You Asked for It

by Faith

I gaze at his picture longingly, taking in his warm brown eyes and wide, generous smile. It’s been a month since our divorce was finalized, but I know in my heart that we will be together once again.

Whenever he got especially upset with me, Johnny went on about me being controlling and obsessive and other such nonsense, to which I simply chuckled as I held his phone over the kitchen sink filled with hot water and dirty dishes. He thought it was creepy that I’d gone through his phone to investigate when things got a bit suspicious. Forty-five minute lunch breaks instead of thirty? Now, what on earth could he have been up to in those extra 15-minute intervals?

Well, as I came to find out, he’d been sending some very suggestive messages to one of his co-workers, Charlene.

Johnny: Hey, I thought your presentation was great!

 Charlene: Thanks, John. You’re such a great friend.

Johnny: Yeah, you’re practically my sister!

Now, do these look innocent to you? More like code they must have used so that they could meet up during lunch at work. After I drove by one day to check his punch card, I noticed he’d broken his pattern and taken fifteen extra minutes at lunch.

When I inquired about this, he looked at me like I was crazy. He was all, “What were you doing at my work?”

Obviously he was avoiding the question. He was guilty for sure.

For some strange reason, we began to fight a lot after he found out that I’d been sneaking into his work building to check on what he was up to. I knew that I was just being a good, caring wife, but for some reason he didn’t seem to think so.

When he filed for divorce as well as a restraining order, I knew what the whole thing was really about. Back when we were dating, he was, quote-on-quote “friends” with a girl he met during a vacation he took on Maui.

While he was away, I sat in my apartment and watched his Facebook page all day, every day, and eventually a picture came up of them eating lunch together in an apartment he was staying in. In the picture, they were clinking glasses and smiling at the camera, accompanied by others doing the same thing. The caption read: Spending time with the best friends in the world. I knew then and there that I had him caught.

Instead of losing my cool when he got back to California, I simply pretended I was pregnant so that he would marry me, and then he couldn’t just casually date other women from Hawaiʻi as he pleased. He was officially mine.

I ease myself into my chair and heave a contented sigh, clicking at the computer screen until I get to Johnny’s Facebook. I check it for a brief hour, and then switch tabs and go onto Craiglist.

The woman he met all that time ago is the obvious reason for his pulling away, but no matter. I have a simple solution.

I type out an ad for this casual home wrecker, trying my best to accurately portray how they’d had an obvious fling back on Maui. I say that it would be great to get to meet up again, and focus on making the overall tone welcoming and cheerful.

I look up at the calendar on my wall, eyeing the big red heart I drew on tomorrow’s date: Valentine’s Day. I check to make sure my flight tickets are still arranged for the flight tomorrow morning. If all goes well, I can probably catch one coming back on the same night, just in time to go on a date with my so-called ex, Johnny.

I give the hammer propped up in the corner of the room a meaningful look, wishing I wouldn’t get busted if I tried bringing it with me on the plane tomorrow. It’s my lucky one. But I can get one on Maui that’s just as good, I suppose.

I turn back to my computer screen and hover my mouse over the post button that will get the ad up online. I’m almost hesitant for a moment, but then I remember how she must have known he was dating another woman before she barged in uninvited.

“You asked for it,” I whisper to the open air of my apartment. I click the button.

Now all that’s left to do is wait.

This entry was posted in Main Page. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This blog is kept spam free by WP-SpamFree.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.