A Public Affair

The car ride home was torture. It was filled with silence, with some attempts on Taylor's part to make conversation. I was uncooperative and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep. I knew if I talked to him, I would start crying. The silence made the ride feel even longer. In reality, what was really hours felt like an eternity. I just wanted to get out of the car and as far away from Taylor as I possibly could.

Taylor shook me, trying to "wake" me up. I let him shake me a couple of times before mumbling.

"Court, do you want to stop and get some food?" he asked me.

My stomach was growling in response that it hasn't been fed in while. I tried to ignore the hunger pains.

"No, thank you," I mumbled.

When he arrived at my house, I practically jumped out of his vehicle- not caring that he hadn't made a complete stop. I got my suitcase from the back seat and went inside. Taylor made an attempt to follow me inside, but I stopped him before he could enter.

"Goodbye, Taylor," I said, before slamming the door in his face.

I walked into the kitchen and stopped in my tracks. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My 21 year old neighbor, Joe, was all over my mother. My mother! My 40 year old mother! I let out a little gasp and my mom pushed Joe away. Joe, realizing that I had caught them, looked like he wanted to disappear.

"Courtney, I thought you were coming home tomorrow!" my mom exclaimed, obviously embarrassed of being caught red-handed.

"No, I came home early," I told her. I was suppressing the urge to throw up. "I'm going to leave. You two.. go back to what you were doing."

My mom tried to protest, but I was adamant on leaving. She was still protesting when I closed the front door behind me. I can put two and two together and I really hoped that my math was wrong.

The rest of the break was uneventful. My mom spent the rest of the week trying to justify leaving my dad for a younger man. I tried to not hate her for seeing a guy who was 3 years my senior. Brittany came home and I had to fill her in on Mom's new boyfriend. She, too, had the same reaction as me, except I was doing a better job on not resenting my mother for breaking up our family.

Taylor had called the house numerous times to try to get a hold of me. I didn't answer any of his calls and just let them go to voicemail. By Sunday, the blinking light was on my final nerve and I decided to check the messages.

"You have 17 unheard messages," the voicemail machine told me.

Beep! Hey, Courtney, it's Taylor. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry, please call me. Beep! It's Taylor again, Court, please call me. Beep! I don't understand why you're mad, please call me back. Beep! Courtney, this isn't funny anymore, call me back. Beep! I love you, please call me back. Beep!

The rest of the messages are saying to call him back because he missed me. 17 messages is a little bit excessive and it was starting to scare me. There was one second where I actually considered calling him back just to stop the voicemail messages, but thankfully, I snapped out of it.

I deleted the messages and went on with my day, hoping that going to school tomorrow will distract me from everything that was going on.