“Van,” I begin, but she’s on a roll now too.
“And I just want to say that if you’re all looking at me as being selfish, then you better look at yourselves because that’s all you’re thinking about! This isn’t the trip that you two wanted. What about me? What about the trip I wanted? Don’t I get to have an opinion? Why is it okay for the two of you to be selfish and not me?”
“I would have been fine if Mike didn’t stay here,” Loren mumbles. “There’s a hotel in town that we had as a backup plan.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Roxie huffs. “You’re just proving my point! You weren’t going to come here alone, Lolo! You were going to tuck that man of yours away in some hotel room so you could sneak off and see him! Do you not see how weird that is?”
Clearly, Loren doesn’t because her lips are moving, but nothing’s coming out.
“What do you think is going to happen if he’s not right here, huh?” Roxie asks. “The two of you have been together for so damn long! You can’t possibly be that insecure that you’re afraid he’s going to walk away if you’re not right there in his face all the freaking time!”
Loren practically trips as she jumps up from her lounge. “Screw you, Rox! How dare you make a statement like that! Maybe if you had spent a little more time with Theo and made him more of a priority, you wouldn’t be divorced right now!”
The line of curses that come flowing out of Roxie’s mouth are far too colorful and vulgar for me to even begin to comprehend. But when she storms off screaming, “Fuck you!”, I get the gist. She runs into the house with the dogs chasing after her and I just know this isn’t going to end well.
“That was a low blow,” I say, because I can’t just sit here and pretend all that didn’t just happen. “I get that you were offended, but you didn’t have to hit her below the belt like that.”
Unfortunately, Loren’s just standing there defiantly. “She deserved it. Mike and I have been nothing but nice to her throughout the entire divorce, and she wants to pass judgment on us? What the hell?”
She continues to stand there for several minutes before finally sitting down. I’m torn between staying out here or going inside to check on Roxie. Ultimately, I stand, but Vanessa’s words stop me.
“She’s not…wrong, you know,” she says slowly. “What Roxie said about you and Mike? I don’t think she’s wrong.”
Uh-oh…
“Excuse me? Which part exactly?” And now Loren’s on her feet again.
“Were you seriously going to ask Mike to stay at a hotel in town while we were here?”
“Not the entire time. Just…part of it.”
“And you don’t think that’s bizarre?” Vanessa asks. “What exactly do you think is going to happen if you went away without him? Don’t you trust him?”
“Of course I trust him! What a dumb thing to even ask! He screwed up that one time, but that’s ancient history!” Loren vents. “We went to therapy and worked it all out and we’re fine! Better than fine! We set a date last night, okay? Would I be setting a date with a man I didn’t trust? Huh? Would I?”
Mike screwed up? When was this?
“Lo, come on. You’re getting way too defensive for anyone to buy that you’re fine,” Vanessa reasons and…I have to agree. Unfortunately, I am so not ready to jump into this particular discussion.
“What am I supposed to say when everyone’s telling me how weird and horrible I am? Should I just say thank you and laugh it off like it’s not a big deal? Should I just…just leave and move away like Olivia did?”
“Hey!” I snap. “What the actual hell?” Now I’m on my feet. “My moving away was for my career, not anything else.”
Her snort of derision warns me she’s about to unleash on me now.
“You got tired of hanging around and dealing with Matt,” she sneers. “I get that he wasn’t great to you, but he was a good friend to everyone else. Not that it mattered to you. You selfishly expected everyone to stop being friends with him just so you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.”
“Loren…” Van warns, but we’re not listening.
“You know what? I did expect my friends to have my back, and when you didn’t, yeah, I withdrew. I was tired of everyone acting like I had to be okay with being around a lying, cheating asshole. I did what was right for me!”
“It was selfish! You just…you just left and didn’t care that you were leaving everyone behind!”
Oh, good grief…
“And you didn’t care that you were forcing me to constantly be in situations that were hurting me! It was self-preservation! I would never knowingly keep putting any of you in a position where your mental health was taking a beating!”
Yikes. There’s a thread I wasn’t expecting to pull.
