Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“You girlies so should have introduced testosterone years ago,” Noel noted. “I’d say, around three of them.”

“Remy just broke up with his live-in girlfriend,” I choked out.

“That woman was not a keeper,” Reed declared.

“Oh my God,” Kara said slowly to the ceiling. Then to her husband, “You are not getting sex until the end of time.”

“What?” Reed asked.

“Did you just refer to a woman as a ‘keeper?’” Kara asked back.

“Please do not sit there with your hens telling the rooster that you do not refer to men in the same way I just did to that woman Remy was seeing,” Reed returned.

“Now did you just refer to us as hens and yourself as a rooster?” Kara demanded.

Reed grinned at her then reached for a bacon-wrapped date stuffed with bleu cheese.

He ate it.

“Chiming in here,” Noel said. “Men, like I’m sure is the same with women,” he spoke that last quickly and in Kara’s direction, “do not find every reason under the sun to go invade an ex’s space to fight with her,” again to Kara and swiftly, “or him.”

“You and Remy do spend a lot of time together,” Bernice commented carefully.

“Flipside, if a woman, or man, isn’t into it, they do not allow the other person to invade their space and engage in said fight,” Noel concluded.

“We all know I wasn’t over Remy,” I pointed out.

“Did it occur to you, honey, that he had a woman at home, but he was at your doorstep a whole lot?” Reed asked gently. “And then maybe wonder why?”

I looked to my drink again.

Then, even if it was mostly full, I drank half of it.

“That hadn’t occurred to her,” Kara said, sotto voce.

“It destroyed me when he left,” I said to my glass.

No one had a response.

I looked to the beloved faces around the island all gazing at me gently, but intently.

“We were perfect together. Then we were not. He walked out, and the only way I could deal was not to admit to myself that I wasn’t dealing and that I was hanging on to him even when he moved into an apartment, then bought and furnished a home, then entered into a relationship with another woman where she was sleeping beside him every night.”

Not one of them, even Reed, could hide their flinch at my last.

“You’ve had lovers,” Bernice said softly.

I faced her. “Not in my bed, his bed, our bed. Neither of them met our kids. And I never spent the night with them night after night for a year.”

Bernice pursed her lips and looked to Kara.

I kept going.

“We fought about me going to California. We made up having sex. I went to California. I came back. And he had an apartment to go to. Not a hotel. An apartment. He’d been planning,” I reminded them. “Planning and following through with that plan before the California trip, which was a day. I was gone at seven o’clock in the morning and I was back in my bedroom, watching my husband pack, at ten o’clock the next day. When the kids went to him that next weekend, they had beds. You can buy beds in a week. He did not. He already had them, and told me so when he called, one day after he left, to share he wanted them for the weekend. He did not tell me any of this. He did not warn me about it. He did not warn me he was thinking about it. About leaving. About ending us. He did not agree to discuss it after. He filed when he could file. Our attorneys ironed out the arrangements. And he divorced me.”

No one spoke.

I did.

“I asked him to talk to me. I asked him to come back. I asked him to go to counseling. He said what needed to be said had been said. He didn’t come back. He built a new life without me, and he didn’t let another woman in his bed, he installed her in his home and in my children’s lives.”

“Babe,” Kara whispered.

“Now, she’s out and what? He realized what he lost? Or he’s looking for a rebound?” I asked. “Well, no. Because yes, indeed, I did just come to terms with the fact that I never stopped loving him. And maybe somewhere in his heart, he never stopped loving me. But he gave up on us. Not on me. On us. He just gave up. We were perfect, and many might argue my definition, but we were. And he walked away. And when he did, it hurt so bad, I couldn’t face it until three years later with a martini in my hand and my best people around me and…”

My voice cracked, my glass was swept away, and Bernice’s arms were around me with Noel patting me on my back because I’d lost it.

Three years of wracking grief and despair and heartbreak poured into Bernice’s (rather fabulous) yellow blouse, and I was ashamed to say, this went on for a while.

Eventually, through my sobs I heard Reed growl, “That stupid motherfucker.”

“Reed, honey, chill,” Kara whispered.

I sat back abruptly and swiped my face, announcing, “I’m okay.”

“Gurl, you’re a fucking mess. Shut up with that,” Noel replied.

I shook my head, short quick shakes while sniffing.

“I’m fine. I will be fine. Eventually, I’ll be fine.” I cleared my throat and picked up my glass again, taking a sip, then repeating, “I’m fine.”

“You have to know, if there’s one place in the world it’s okay you’re not fine, it’s here,” Kara said.