MY EX HUSBAND’S REGRET

Wrecked in a night

I didn’t sleep. How could I? Every time I close my eyes, I see those pictures haunting me. And the fact that nobody was on my side…that made it worse. I stayed curled up on our bed, still wearing my birthday dress, mascara dried in crusty streaks down my cheeks. The house was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming downstairs. Usually that sound annoyed me, but tonight it was the only thing keeping me company.

I kept listening for Ethan’s movement, hoping he would walk through the bedroom door and tell me he believed me. That he knew me better than some fake photos.

But before you knew it, the sun was up already, and I was still alone with my thoughts and bawling eyes.

I picked my phone that sat on the night stand up with shaking hands. 3:47 AM was the last time I checked, and now it’s already 8:23 AM.

There were no missed calls or texts from anyone.

I sat up slowly, my whole body aching like I had been in a car accident. I looked at my reflection in the dresser mirror, and the person that stared back at me was definitely a stranger, because what the hell? I looked exactly like someone who deserved to be abandoned.

Stop it, I told myself. You didn’t do anything wrong.

But if I didn’t do anything wrong, why was I alone? Why had everyone I loved looked at me with such disgust?

My fingers moved on their own, pulling up my mom’s contact. I pressed the call before I could think better of it.

She answered on the second ring.

“Mom.” My voice cracked. “Mom, please, I need you to listen to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you, Ivy.” Her tone was icy, the kind of cold that burns when it touches skin.

“Those pictures weren’t real,” I said quickly. “Someone made them. Someone is trying to ruin my life. You have to believe me...”

“We saw everything.” She cut me off.

“We saw what you did to your husband, to your marriage and to this family.”

“I never cheated on Ethan! I swear on my life, I have never even met that man!”

“Don’t you dare swear on anything.” Her voice rose, and I heard Dad say something in the background. “You have disgraced us, Ivy. You’ve humiliated us in front of the Carters. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

My tears kept pouring down my face. How would I explain myself now?

“I didn’t do anything! Please, Mom, you’re my mother. You’re supposed to believe me. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I don’t have a side anymore. I have a daughter who threw away a good man for some fling, a daughter who lied to everyone who ever loved her.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Don’t call this number again.”

Then the line went dead.

What the hell just happened? I stared at my phone, at Mom’s smiling face in her contact photo. Thinking how she could just cut me off like I was someone she met randomly.

I thought of calling my Dad but that wasn’t going to work since I heard what he said. And Ethan’s mother? I would rather die than call that woman. She had hated me from day one, always looking at me like I wasn’t good enough for her precious son. This would just prove her right in her mind.

That left one person.

Natalie answered on the fourth ring, and I almost sobbed with relief at just hearing her voice.

“Nat,” I breathed. “Thank God. I need to talk to you about last night.”

She was quiet at first before she finally spoke.

“Why would you do that to us, Ivy?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Those photos were fake. I don’t know who made them or how they made them, but they’re not real.”

“They looked pretty real to me.” Her tone was flat, laced with disappointment. Like I had borrowed her favorite dress and returned it stained. “I mean, that was obviously your body and your face.”

“I know how it looked, but you have to believe me. You’ve known me for years girl. Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?”

She released a long sigh. “Look, you’re still my friend. Okay? I’m not just going to abandon you or whatever.”

Hope sparked in my chest. “Really?”

“Yeah, but…” She paused. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend what you did was okay. Ethan didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”

“I didn’t do it, Nat.”

“Ivy.” Her voice had that patient tone people use with children or crazy people. “I saw the pictures. We all did.”

“Someone faked them!”

“Okay.” She didn’t sound like she believed me at all, but at least she gave me a listening ear, unlike my so-called parents. “Okay, if you say so.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She didn’t answer right away. I could hear voices in the background, someone was laughing. Life just continued normally for everyone else while mine burned to ash.

“I have to go,” Natalie said. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Soon. I just need some time to process all this.”

She hung up before I could respond.

I sat there on the bed clutching the phone in my hand, as my last thread of hope snapped.

Everyone was gone. Everyone who was supposed to love me unconditionally had conditions after all. And I had apparently broken every single one.

The tears I have been trying to suppress break free, I could feel my heart breaking into millions of pieces. I curled into a ball on top of the blankets, still wearing my stupid birthday dress, and cried until my throat was raw and my ribs hurt.

When I finally stopped, the sun was higher in the sky. 11:47 AM.

I had wasted another three hours crying which wouldn’t bring Ethan back or make my parents believe me or fix any of this s**t.

Get up, I told myself. Get up and do something.

But what? What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to fix something I didn’t break?

I forced myself to stand, my legs wobbling. The birthday dress came off easily, pooling at my feet in a puddle of blue silk. I left it there on the floor and walked into the bathroom.

I turned the water as hot as it would go, letting it scald my skin until everything was red and angry like my heart. I scrubbed at myself like I could wash away what had happened. Like I could peel off this version of Ivy that everyone hated and find the real one underneath.

But when I stepped out and wiped the steam off the mirror, the same face stared back at me.

A quick advice, when you’re sad, just go pour water over yourself, it works wonders.

I got dressed without thinking about it. I wore a black sweater and paired it with jeans. I twisted my hair into a messy bun, I couldn’t bring myself to do any makeup, because that was pointless.

The house felt too big and empty, too full of memories. I couldn’t stay here, sit in this silence and wait for my mind to eat itself alive.

I grabbed my purse and keys and walked out the front door without looking back.

The bar was called The Blue Room, and I had never been inside before. It was the kind of place where the people of my kind don’t go to, that will make it a safe space for me to go and forget my self and my problems.

I pushed through the heavy wooden door and let the noise and darkness swallow me whole.