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DAVINA

Tish was my best friend for many reasons, and one of them was her thoughtfulness.

This girl bought me a foot-massage machine to go beneath my desk. She said she’d been shopping and was thinking about me when she bought it. When I saw it on my desk with a pink ribbon, I hugged her so hard I was surprised she didn’t pop.

I sat at my desk, deep in my cushioned leather chair, sipping my lavender-honey tea with one hand while scrolling through ad designs with the other.

The view outside was perfect, a clear blue sky and trees in the distance, gradually transitioning into warm fall colors. Just past them, the Charlotte skyline towered. It was a good day ... or maybe I just felt that way after my brunch with Deke.

I felt good , and I couldn’t quite explain this bubble of heat building in my chest, but it grew day by day. One day it would pop, and I’d be full of those hot, gushy feelings he’d created, and I wouldn’t be able to stop them no matter how hard I tried.

As if I’d thought him up, my phone buzzed on the desk, and Deke’s name appeared on the screen.

I set my tea mug on the coaster and swiped to answer. “Hi, Deke.”

“Hey, D. You got a minute?” He sounded breathless and not his usual self.

I sat up taller in my chair as the knobs of the foot massager rolled toward my heels. “Uh, sure. What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“I just left the gym. EJ was showing me some ...” I lost Deke’s voice as I heard commotion outside my office and then someone yelling, “Where the hell is she?!”

What the hell?

“... and now there are pictures that have been leaked. I didn’t think anyone would bother taking any, let alone share them. I—I mean, I tried to be discreet about it with you, but fuck , D ...”

My office door swung open, and a woman I did not want to see appeared in the frame. Gloria stormed in, with a raging fire in her eyes, her lips pinched tight, and her nostrils flared. Her face was scarlet.

“How could you?” she shouted.

“Davina?” Deke called, but I lowered the phone from my ear and placed it on the desktop as I stared at my former mother-in-law.

Tish stood behind Gloria, her eyes wide with shock. “I tried to stop her, Vina! She went right through me.”

“No, it’s okay. Tish. Don’t worry about it.” I kept my eyes locked on Gloria as I took my feet off the massager and stood up. “Gloria, it’s one thing to show up at my house, but to barge in to my office like this? Are you serious right now? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you want to act like you don’t know?” she spit, her face reddening even more.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped.

“This!” She stormed across the room in her flats and shoved her phone in my face.

I snatched it away from her, and when I caught an image of me and Deke leaving Manhattan Rose, my heart plummeted.

“What?” I breathed. “What is ...”

“You just couldn’t wait to spread your legs for another man when Lew died, could you?”

I snapped my head up, pinning her with my eyes. “Tish,” I said as calmly as I could. “Close the door.”

Tish closed it without hesitation, and I tossed Gloria’s phone onto a pile of papers on the desk before folding my arms. “First of all, what I do with my life is no business of yours,” I retorted as she snatched up her phone. The calm was wearing off me now. My heart was pounding, fury simmering in my veins. “Secondly, how dare you come to my office shouting at me about my life!”

I mean, who the fuck did she think she was, coming in like this? She could show up at my house all she wanted, but coming to my job was crossing the line.

“Are you sleeping with the guy in these pictures?” she asked in a hiss. “You’re so pathetic, Davina. You were a terrible match for Lew. God, I don’t even know why he chose you!”

“Oh, fuck you , Gloria!” I shouted, and damn, did it feel good. Out of respect for Lew, I always kept my mouth shut. I always kept it respectful, and if I couldn’t contain it, I’d walk away so I wouldn’t go off on her.

Not this time, though. This time she’d pushed every single one of my buttons, and there was no patience left within me for her.

I marched around my desk, and she took a step back as I neared her. “Do you really have the nerve to show up here and reprimand me when you couldn’t even be there for your own son? Lew called you every day, but did you answer? No. You only did when you felt like it.”

“I was traveling!”

“Oh, right. Gloria Travels ,” I said in a jeer, referring to her stupid blog, where she traveled and wrote about it. And no, she wasn’t paid to do this. She did this willingly with the life insurance payout she’d acquired from her husband’s—Lewis’s dad—death. “Traveling meant more to you than coming to see Lew? Those last few weeks, he asked for you, Gloria. He was waiting for you to walk through that door, but you never showed up. Typical Gloria, always making an excuse to not take care of her own child.”

“I birthed and raised him!” she countered, getting in my face again. “He wouldn’t have been the man he was without me!”

“Wrong. He wouldn’t have been the man he was without his father, who also died when you weren’t there. Don’t act like you were the good parent to him.”

Gloria sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes glistened.

I’d had enough of backing down from her—from handling things so kindly. Why the hell was she even here? I hadn’t heard from her since she showed up about the photo album. Now all of a sudden she was charging into my office and shouting at me? What was wrong with this woman? I get she was lonely and miserable, but I’d never seen someone try so hard to drag another person into their misery.

I took a moment to collect myself, realizing her barging in like this wasn’t about me. All of this was from a problem she had brewing within herself, and she was looking for someone else to blame.

“Look, I get that everyone grieves in their own way, but this is not it, Gloria. Taking your anger out on me because you didn’t do your part as a mother is wrong, so don’t you ever come into my space pointing fingers at me when I did everything for Lewis. He was the love of my life, and I would’ve done anything for him, but he was dying. Do you think I asked for that? Do you think I walked into our marriage wishing he’d die when he was in his thirties? I loved him , Gloria! I never wanted him to leave me!”

She blinked as she backed away, but I couldn’t see her clearly anymore, because my vision had blurred. I blinked and waited to hear what else she could spew at me as she shifted on her feet.

She looked awful, like she hadn’t slept properly in months, and she reeked of stale cigarettes. She normally wore a lot of makeup but not that day. It was like she rolled out of bed, saw the news leak on BOBBLE, and drove straight to my office.

When she didn’t speak, I pointed at the door. “If that’s all, you can leave now. I have work to do.”

“I can’t believe you.” Gloria pointed an angry finger at me. “I hope this new guy you’re with forgets about you like you’ve forgotten about Lew.”

She turned on her heel, snatched the door open, and stormed out. I stared after her until my vision grew blurry again, then rushed to slam the door.

My knees felt like they were going to give out on me as I walked back to my chair to sink into it. I glanced at my phone and was shocked when I realized Deke was still on the line.

I picked the phone up and brought it to my ear with a shaky hand. “Oh my goodness. Deke? ”

“I’m here,” he murmured.

I swallowed thickly and tried fighting my tears. To stop them, I closed my eyes. “Please don’t tell me you heard all of that.”

“I didn’t want to hang up until I knew you were okay.” He paused. “ Are you okay?” His voice was soft and sincere, like he felt sorry for me. It was enough to make me break.

I placed the phone down and dropped my face into my hands. I couldn’t fight the sobs, couldn’t stop the tears. The emotion had accumulated into a large monster inside me, and this monster was wreaking havoc. There she was again, that bitch Grief. Always coming in swinging.

I heard my office door open, heard the faint voice from Deke as he called my name, felt a hand rub circles on my back.

“She’ll call you back, Deke,” Tish murmured. After ending the call, she guided me to the sofa and helped me sit.

“Look at me,” I cried. “I’m the worst, Tish!”

“Davina, no.”

“She’s right. I—I’m moving too fast. This isn’t normal!”

“Who said there were rules on the timeline of dating?” Tish asked, her brows dipping. “Davina, you told me yourself that the true intimacy between you and Lew was lost months before he died. You knew the day he passed away would come, and you did your best to prepare for it. You can’t blame yourself for liking who you like, and you can’t fight how you feel when you feel it. What good will that do for you?”

“I just feel so guilty,” I said thickly. “Every time I’m with Deke, I feel like I’m betraying my husband. Sometimes I feel like he’s still here—like he’s just waiting for me at home so I can tell him about my day.”

Tish slid closer to me and hugged me from the side. “I think you’re being way too hard on yourself.”

She was right, but how could I not be? It’d only been a little under a year, and I was already going out to brunches with another man and letting him finger-fuck me in parking decks.

When you love someone but have to part ways, it’s normally a struggle to move on, because that person is familiar to you. That person, at one point, was who you centered your whole life on. I was ashamed to admit I was losing touch with that familiarity. The presence of my husband had been washed away long ago, and though our memories lingered in my heart, something had changed—and not just now, or even when he died, but well before that.

I lost my husband as soon as he was diagnosed. He wasn’t the same man. He hated his life. He was miserable and didn’t want me being miserable with him, so he pushed me away at first. He wouldn’t talk to me, didn’t want to watch movies, didn’t want to cuddle, kiss, or any of it. It wasn’t until he lost some of his ability to walk that he reeled me in again, and I embraced it because every second with him was even more valuable than it had been before.

It was so hard with him in the end. So damn hard. And maybe that was why I was running with this fling I had with Deke—because it was so freaking easy . This bond I’d created with Deke was effortless and simple. It was right there in my face, and no one was stopping me from having it but myself and my guilt. Just when I felt I was overcoming that guilt, situations like the one with Gloria happened and my choices felt like mistakes.

I reached for my chest, clutching the dragonfly pendant.

“Have you ever considered the possibility that you can grieve and embrace change at the same time?” Tish asked in a quiet voice. “Grieving is not linear, Vina. Some days will hit you harder than others, but that doesn’t stop you from living. Sometimes you have to swallow it down and work through it. It’s even better when you can work through it with a person who gets it.”

I raised my chin to look at her. She was talking about Deke. “Yeah, well ...” I sniffed, dragging the tips of my fingers over my cheek to wipe the tears away. “Regardless of what BOBBLE or anyone else thinks, me and Deke aren’t a couple. We just like each other’s company.”

“And you’re fuck-buddies,” Tish added, grinning.

I hiccuped a laugh. “Yeah. That too.”

“That’s all it is now, but if it transitions to more, don’t be afraid of it, babe, and don’t feel guilty for something that makes you happy.” She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “At the end of the day, we’re all humans, and we’re all just trying to make it through this thing called life. We only get one shot at it, too, so we might as well live it the way we want. It annoys me, because if you were a man, no one would bat an eye that you’ve moved on or found happiness with another person. Hell, they’d be praising you for it! I think Gloria is just mad because she’ll never have what you have with Deke. The fact that you’ve found so much comfort with him at this moment is rare, so stop letting these judgmental people get to your head. When it comes to Lew, there’s nothing you can do anymore. Okay? He’s gone, and you’re still here, and that’s fine, Vina. For him, you’ll live.”

I nodded, then wrapped her in my arms with a comforted groan.

As simple as Tish made that sound, though, not caring about what anyone thought was so much easier said than done.