Shea & War

Chapter 3

 A Reality Check, Some Progress, But Still Some Major Mandi Manipulations

Three Months Later

Shea

Things have been better, much better. After the Labor Day party from hell, War and I have reconnected and are talking about things with each other. I swear I don't think he realized how much Mandi was manipulating him. I told him, I'm not going to harp on this, but that girl has not gone away and she has not given up. She flashes me snarky and victorious looks whenever I'm at the club, says some crappy stuff to try and make me doubt War. She's also always hinting about "fun pics and videos of War and me", which I don't want to believe, but am secretly worried about. I won't though, I won't play let myself endlessly stress, or go to him with everything she says that bothers me, and I really try to not let her know that she gets to me. As far as I'm concerned, that's a win for her if she even comes up as a topic of conversation between War and me.

Between the guys at the club and some of the club girls, I have a very clear picture of Mandi and what she's done, and also what she continues to try to do. She was trying to get him to rely on her, fill his head with doubts about us, and be his strength. Stoner says when they would use different drugs, she was always trying to be near War and tempt him. Stoner also said that War wasn't romantic with Mandi, and that he didn't even seem to see that she was after him. All of this goes along with what we've talked about the past couple of months. I do believe him, I trust that he never cheated or was even tempted to cheat, but he definitely lied by omission, and hid way too much from me.  So that alone put our marriage at risk.

Her game is still going strong though, it's changed, but it's still on. After War told her to stop calling and texting him, she slowed down considerably, but she is still trying to maintain a connection. When he didn't respond to her attempts to make him jealous, or protective, she tried to act like his buddy. Thankfully he saw that for what it was, and shut it down.

He said he hasn't done drugs since, and I believe him. I don't know if he willingly did drugs that night, or if she gave him something, it doesn't really matter. He kept the drugs a secret from me, so it gave her ammunition to use, and however it happened, it did.

What I don't understand is why he used drugs in the first place. He never showed any interest before, aside from occasional pot, he never used anything that I'm aware of. When he found out how my parents died, and saw that my brothers never touched anything, he just kind of fell in line with us. I never even thought he'd have an interest.

He says he did coke a few times when he was hanging with Stoner, Rider, Hack and some of the club girls, Mandi being one of them. He said he liked it, but not enough to go out of his way to do it more often. He also admitted he felt super guilty and ashamed and he didn't want to tell me what he'd done.  He also said that when I was out of town with my friends one weekend, at a club party Mandi gave him X. From what I've read it's known as a party/sex drug. He said that it made him super touchy feely with everyone, and that my brothers just thought he was drunk so they put him in his room and he eventually passed out. The club girls said that Mandi was planning on using the sexual side effects of the drug to get him to have sex with her.

When I told War what I'd been told he got really quiet. He said he remembers the night, and how he felt, that he felt different, and was bummed I wasn't there sharing it with him. When he woke up and realized how he'd felt, even thinking that he wanted me to do the drug with him, he realized how off everything was. But even then he didn't see how Mandi was trying to manipulate him. Now in hindsight he gets it, but we were dangerously close to losing our marriage.

Now we're getting back on even footing. If nothing else, I think this brought us closer, we're talking about things in a deeper manner, and we truly appreciate what we have.  I never realized how dark Wars thoughts were about himself, I naively thought he viewed himself as I see him, strong, loving, kind and true.