The Other Other Woman by Mallory Lockhart

where he was. He responded having a cigarette outside, so I just drove over there. I told him I had asked Nate for a separation. He immediately raised his eyebrow at me and, taking a drag, said, “Does this have something to do with that old douche?” I grabbed his cigarette and took a drag myself. I don’t even smoke. “Um, no, not… really?”
    “Do we need to go get some coffee?”
    “Probably.”
    I wasn’t about to tell him just how close Matt and I were becoming. I admitted that we were still talking fairly often, that I valued his opinion, and that he had been a really good friend to me so far. Brady was not impressed.
    “I think you are playing a dangerous game here.”
    “How so? Nothing has happened… yet”
    “‘Yet’ being the key word. I just think that it’s making it way too easy for you to make impulsive decisions. I know you aren’t happy, but you married this man. You have kids by this man. Are you sure you can’t work it out, somehow?”
    “Brady, I can’t even stand to touch him. Not even just to kiss or hug him. I’m so completely pissed when he gets near me; all I want to do is punch him in his stupid face. Who quits a job without having another one when you have two little kids at home? Who?! He does. Because he knows that I’ll find a way to get by. He has an entire history of nothing but selfish behavior. Why should I have to put up with that for the rest of my life? He doesn’t have to contribute anything to this family, but I should just suck it up?”
    “I know, but you don’t think counseling would help?”
    “Counseling is not going to make me find him attractive. I’m not sure that we ever had much of a spark anyway. And now, ever since I lost weight, it’s like he’s even more clingy and starved for affection. I can’t even walk across the room without him trying to paw me and it makes me crazy.”
    “But if it wasn’t for this other douche, would you still feel this way?”
    “He’s not a douche. But yes, it’s been like this for years. How are you supposed to be attracted to or have any respect for someone who acts like a spoiled 15 year old? He won’t take on the simplest task without me having to practically write him an instruction manual. He simply refuses to grow up.”
    “Well, have you figured out what you are going to do about the house?”
    “Not really. He’s not going to be able to afford it on his own, so I will keep it for as long as I can so the kids don’t freak out. He’s going to go stay with his friend for now and try to get an apartment eventually. Even then, he’ll probably need a roommate to help pay for it and figure out how to do everything for him. He’s never paid a single bill in the entire time we’ve been together.”
    “Yikes. He’s about to get a rude awakening.”
    “Sure is,” I nodded.
    “Okay, well I just hope you know what you are doing.”
    To be honest, I didn’t know how I was going to pay for everything myself. I figured my mom would help me with a lot of the girls’ necessities, just as her mother had helped her when she left my dad. But I didn’t question my decision at all. I hate to say it, but once he was out of the house, I felt immediately at peace. No more having to come up with excuses to avoid affection and sex. No more having to be his therapist while he went on and on about his unhappiness and lack of confidence yet watching him sit on his ass year after year in front of the television, never doing anything to change his circumstances. I was solely responsible for me and my two daughters, instead of three children.
    Matt became my happy place. In the summer, he finally got his Burlington client to agree to a meeting, and we made our plans to work in a Raleigh visit around that. Our once-playful flirting seemed to intensify by the hour as we started counting down the days until we saw each other again. Where we had once discussed meeting up for a cup of coffee or a quick lunch, it had now