Best Laid Plans

Betrayed

Perrie

I swear I walked at a totally normal and reasonable pace. Nonetheless, I find myself outside of Thirlwall Enterprises in less than ten minutes.

Okay, yeah, I hustled my pregnant ass those seven blocks. I stop when I get to the corner of Jade's office building. By stop, I don't mean that I come to my senses and turn around. I mean that I stop to catch my breath, so I won't look like a deranged panting lunatic when I enter the lobby.

I'm chilling as inconspicuously as possible while I calm myself and run everything that's happened in the last half-hour through my mind one more time. Then I see her. Jade. The double doors swish, and she exits the front entrance and strides towards a town car waiting at the curb. Then I see that troll. Margo. She smiles at Jade as she opens the door for her, and she slides inside the car. Jade follows and the door snaps shut.

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

The street is a one-way street traveling in the opposite direction that I'm facing, so there's no need for me to dramatically jump out of the way in case Jade were to look up long enough to spot me. Not that she would.

So I stand on the street corner and watch the car pull forward and, blinker on, take a left at the corner.

Things are so good between Jade and me. This doesn't make any sense. The logical part of my brain knows this, right? Or am I so used to shitty behavior that I've become an enabler? Desperate to hear her version of events to clear her? But she deserves that much, doesn't she?

I pull my phone out and text her.

Me: Are you free for lunch today?

She responds in seconds, the text bubble appearing immediately.

Wifey McHottie: Can't. In a meeting. Are you home? Stay there, I'll head that way as soon as I'm through here. Need to see you.

I blink at the screen. Maybe if I blink at it long enough the pile of lies will make sense. She's not in a meeting. She's in the back of a town car with her ex-girlfriend, who spent the morning texting her about how much she still wants her.

The thing is, I was never really Jade's choice. She chose Margo, at one time anyway. They were together until the troll cheated. Then I came along, and Jade knocked me up and married me out of a sense of propriety. Was she simply making do with the hand fate dealt her, when the person she really wanted to be with was Margo? Or anyone who wasn't me?

I know I said I wanted a nice partner – that's what the dick diet was about in the first place. To cleanse the jerks out of my system and find a forever partner. But I didn't want to win a nice partner by default. I wanted one who chose me. One who couldn't live without me. Not one who settled for me.

I was looking for a fairy tale, but so what? Isn't everyone? No one dreams of settling.

Fuck that.

Jade isn't a settle for me. I'm in love with her, and if she doesn't feel the same way, well then, it's not enough for me.

Though my wishes may very well be irrelevant because 'need to see you' on top of the texts and the lies and the two of them slipping off to wherever isn't really adding up to Jade being in love with me.

They add up to Jade wanting her ex back. Or something. Maybe I don't know what they add up to, but it's not Jade and me happily-ever-aftering.

I don't reply to Jade's text. Instead, I turn and start walking home, at a much slower pace and with a much heavier heart than the walk there. Am I being hormonal? It's such bullshit, second-guessing myself about something so important. And something that seems so obvious. Sure, maybe we had a semi-rocky start when I crashed back into her life posing as her fiancée, but it's been pretty smooth sailing since then. More than smooth sailing, she's made an effort no one has ever made for me before.