by Vivian Wood
“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked once she was settled in the backseat. Her first thought was home, but then she realized her parents were likely to stay at the gala for another few hours given how early it was still. A little thrill ran through her as she stammered out Bryan's address instead.
His new apartment was in a modern building not too far away, and she knew the doorman plus the security code to get in, so she figured she would surprise him when he got home from work. Maybe she would even cook dinner for him, to give him a taste of what it would be like after they got married. Then, she thought shyly with a blush, maybe she would give him a taste of something else. Bryan had never gone down on her before, but from what Mary – her best friend – kept telling her, it was quite the experience. Her sex clenched at the thought, still riled up by the encounter she'd had with the extremely hot guy before leaving the fundraiser.
Yes, this is a good idea, she quietly convinced herself. Surely he'd love the surprise. Maybe it's too intrusive, the loud voice of her self-doubt piped up in her head. She mulled it over. No, if he's tired when he gets home, or if he gets angry when he finds me there, she thought, I'll just apologize and leave.
Her mind firmly made up just as the cabbie slowed down outside the building, she paid the fare and greeted the doorman as she swept by him and into the stately white lobby. With its sleek modern lines and impersonal mirrored aluminum finishes, it wasn't exactly the kind of building she'd imagined she'd move into one day, but it wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination.
The elevator made a low digital ding as it arrived to carry her up to her future apartment. Another little thrill ran through her. This was the wildest thing she'd ever done. Sad, she knew, but that didn't make it any less true.
Her parents were really protective. So at twenty-two, Serena found herself still living at home and working in her family's company with her mother still pretty much controlling every aspect of her life. Not much room for wild adventures there, she thought ruefully.
The elevator carried her straight up to his floor and deposited her there with another soft chime. She headed to his apartment, punching in the security code her had given her not even a week ago so she could bring in his dry cleaning one afternoon.
His apartment wasn't huge, although it felt spacious due to clever architecture. It was a one-bedroom with an open concept dining room that blended seamlessly into a living room and kitchen, with a balcony off to one side. Rent was pricey in this part of town. Bryan had opted for this place over a cozy three-bedroom place she had preferred, making the argument that it was closer to his office, with a great address, and therefore was a better investment.
The first thing she noticed as she stepped inside was that the apartment wasn't as dark and quiet as she had thought it would be. The lights in the living room were on, although they had been dimmed to their lowest setting, and soft music was playing through the built-in sound system. The soft music, however, was not the only sound she heard.
There was also moaning. Loud, female moaning. She rounded the corner from the small entryway into the open living room, and there, sprawled out naked on the couch Serena had picked out, was a raven-haired girl clearly in the throes of orgasm. On top of her – pounding into her like his life depended on it – was her dearest Bryan, eyes screwed shut.
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Her stomach bottomed out, her mouth dried up, and her head was suddenly swimming like she'd had too much wine. She must have made some involuntary noise, because at that moment Bryan opened his eyes wide and stared straight into hers.
“Serena?” he gasped her name almost uncertainly, as if he thought his eyes might be playing tricks on him, but she was out the door and back in the elevator before she could be sure.
3
She had no idea how she'd ended up here. Her mind had gone completely blank once she had punched the button for the ground floor in Bryan's building, but she now found herself pounding on the door to Josh's tiny apartment in an infinitely less impressive building.
Her childhood friend flung the door open and took one look at her face before he pulled her into his warm arms.
“Mom or Bryan?” he asked, her face nestled in his chest.
“Bryan,” she managed, tears streaming out hard and fast now, wetting his dark green t-shirt.
She wasn't sure how long they stood there, her crying pathetically into his chest in the still open doorway, but eventually he pulled her into his apartment and kicked the door shut as he led her into the kitchen.
“What the fuck did that asshole do to you? If he hurt you, Serena...” he began, his dark eyes thunderous and his long brown hair falling into his face. “No, no, it's nothing like that. Not physically, anyway,” she said. She collapsed onto one of the stools around his kitchen counter. “I went to surprise him after the charity dinner. He told me he had to work late and wouldn't be able to make it. So I thought it would be a nice surprise if I cooked him a late dinner for when he got home. Only,” she wiped at her eyes and took a few deep calming breaths before continuing, “he was already home. And he wasn't alone.”
She had been friends with Josh since his family had moved in next door to hers when she was seven, and he was eight. She didn't need to say anything more before he strode back to her and pulled her into his chest again. He ran his hand up and down her back to comfort her while letting her cry it out. He whispered what she assumed were words of comfort into her ear, although she couldn't quite make them out over her loud sobs.
Serena was an ugly crier, and had been her entire life. As a result, she was loathe to cry in front of people, but Josh had known her for long enough that it didn't seem to matter anymore. Besides, it wasn't as if she could stop if she tried.
They stayed like that for a while, with Josh stroking her back until the tears subsided, and he only let her go once she was silent once more. He turned to flick on the kettle before muttering, “No, something stronger,” to himself, then flicked the kettle off. He reached into the fridge to pull out a bottle of wine.
For most people, wine is probably not considered “something stronger,” she thought to herself. But she wasn't a big drinker, so wine was plenty strong for her. Had it been Katie, her sister, or Mary, her best friend, a bottle of vodka would have been more appropriate. Maybe even more than one.
Josh opened the bottle and poured two huge glasses before returning what little was left in the bottle to the fridge. He kept quiet, waiting for her to talk, knowing that her thoughts would be all jumbled and that she would need time to process before telling him the rest of the story. So they just sat there, sipping their wine in the kind of comfortable silence that could only be born from years of friendship, until Serena began to talk.
“I’m such an idiot. Of course I was never going to be enough for him. Why the fuck did I make myself believe that a guy like that would be happy with a girl like me forever? You should have seen this other woman, Josh. I could never compare with someone like that.”
Still he kept quiet, waiting for her to continue. His only reaction was a slight lift of his eyebrows, as if she had said something surprising. Though she couldn't imagine what, so she kept venting.
“I mean, how long did I think it would be before he realized how just plain boring I am? I mean, I’ve known the guy three years. I’m actually surprised that it took him this long. I mean, fuck. We’ve been together for two years, and we haven’t even done it yet. Well, I haven’t done it. Seems he has been doing it.”
At this, Josh's mouth opened a bit, and he sucked in a quiet breath. Shit, she thought, now I've gone and made him uncomfortable. Sex was the one thing they didn't talk about. Whenever the topic came up, he always kept his mouth shut.
She had asked him about it once in all their years of friendship. Katie and Mary had been laughing over what they called their “sexploits” one rare night they had all gone out clubbing together, and the two of them had headed for the dance floor after the conversation. Josh had just sat there shaking his head.
Serena had no doubt he was definitely not celibate, as she had seen him with many girls over the years, though never the same one for more than a couple of weeks. Still, he had never breathed one word about sex to her.
His answer that night had been simple. “It's not something I want to get into with you,” he had said and stalked toward the bar, effectively ending that line of questioning.
Fast forward to however many years later, and here she was, just throwing it out there. She felt she was just excellent at fucking things up tonight.
“Serena honey,” Josh said finally, ”I've known you for longer than I care to admit, and believe me when I say there is nothing plain or boring about you. If he couldn't even keep his dick in his pants until you were ready, then fuck him! You can do so much better than that arrogant prick. And no, I'm not just saying that. You should be with someone who worships the ground you walk on. Not someone who throws scraps of his time at you and only wants a trophy wife for his stuffy work functions,” he fumed.
He seemed genuinely pissed off. At this realization, she let some of her own anger go and let him channel it for her. He really was a great friend.
They stayed like that for hours, talking and sipping their wine, although she cried occasionally. Eventually she texted her mom to say she was at Josh's, and that she would see them in the morning before she passed out in Josh's spare bedroom, still clad in the tiny designer dress her mother had laid out on her bed for the charity gala. It seemed like decades ago.
4
Six days. That's how long it had taken for her prettily planned life to go to hell in a hand basket. Or maybe up in flames was a better phrase. Well, whatever you wanted to call it, that's what had happened.
She replayed the events of the last six days in her sore head. It was her second wineover in the span of just one week. For someone who didn't really drink, this seemed a tad excessive.
She had returned home the morning after staying at Josh's, only to find her parents and Bryan pacing the lush lounge in her family's well-appointed foyer. Apparently he had filled them in on her surprise visit to his apartment the night before, and her subsequent exit. He had, of course, neglected to mention her reason for leaving so abruptly, and had made her out to be some kind of hormonal lunatic.
She had stared incredulously as her mother and Bryan bore down on her, questioning and somehow fuming at her behavior. Her mother had berated her for being so rude as to intrude on Bryan unannounced and then fleeing, and Bryan had shouted something about how she had dared to spend the night alone at another man's apartment. He'd also made a cutting remark about how she'd had the nerve to just “waltz in” the following morning while wearing the same outfit from the night before with no shame whatsoever.
She had stared at them stupidly, and then done the only thing she could think of in that moment. She pulled Bryan's ring off of her finger, and threw it at his head. Her aim, however, hadn't been amazing. The ring had gone flying past Bryan's head, sailing through the air only to land in her father's coffee as he sat silently in a wingback chair behind Bryan, surveying the scene with hooded eyes.
That had shut them up. “Mother,” she spat as she turned toward her first, ”I went to my fiancé's apartment, the one where we were going to live together. The one I helped him pick out and furnish, I'll remind you. I went because I was concerned about how hard he's been working, and I wanted to cook him a meal like a proper little wifey. Only he hasn't been working hard, it seems he has been fucking hard.” She heard a sharp intake of breath at this statement, although she didn't know who it had come from, since the rage had made her hungover head swirl. “I left because he was busy giving it to some other girl.”
“Serena,” her mother had breathed, “how dare you use such language?” She had ignored her and turned to Bryan instead.
“And you, you filthy...” Some choice words entered her head, but for the sake of her mother's heart, she went with, “Swine! I've been planning our wedding, and that's what you've been doing?” She'd finally let it all out.
The screaming match had culminated in her mother fainting – yes, she was that dramatic – and her father escorting Bryan out the door with a warning to never darken their doorstep again. She threw herself up the stairs and into her bedroom.
She had mostly stayed locked in her bedroom for the next couple of days, her father and Katie checking on her occasionally. She hadn't spoken to her mother since the big blowout, but from the snippets of conversation she'd heard whenever she had snuck out of the bedroom to the kitchen for more tea or ice cream, her mother was furious she had broken off her engagement to “such an eligible man” and lamenting that she “couldn't have acted like a lady and forgiven his one indiscretion” in what she described as his “moment of weakness.”
Wow mom, so much for female empowerment. I don't know why they even let us vote, she had thought sarcastically upon hearing her mother's ranting. Again, those were treacherous thoughts that would never be formed into words. Serena had chided herself for not speaking up.
Three days after the fight, her mother had thrown open her bedroom door, pulled open her drawn curtains so violently she thought they might tear – though that would hardly have been a loss, as in her last redecorating fit she had somehow decided princess pink was an appropriate color for a twenty-one-year-old – ignored Serena's puffy eyes, and had perched graciously, but dramatically on the edge of her bed.
“Well Serena, since you seem to have some sort of plan for your future I don't know about since you threw the plan that I did know about out of the window with both hands, do you care to share what you intend on doing with yourself now?”
She had looked into her mother's narrowed grey eyes and was overcome with a sense of shame. Her mother had worked hard to find someone she considered suitable for her to date, and had been so supportive of the relationship – some nights she had stayed up late to talk with Serena about the problems she'd been having with Bryan, and had thrown herself into wedding planning these last six months.
“I'm so sorry, mom,” she muttered, tears she hadn't even realized she still had in her now threatening to spill. “I was just so hurt and shocked that I didn't consider the consequences of my actions until just now.” A familiar sense of overwhelming shame and guilt settled over Serena.
Her mother had been right, there had been a plan. One that her mother had carefully crafted and had been working on for Serena's entire life, and with one tantrum, Serena had thrown it all away. No wonder her mother was so angry at her. After all, men cheated, didn't they? She suddenly wondered if her mother had forgiven her father for any such indiscretions, but she quickly pushed that thought away. No, her father would never.
Nevertheless, she had heard countless stories from her friends about their fathers' adulterous affairs, and yet, most were still married. Perhaps it came with the territory, but how would she know? Bryan had been her first serious boyfriend, and her mother never spoke of such things.
She thought back to how she had felt the moment she had laid eyes on the scene playing out on Bryan's couch, and felt sure she had made the right decision. Plan be damned, what he had done to her was unforgivable.
“I'm sorry, mom. I just knew I could never be with Bryan after what I saw. I know how hard you worked, but I'll make it up you. I'll enroll in school. I'll work really hard, and I'll make you proud of me again,” she had vowed quietly.
It had all tumbled out so fast, and she had been so desperate to just say something that would make the situation better, that for the second time in three days, she had accidentally stumbled into a life-changing argument.
“School?” her mother had repeated coolly. “And what, exactly, would you be enrolling for, dear? You're four years out of high school, you've not applied for colleges anywhere, and you have no work experience other than helping out at your father's company.”
Her mother was right yet again. The plan for her life had never included college. Katie, her sister, who had somehow m
anaged to escape from the rigid confines of their mother's master plan for her to an extent, had insisted on obtaining a degree before settling down. She had dug her heels in until their father had finally convinced their mother to let her do it.
Katie was a year younger than she was, and almost finished with her degree. She had also somehow managed to move into an off-campus apartment at some point, although there were rules, of course. Her sister was required to visit home at least once every few days, attend all family functions, and her mother still bought her clothes and groceries. Still, it was considerably more freedom than Serena had.
Serena, however, had started working for their father's company straight out of high school. She had started as an assistant to a low-level marketing manager at Woods Co, the family empire that had been started by her grandfather some sixty years ago. She was likely to stay in that position until she was married off and raising babies.
So she was safe, earned a reasonably comfortable salary, had become very good at her job and had settled into a routine, constantly under the watchful eyes of her mother.
Her job in the marketing department wasn't bad, as it meant that she got to work a little on ad campaigns for the company and occasionally even got to meet the lead designers. She was little more than a glorified secretary, really, but it wasn't all bad.
“I know, mom,” she said, “but I've been thinking about it a bit, and I'd really like to go to design school.”
She thought of all the sketches she'd drawn over the past few years, stowed safely under her bed and in her desk at the office, and was considering showing them to her mother, when she realized her mother was laughing at her. “Design school?” she scoffed. “That's not a plan, honey!”
And so it had become a fight. She spent the next two days trying in vain to convince her parents, but her dad had grown incredibly angry at the suggestion that she wanted to leave the company to go to school instead – not that he had ever shown any interest in her becoming more involved in the company.
