Never the Right Time

Chapter 35 Sophia's POV

The first few months of living in our new house felt great. Our weekends were filled with projects and exploring our new area. I loved watching the house come together with little bits of our personality together. While, my weekend were amazing, my weeks were slowly becoming the worst. A new senior editor had started and seemed as though she was hell bent on making my life a living hell. None of my ideas were taken serious and I felt as though I was given work that was designed for me to fail or was just busy work.

I was getting the feeling that I needed to leave, but I wasn't sure if I knew what I wanted to move on to. Joel wasn't much help either. He just kept brushing now my concerns and saying that I was just being sensitive. He also wasn't supportive of my new business idea. I wanted to open a bookstore and craft beer bar. I had fallen in love with a used bookstore and coffee shop and wanted to put my own spin on it. He just brushed me off by telling me that it was too soon after buying the house to do anything crazy like quit my job and open a new business. He might be right to an extent, but I don't think he ever thought about how seriously I hated my job.

Every time I received criticism at work for things either unfounded or out of my control I distracted myself by daydreaming about my bar. After a particularly rough day with my boss breathing down my neck I started to work on the business proposal. I knew telling Joel was a mistake. So I decided to not tell him until I had gotten it completely worked out. I knew it might not be the best idea, but he wasn't supportive and I was so tired of it.

Joel and I had been slowly moving away from the honeymoon phase of living together. He was constantly working and it seemed as though I was constantly upset. I was trying to not show how much I was struggling and it was slowly taking a toll on me. I felt as though I was burning the candle at both ends and decided to go out of town for the weekend. I told Joel that I was going to a cabin in Big Sur for the weekend and took off.

The weekend was great. I spent a little bit of it figuring out my business plan for the bar and the rest just reading and relaxing. I had turned my phone off for the weekend and had enjoyed tuning out the rest of the world. I turned it back on when I pulled into the driveway. I noticed that Joel wasn't home when I got there. As I walked through the door, I turned on my phone, which instantly started blowing up.

I had a ton of texts from my sister. I frowned as I watched multiple texts and voice messages light up my phone. I was a little shocked by the multitude that I decided just to call her instead of reading it all.

She answered immediately " Soph! Fuck I've been trying to reach you all weekend."

"I noticed" I responded "What's going on? Is everyone ok? The number of texts and voicemails is a little terrifying."

"I'm sorry. Everyone is fine. I needed to get a hold of you. Now, please don't be mad at me, I'm only telling you what I saw and its clear you didn't see your texts yet."

"Ok..? You're scaring me. What is it?"

She took a deep breath, " I saw Joel making out with some woman at a bar on Friday. He then left with her. I sent pictures of them to you. I'm so sorry Soph."

I couldn't breath.

"Soph? You there?" She asked hesitantly

I sucked in a sob, "Are you sure sure?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry. He is such a dick. Do you need me to come over?"

"Yes please. I don't know if I can handle talking to him on my own."

"Okay I'll be there in 5."

She clearly drove way over the speed limit because she was walking through the door in what seemed like seconds later. I suspected that she was already on her way over and was so thankful for her. She held me while I cried for what felt like forever. I couldn't understand how or why he would do that to us. I knew we weren't great at the time, but that's no excuse. I would never even think to do that to him.

He walked into the house humming something a couple hours later. He skidded to a halt when he saw us on the couch.

"Whats going on?" He asked with concern

"Maybe-" Isabelle started. I stopped her by holding out a hand.  I held up a finger to him for him to wait while I pulled up the pictures on my phone. I took a deep breathe and looked up at him, confusion written on his face.

"Maybe you can tell me what is going on here?" I asked with a strength in my voice that I didn't know existed.

He stuttered for a second. I swiped to the next photo. " or maybe here?" I asked cocking my head to the side feeling more confident with every second.

"I-I-I'm so sorry Soph" he started. I cut him off.

"I don't care. I don't understand how you could do that to me, but I'm not going to sit here and act like I'll ever be in a place to forgive you. So get your shit and get the fuck out of my house. We are beyond done." My strength was starting to waver, but no way in hell would I let it show now.

He dropped to his knees in front of me grabbing my hand. "Soph please don't do this. I'm so sorry. I fucked up. Don't throw us away because of this one mistake. I love you."

I ripped my hand out of his grasp.

"Oh fuck off Joel. For all I know this wasn't your first 'mistake'" my voice starting to raise "This is just the first time you've been caught. If you were unhappy you should've talked to me instead of falling into someone else's vagina." I stomped upstairs with him following.

"Soph please!"

I started to rip his clothes off of hangers and out of drawers shoving them into a random duffle bag I had in the closet. He just stood there watching me with a shocked look on his face. I emptied all the drawers and pulled everything off the hangers. Before shoving the duffle and a pile of clothes into his arms. It shook him out of his stupor.

"Soph" he said softly looking at the clothes in his hands.

"No! Get the fuck out! You fucked up and now are paying the consequences. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!" I roared.

He slowly started backing out of the room. Isabelle was standing at the door watching everything. He bumped into her as he backed out of the room. He turned towards her still unsure of what to do.

"You heard her. Get the fuck out" she said flippantly

With that he turned and walked down the stairs with his head hanging in defeat. The instantly I heard the front door open and shut, I collapsed. Isabelle sat down on the floor next to me and pulled me into her arms. We sat there crying for the rest of the night. She eventually pulled me into bed and curled around me as I sobbed before passing out.