton of pictures of all of them, and more cars begin lining up behind us to get a look as well.

  “This is really amazing,” he says, turning his head slightly to look at me.

  Because he’s leaning onto my side, our faces are literally only inches apart. I smile and turn to look back out the window.

  “I know.”

  His masculine scent fills my nostrils and I can’t stop thinking about how close he is. If I were to just turn my head to face him, I’m sure my lips would graze his face.

  The moose get their fill of water and then the momma leads them back into the wooded area. Once they’re out of sight, everybody begins getting back on the road.

  “Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll never forget this experience.”

  “No problem,” I say with a smile. “I love watching them, too.”

  Just a few minutes later we’re pulling up to the office, and I find myself dreading having to leave his company to go back to work, but I know it’s probably what’s best. I shouldn’t agree to have lunch with him again.

  “Thanks for taking me to lunch,” I say, taking my seatbelt off. “I enjoyed it.”

  “I owed you.”

  “You didn’t. You paid for our last lunch.”

  “
Yeah, but you drove me around.”

  “Fine. I guess we’re even.”

  “Talk soon?” he asks.

  I should say no. I should tell him to not call or ask me to lunch again. I should tell him I’m married and it’s not appropriate. I should say we need to keep our relationship a professional, working one, but I don’t.

  “Sure,” I respond.

  That’s not too bad.

  “Good-bye, Aria,” he says with a perfect smile. “Have a good day.”

  “Thanks,” I reply. “You too.”

  When I get to the door to the office, I look back and find that he’s still watching me. I give him another smile and small wave, to which he responds with an amused grin and lift of his hand. He knows he knocks me off kilter. Dammit.

  I feel flushed and hot as I walk inside. Closing the door behind me, I move to the wall where I know he can’t see me and lean back on it. I blow out a puff of air and try to get my shit together.

  When I open my eyes, Anne is sitting at the desk, giving me a shit-eating grin.

  “Enjoy your lunch?”

  I’m somehow able to get out of having to explain anything to Anne. As I rush to the back, I tell her that lunch was good and describe seeing the moose on the way back. She giggles and drops it. Have I said how much I love her?

  The rest of the afternoon goes by swiftly. I’m actually looking forward to going home, for no other reason than to just get into my pajamas, eat, and watch some TV.

  At five o’clock, I’m basically speed walking out the door and to my car. When I get home, I travel up the carpeted stairs with my hand running along the glossy wooden rail. In the bathroom, I strip myself of my clothes, take my braid out, and turn on the raindrop showerhead.

  The hot shower leaves me feeling relaxed as I step out and grab for a towel. I’m not going to lie and say that Chris didn’t cross my mind while I was in there, but so did Aaron, and believe me when I say they were for different reasons.

  Aaron and I haven’t been intimate in at least a month, and the last time we had sex was because we both had gotten a little tipsy when we went to a party for his job. Drinking always gets me in the mood, and I wasn’t thinking about the sex he’s had with other women. Well, in a way I was, because I insisted on a condom. I’ve been doing that for a little while now, using the excuse that my birth control pills make me feel sick, so I don’t want to take them.

  I know I wouldn’t need to be drunk to sleep with Chris, and that’s a problem.

  “Aria? Oh.” Aaron walks into the bathroom as I’m wrapping a towel around my body.

  “Yeah?” I ask, grabbing a hairbrush from the counter.

  “Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?”

  This is surprising.

  “Not really. I just wanted to get into my pajamas and relax a little.”

  His face falls just a bit. “Okay.”

  “Want to order something? We can just veg out on the bed or something.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he says, coming to give me a kiss.

  The kiss is quick, then he’s walking out to order some food. Chinese probably, because it’s what he always orders.

  I sigh as I look at myself in the mirror. How much longer can I put up this façade? I can’t pretend like I don’t know what he’s up to, but I have to, and by pretending to be ignorant to his affairs, I have to pretend that everything is fine at home.

  If I start questioning him now, he’ll delete and get rid of any evidence I still might be able to find on the computer, and he may even freak and stop seeing the girls for a little while, giving me nothing to gather evidence of.

  Which reminds me, I need to look into his calendar and see when he has an “appointment” scheduled. Apparently, he marks his dates with women as appointments in his phone. What appointment is happening after six at night? That’s how I knew to be at the hotel around that time.

  After throwing on some leggings and a long sweater, I creep out onto the landing of the stairs and listen. He’s on the phone, and from what I can tell it sounds like he’s in the kitchen.

  I quickly make my way to the office and sit in front of the computer. He’s logged on, so as soon as I move the mouse and wake up the computer, I get alerts that he has emails.

  I don’t read them, but I see that he has two from some dating site. Well, I wouldn’t say a dating site. More like a hook-up site.

  I’ll read those later. I’ve already got a receipt from another site he joined a little while back. He’s using his other checking account to pay for those, but I’ve gotten ahold of the emails, so he isn’t that slick.

  Now before you go judging me. Don’t. Just don’t. It’s easy to say you’d never do something like this, but put yourself in my shoes. Do you trust your husband? Has he cheated on you? Lied to you? If you’re one of the lucky ones, congratulations! If not, then you feel where I’m coming from.

  There’s this unreachable goal. The goal is to find out the truth. It eats at you, ripping your heart and soul from your body. You don’t even recognize yourself anymore. You’ve become someone you never thought you’d be. You must know the truth. You have to know.

  But then . . . then you find the truth, and it finishes you off. Your heart is mush. You’re broken and left feeling like someone just ran you over with a Mack truck.

  The next goal? Find out every single detail. Needing to know her name, what she looks like, and how many times they were together. Are they serious? Is there more than one? What does she have that I don’t? What did I do wrong? How can I change? How do I make him want only me?

  That goal, ladies. That goal is bullshit. It changes nothing and leaves you with more questions and insecurities. You did nothing wrong. He did. End of story.

  One email catches my attention. It’s from someone named Stephany. Ugh. Stephany with a y. I don’t know why I hate that so much, but I do. The subject is titled This weekend.

  This one has already been read. I look behind me, knowing that I need to hurry up, but this one piques my interest more than the others right now. Before I can read it, I hear Aaron coming up the stairs.

  “Shit,” I hiss, exiting out of everything and rushing back to the room.

  I find myself clenching my teeth so hard that my jaw hurts. He’s clearly in contact with another woman, but without being able to read the content of the email, I can’t accuse him of anything. Before I can think further into what to do, Aaron walks in.

  “Hey, babe. I ordered Chinese. Is that cool?”

  I barely lift my lips into a tight smile and nod. He disappears into the bathroom, giving me another minute to sort through my thoughts.

  When he returns, he plops onto his side of the bed and turns the TV on. “What do you wanna watch?” he asks.

  “I don’t care.”

  While he’s already getting comfortable, lying down on our light green comforter with two pillows propped under his head, I sit rigid on the edge of the bed with my back towards him.

  After a few more minutes of silence, I can’t take it anymore.

  “Do we have plans for this weekend?” I ask, looking over my shoulder, giving him the chance to tell me his own weekend plans.

  A hint of fear crosses his face, but only for a brief second. “Oh, shit. I meant to tell you. I may have to leave town this weekend. Bill wants to go up to Fairbanks to meet up with some guys we may work with in the future.”

  “You may have to leave? There’s a chance you won’t?” I ask, trying not to sound as pissed as I am.

  “Well, more than likely I will. I’ll try to get out of it, babe. You know I hate leaving you, but Bill needs me by his side if he goes.”

  I don’t respond. How do you respond to bullshit?

  “Come lay with me,” he says, reaching his hand out and tugging on my shirt. I can’t. I cannot lay with him right now. I fear I may accidentally punch him in the fucking face.

  “I don’t feel good,” I tell him, which is true. “I’ll be right back.”
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br />   I rush to the bathroom with my cell phone in my sweater pocket. Once I’m locked inside, I sit on the closed toilet, turn the volume down, and send a text to Janna. She doesn’t answer right away like I thought she would. Shit!

  I text Carmen, but after looking at the time, I’m sure she’s at work. I need one of them to text me and give me an excuse to leave.

  After several minutes, I know I’m going to need to leave the bathroom soon. I flush the toilet and run the faucet. Staring myself down in the mirror, I tell myself this is my only choice.

  I text Dr. C.

  Me: Hey

  He responds immediately.

  Dr. C: Hey there.

  Me: This may come off strange, but can you wait a couple of minutes, and then text me back? Maybe just say you need me at the office. Please.

  Dr. C: Sure, I can do that. Are you okay?

  Me: I’m fine. Please just text me back in a few minutes.

  Dr. C: Okay.

  I delete the text thread in case Aaron decides he wants to look at it. I can at least show him it’s work related and that I need to get to the office. If I were to just storm off and leave the house, I’d get a million questions. I already told him I wanted to stay in tonight, so I can’t say I have plans with the girls or anything.

  Back in the bedroom with the volume up on my phone again, I prop myself up against the headboard and act like I’m watching TV.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I respond without even looking at him

  “Feeling nauseous?”

  “A little,” I say with a shrug. Again, the truth.

  It feels like it takes forever for me to get the text, but my phone finally dings. I pull the phone from my sweater and read the text. Sure enough, Chris tells me he needs me at the office.

  “Who is it?” Aaron asks.

  “It’s work. I have to go.”

  “What? What do you need to go back for? It’s already after six-thirty.”

  “I know, but what do you want me to do?”

  “What could they need you for?”

  “I don’t know, Aaron!” I explode. “The doctor asked for me to go, because he needs help with something. I’m going. I don’t question you when you leave,” I say, giving him a pointed look.