gentle smile could turn to a seething grimace of pure wrath at the drop of a hat.
There was a time I was so sure I could make it work. Until the claws came out that very last time – because I was upset that she cheated on me -and I promised it would never happen again. A man can only take the verbal abuse for so long, and then, no matter how good the sex is, it was not worth it anymore.
She was definitely in the drama zone, but at first, like most smoking hot women, she started out in the marriage zone – gorgeous, funny, fun to be around, not too talkative, and oh so low key before they got hitched. Maybe it was me who didn’t see the warning signs. There had been phone conversations in the early days when we were dating, where she would rant about her parents or girlfriends. To me, it was pretty normal, considering so many women I knew did the same thing, my sister included. Maybe she was so hot I put blinders on and hoped for the best. Marshall would have pegged her as a drama-zone-wolf-in-marriage-zone-clothing . For a long time after I left, I wondered how I managed to keep it together for five years.
She turned out to be a pure bred vixen, fitting every stereotype there was about redheads to a tee. Some stereotypes are so fucking true. I set the picture down, turning it so it faced the counter. At least for the moment I wouldn’t have to remember.
It was hard to believe only two years had passed since we split up. The nightmare of the marriage had turned to the shit-storm of a separation. Her email blame game, the guilt-tripping, the barrage of questions to figure out our finances, and the repeated middle of the night sexting from Tasha made the first six months feel like a whole lifetime of hell on earth. Thankfully, she rented the house and moved to Arizona to be close to her mom. I landed a late night news anchor gig here in Dallas. At least she never took to social media to let out any dirty laundry, given I worked in the media and that shit would have been damning.
But just as suddenly and intensely as she had pursued me after I left, she went dark. The woman stopped all communication one day and I never heard from her for a year. A full three hundred and sixty-five days of the silent treatment was damn good, but so uncharacteristic of her. I figured she was finally over it and went to Shannon to legally do what made sense at the time – tying up the loose end that was our marriage. Bad idea.
All hell broke loose the day Tasha received her notice of divorce. Denial and isolation soon turned to a knock-down, drag-out, one-sided war. She was out for blood and took every opportunity to accidentally drain and depreciate what was left of our shared assets by any means necessary. From crashing the car into the garage door, to losing the George Rodrigue lithograph worth in the vicinity of six figures, to setting a small fire in the kitchen of the house we had called home for five years, she spared no damaging expense.
Then there were the angry calls and midnight threats. I was damned if I did and up shit’s creek if I didn’t. Finally, there was the bargaining and her self-diagnosis of depression. Maybe there was something to it, but it didn’t help that she would threaten to kill herself immediately after threatening to reach through the phone and slit my throat from ear to ear.
Wrenching myself back from the past, I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding in. The divorce hearing was finally back on the table, thanks to Shannon’s legal prowess, and soon I would have my life back. For now, I needed to get the edge off. Cursing again, I dug out my phone and scrolled through my contacts. It was time to get over this shit. Pushing the call button, I smiled. I knew exactly what would take my mind off of it.
Chapter Three
Leslie
I filled in my numbers, one by one, until I got to the last one. I had been playing these lottery numbers for years. My ex, Brad had gotten me into the habit, and