Love Far Away (A Spicy Contemporary Romance)

by Cooper, Leslie

  Glumly, I stuck a birthday candle shaped like the number four on top of the cake and lit it. My parents had gathered everyone on the patio to watch the birthday girl blow out the candles, and Megan opened the back door for me. As soon as I stepped outside, I used every bit of effort I could muster and plastered the biggest, happiest smile in the world on my face.

  “Happy birthday to you,” I started to sing, and the rest of the guests picked up the rest of the song. I carried the cake over and set it down gently on the table in front of my daughter. “Happy birthday, dear Olivia, happy birthday to you!”

  Olivia took a deep breath. She closed her eyes theatrically, and with a huge puff blew out her candles.

  “Good girl!” said my mom. “What did you wish for?”

  Olivia looked down at the ground. “I wish my daddy was here,” she whispered. My heart broke in a million pieces for her. Where was he?

  Chapter Three

  Bradley strolled in while everyone was eating cake, flashing his charming smile and slapping my father on the back. Olivia immediately forgave him for being late and ran over to give him a cake-covered hug. I tried to find a quiet moment to talk to Bradley discreetly, but he always seemed to be somewhere else when I went to look for him.

  Then the party was over, and there was cleanup, and my parents hung around for a while, and then it was dinnertime and we called for delivery, and then there was bath and stories and pajamas and kissing the kids goodnight, and then finally, finally Bradley and I were alone and could sit down together and talk.

  “So,” I said, pouring myself a glass of wine as we stood in the kitchen, “what exactly was wrong with the car? How much is it going to cost to fix it?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Bradley.

  “But-“

  “No, I mean it, don’t worry,” he said. He sat down heavily at the table. “Can you sit down with me, Julia?”

  Something was wrong. All of my instincts were tingling as I sat down across from him. Julia? He almost never called me Julia unless it was a hugely momentous occasion. And he looked too upset to be sharing the news of a promotion, or- oh, no, he hadn’t lost his job, had he? Suddenly I felt sick. What if he’d been fired this morning? That was it. He’d been fired and had been too upset to come home right away, so he’d made up the story about the car. He’d had to come back to see the show of excess in his backyard. Birthday parties like that were something we couldn’t afford anymore. I could go back to work at a daycare again. We could sit down and update his resume together. I’d start clipping coupons and only buy groceries on sale. We could-

  “There’s not easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it,” said Bradley. “I think that we’ve both noticed that things have been rough between us for a while now. The thing is- I’ve met someone else.”

  I didn’t understand what he was saying at first. Had he met someone else who could offer him a new job?

  Bradley was watching me closely. “Julia, did you hear me? I’ve met someone else. I didn’t mean to- I didn’t set out to do it, but I’ve fallen in love with her.”

  There was a rushing in my ears. It did not make sense. Bradley, and someone else? No. He’d been in love with me since we were sixteen years old. We had our old prom photo framed on the mantle, not far away from our wedding picture. When we had graduated high school, he’d given me a promise ring and told me he’d love me forever. How could that boy I’d fallen in love with have turned into this man sitting across the table from me, telling me he’d met someone else?

  “No,” I said flatly. “I don’t believe it.”

  He looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”

  “Fourteen years, Bradley! That’s how long we’ve been together. You don’t just meet some floozy at the bar or whatever and decide you’re in love with her after a few days.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” said my husband. “It was just- well, you work with someone every day, you get close to them...it was hard to talk to you about work stuff. You changed. All you cared about was your photography, or trying to get Henry into the same karate class as his friends, or baking the best holiday treats for Olivia’s preschool class- there was nothing to talk about anymore, you turned into someone else.”

  I bristled. “Well, God forbid I actually care to spend time raising our children,” I said sarcastically. “I’m so sorry that the time I spent caring for our kids made you want to run elsewhere to get it. Those nights you worked late- you were fucking that slut while I stayed home feeding our kids and tucking them into bed, weren’t you? God!” I pushed myself away from the table in disgust. “Who are you, anyway? Who did I even marry?”

  “It’s not like that!” he protested. “I haven’t...done anything about it. I just know I love her and to stay married to you would be living a lie. I can’t do that. It’s not fair to you, to me, to the kids.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked. “Tell me her name. Have I met her? Has she been here?”

  “You don’t know her,” he said quickly. “You might have said hello to her at the office Christmas party, I don’t know. Nothing had started then. It wasn’t until we worked on the big Fleischman project together this winter and started spending time together...”

  “What’s her name?” I repeated. “God, it’s not your secretary, is it? Because that would be too much, really.”

  “No, it’s not her,” said Bradley. He hesitated, then said quickly, “Her name is Nikki. Nicole Wilson.”

  “And does she feel the same way?”

  Bradley looked down. “Look, Julia, I know this is hard. It’s not what I would have chosen, but it just happened. I think we should get a divorce.”

  I actually staggered backwards and had to grab on to the wall for balance. At least it could offer me some unwavering support. “Are you crazy?” I whispered. “A divorce? We can’t do that to the kids! I’m sorry you’re having a midlife crisis, Bradley, but you have two children to think of. You can’t just throw your family away because some girl at the office suddenly understands you. Look, I know our marriage has stalled a bit. I really wanted us to have a chance to get away this summer together, to reconnect...maybe go to Chicago for a weekend. Or even a cruise or something like that. Just get away, the two of us. Counseling, maybe we can try that. I’ll do some research tomorrow and see if I can find someone, we can find ways to start communicating better. Fourteen years, Bradley! We’ve been together that long. Almost eight years of marriage. You can’t just throw that away.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Jules,” he said softly. “But I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t know it was what I wanted. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.”

  He just had to twist that knife in my chest a bit, didn’t he?

  “We can still do counseling,” he offered. “With the kids, to get them used to the idea. It’ll be tough for all of us, but we’ll help them through it.”

  I just stared at him. Who was this man I’d married?

  Bradley got nervous when I didn’t say anything. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I mean, I’m sorry, Julia, I know this is a shock. But just- I’m just not happy.”

  “Then tell me,” I said. “Tell me you’re not happy and we’ll fix whatever is broken. I know there are some things we can work on. Please, for the kids. Remember how happy we were? We can get there again, I know we can.” I could feel the tears about to spill down my cheeks and I ducked my head down, embarrassed.

  “It’s not going to happen like that,” said Bradley. “I’ll- look, I’ll give you whatever you want. We can do this amicably. I’ve been thinking about our separation- you can keep the house, okay? I’ll get an apartment in the city at first. You’ll have to go back to work eventually but I’ll give you some money to help out so the kids don’t have to go without. I’m trying not to be a jerk about this, honestly, Julia. I just- I just don’t want to live a lie anymore. And I’m in love with someone else. I don’t love you the way I love her. Maybe we wer
e too young, maybe we never had the chance to really get out there and see what else was out there- I don’t know. But I’m going to be filing for divorce.”

  My body was shaking. Was this what shock felt like? I considered throwing a chair at his head, flipping the table over, taking the wine glass and smashing it on the floor. My hands itched to throw something (preferably at Bradley), but then I remembered Henry and Olivia asleep upstairs- waking them by throwing a chair at their father, and having to explain, and calm them down, when I really just wanted to scream and cry.

  “Fine,” I hissed. “Go to hell, and take her with you.”

  I turned and made a mad dash for the door, grabbing my keys and purse off the side table as I went. I held my breath until I was safely buckled up in my minivan, in the garage. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel for a minute and let out a sob. How could he do this?

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see the door out to the garage start to open. I wasn’t going to let him catch me like this. I hit the garage door opened button, turned up the radio as loud as it would go, and peeled out of the driveway as fast as I could. There was only one place I knew I could safely go.

  Chapter Four

  When I showed up on her doorstep in tears, Megan didn’t understand at first.

  “What?” she asked dumbfounded. “He said what to you? No. Are you sure?”

  “He was pretty fucking clear,” was all I could say, as I pushed past her inside.

  Megan followed me down the hall to her living room. “But- but- you guys have been together for ages!”

  “You don’t need to tell me that,” I said. I threw myself down on her couch and buried my head in my hands.

  “Hang on,” said Megan. “I’m getting provisions.” She went in to the kitchen and I could hear her slamming cupboard door, moving things around, and the ping of her phone as she received texts. I didn’t even care who she told at that moment. All I could think about was that my life was over. My happy family- shattered. Everything I thought I knew about my husband was a lie. He wasn’t who I had married. Maybe we had been too young when we’d first married, but we had been so in love! It had been bliss for the first few years. Maybe he had changed. Or maybe I had. Maybe we both had. Maybe-

  “I hope you don’t mind, I asked Courtney and Becca to come over,” said Megan. She set down a bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. “I don’t have any ice cream in the freezer and this is the only bottle I have on hand so they’re going to pick more up on their way over.”

  “I don’t need that,” I protested weakly.

  “Shut up, yes you do,” said Megan. She poured wine into one of the glasses, filling it almost all the way up. I gave a little yelp and made a ‘that’s enough’ motion, but it was almost completely full when she handed it to me. “Drink up.”

  Numbly, I accepted the glass and leaned back into her sofa cushions. “God, you are so lucky,” I said, looking around. “You have your own place. You can do whatever you want whenever you want. If you want to sleep in on the weekend, you can! You don’t have to make sure people have clean clothes for school and lunches packed and all that. You can just do you.”

  “You need a break, girl,” said Megan. “You need to just get away.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t just leave Henry and Olivia; especially after Bradley tells them he’s divorcing me...they’ll think I’m leaving them. I have a photo shoot lined up for next week. I can’t just take off a moment’s notice.”

  “Yeah, I don’t mean leave everything and go to the airport tomorrow,” said Megan. “But seriously. You need a trip away. Just forget him! You were planning to go away with him anyway later this summer, just go by yourself instead. Or we’ll take a girls trip. Blow off some steam. Light your wedding pictures on fire.”

  “We can’t do that,” I said, horrified.

  “Why not? It’ll be cathartic,” said Megan. “We can have a bonfire on a beach somewhere. Throw all his shit on the fire. Maybe we could go to New Orleans. Or Miami. Or, like, the Virgin Islands or somewhere. No, I’m serious. I really think we should do a trip somewhere. What do you think? Vegas, that’s what we should do!”

  Just then Ashley and Becca showed up, laden down with shopping bags full of ice cream and cookies and chocolate and wine. “Oh, Jules, I’m so sorry,” said Becca as soon as they came in. She dropped her bags on the floor and crossed the room to give me a hug. “I know you felt something was a little bit off, but I never imagined he could do something like this to you. What an absolute jerk!”

  Ashley pulled a bottle of wine out of a shopping bag and picked up a wine glass from one of Megan’s side tables. “Can I just say something?” she asked, pouring herself a big glass. “I’ve never liked that asshole. No, I’m serious. I’ve never, ever liked him. He set off my creep-o-meter. Even when we were in high school, he had this air to him that he thought he was so much better than everyone else and that he was the specialist snowflake there ever was. Everything was always about him. Remember when you got the chance to travel to Washington DC for that public speaking competition? Remember? He would go on about how proud he was of you, but you’d miss his final soccer game and that made him sad. Remember that? He never asked you to stay home but made you feel so guilty that you decided to not go on your own. He manipulated you into not going! He wasn’t even any good at soccer, either, even though he talked about it like he was. He’s always cared about himself more than anybody else. No, I have never liked him.” She shook her head firmly. “I have always kept my mouth shut because I love you, Jules, but believe me when I say this is probably going to be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  I had to look down before I started to cry again. I didn’t want to hear that, even if there was a slight ring of truth to some of the things Ashley was saying. It was true; he had gotten so upset that I would miss his final soccer game of his high school career to go to a public speaking competition in Washington DC. I’d never been one for joining clubs and activities, but I liked the confidence I got from making speeches. I’d felt on top of the world when I found out I’d qualified for that event, but in the end I’d chosen to be with Bradley. I remembered how he’d picked me up on the soccer field and kissed me after our team had won the championship. Back then, to my eighteen-year-old self, that kiss had been worth the competition I’d given up. Now I couldn’t help but wonder what the experience in Washington DC could have done for me, but it still hurt to hear Ashley say those things about him. I was torn between wanting to defend him and picking up my pitchfork to go after him as well.

  “Ash. Really,” said Becca. She sat down next to me with her arm across my back and gave Ashley a dirty look. “Now’s not the time for that. Julia, we care about you and we’re so upset that he did this to you.”

  “He’s a piece of shit,” said Ashley definitively.

  “We were just talking about how Julia needs to take a break,” said Megan, attempting to steer the conversation away from what a piece of shit my husband was. I hadn’t even told them about Nikki yet. “A girls trip is in order. Where to? New Orleans, Miami, Vegas, Virgin Islands? Somewhere else?”

  “Not the Virgin Islands,” I protested. “I could maybe do a weekend away. Somewhere close.”

  “Sure, when I want to cut loose and have a good time with my girlfriends after my dipshit husband announces he’s divorcing me, Pittsburgh is exactly where I think of,” said Ashley sarcastically. “Go big or go home, Jules.

  “I don’t know,” I hedged.

  “It doesn’t have to be the Virgin Islands,” said Megan. “I was just suggesting, you know, somewhere warm and sunny where we could lie on a beach and drink cocktails all day. Somewhere relaxing.”

  “She doesn’t need to relax,” argued Ashley. “She needs to drink her face off and dance on a table somewhere, while looking smoking hot in a brand new dress.”

  “It might be nice to get a change of scenery for a bit,” said Becca, her arm still a
round me. “What do you think, Jules?”

  Ashley was already refilling her wine glass. “I say we stop by her house and key his car,” she announced.

  “Ashley, cool it,” said Becca. “We don’t need to get arrested. Then we really couldn’t go on vacation. I know he’s a jerk, but it’s not like he cheated on her.”

  I took a deep breath. “Actually-“

  “Oh, hell no,” said Ashley.

  Megan’s mouth gaped open. “He cheated on you?”

  “He swears he didn’t,” I said hurriedly. “He swears nothing physical happened. But he told me he’s in love with someone else. Some girl at work.”

  Becca gasped. “An emotional affair,” she said. “When you start talking to someone else the way you might to your husband or wife, you can’t stop thinking about them...it’s almost worse than having sex, in some ways. Emotionally cheating. Oh, I can’t believe he did that to you.”

  “I can,” Ashley snarled into her wine glass. “You know what? We should find you someone else, too. You’ve been with this douchebag your whole life. You need to go out and have revenge sex with someone else.”

  “I can’t,” I said, overwhelmed. “I can’t. Even with what he said, I don’t hate him- I don’t want to ruin his life- I don’t want to sleep with someone else- I just want to wake up tomorrow and have this all be a dream.”

  “That’s okay,” Becca comforted me. “Guys, don’t overwhelm her. She just found out hours ago! She’s barely had time to process things. It’s okay to feel like that,” she added, speaking to me instead of about me this time. “It’s okay to be in denial, or go through the grieving process, instead of going straight to revenge.” She gave Ashley a pointed look.