“You’re going to Cathy’s house?”
“No, actually. I’m going back to New Mexico. Jack called and we talked it all out.”
I still have no idea why she left New Mexico, can barely retain the name Jack. There have been so many men on the sidelines of my life with Melanie that after a while they all started blending into meaningless noise. Jack or no Jack, it doesn’t matter. It all comes down to Melanie. Melanie leaving. Melanie creating drama. Melanie being all about Melanie.
“Uh, okay. Great.”
“Unlike some people, Jack is capable of learning and growing, and now he understands that without my art, I’m nothing, Xavi I’m nothing.”
“Melanie,” I interrupt her. “What about Hazel? Are you going to call her?”
She gives a heavy sigh. “I wasn’t a bad mother, you know.”
“I didn’t say you were.” I didn’t say it, no, but I’ve come to realize I’ve been thinking it ever since I first met Melanie and Hazel-at least on some level. Ever since Hazel’s hand was only big enough to wrap around one of my fingers and I realized how little structure that child had before I met her mother. Ever since Melanie started drifting off on her little sex escapades, leaving us alone at home together.
Ever since she offered to help disguise my relationship with her daughter so that she could still claim the benefits of being my wife.
“I just don’t think I’m cut out for it.”
“Okay. No argument there, but-”
“Stop.” I can almost see her rolling her eyes. “I told you, whenever you say ‘but’ you negate everything you said before.”
“Melanie, I think you should call Hazel.”
“No, Xavi Listen. What I want to say is that…I’m going to walk away now. From you and from her. I know I’ve been more trouble in your lives than good, and it’s not because I didn’t want what we had. I did, Xavi I loved the three of us being a little family. But it’s not what I’m cut out for, or it’s too late for me. Whatever happened in my childhood, I don’t know, but I can’t be the family person you both need. I’m an artist and…a good artist knows when their work is finished.”
I’m silent with shock. She’s already walked away from her daughter, it shouldn’t be a surprise, but to hear her say so blatantly that she’s done is unexpectedly jarring.
“I signed the divorce papers,” she adds. “They’re on the table.”
When I still don’t say anything, she says, “Goodbye, Xavi” and hangs up.
#
Hazel
#
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to keep my thoughts on the paper in front of me. The classroom is completely silent except for the scratch of pens on paper as two dozen students furiously try to complete the essay portion of our final English exam. It’s the longhand that gets me most of all, and I take a break to stretch my hand. It would be easier to text my essay on my phone.
But it’s not the pain in my hand that’s driving me to distraction. It’s the small metal butt plug that’s sitting in my ass and making my pussy so wet I’m soaking my underpants. It takes all my self-control not to squirm and moan in my seat. I shoot a look over to Christine and catch her eye. She gives me a small, wicked smile before lowering her head back down to her paper.
The butt plug was Christine’s idea. Even though it feels like we’ve been growing apart lately, we haven’t been growing apart so much that she could resist telling me that she and Eric are having anal sex ‘all the time.’ She was the only person I could think of to go to for advice on how to do it, since Xavier seems determined that I’m not ready it for yet. But I am-or, I could be, anyway.
Christine struck a bargain. In exchange for me telling her all about my secret boyfriend, she would accompany me to a sex store and help me purchase a butt plug to stretch my ass. I figured I could lie about Xavier and that it was a good idea to come up with a cover story about who I’m in love with anyway, and we drove to The Stag Shop after school earlier this week with our heads held high. Other than being asked for I. D. at the cash register, no one in the store so much as gave us a second look as I purchased the heavy plug with the red jewel at the end.
“He’s thirty-five,” I told her, shaving five years off Xavier’s age but still eliciting a shocked look from Christine. Too late, I realized I was still too close to the truth.
“What?” she snapped indignantly. “How did you meet him?”
“I, uh, I used to babysit for him. He’s divorced.” Christine’s eyes were wide as saucers.