Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)

by Abby Jimenez

“I’m more worried about you throwing Molotov cocktails through his windows.” I snorted. “I guess that’s a valid concern,” I mumbled.

I flushed my wedding ring down the toilet and watered his houseplants with bleach. Then I called his mother to let her know what kind of a man she raised—and that was me just getting started.

“Last month I went on a date with a guy who had a court-ordered Breathalyzer installed in his car because he’d had that many DUIs. He asked me to breathe into it so his car would start. There was the one who showed up to our coffee date with a swastika tattoo on his neck. The last date I went on, the guy’s wife, which I didn’t know he had, showed up to the Benihana and asked if this was what he was doing with the money he said he needed for the kids’ school supplies. He told me he didn’t have kids.”

But to be fair, it was just our regular, Nunchuck Guy, with another concussion, so the odds were in my favor.

This year was going to be my villain origin story, I just knew it.

I get to bleed for a week without the sweet release of death.

I always found Jessica a little too bitter, but now that I was bitter too, I appreciated her burn-the-patriarchy energy.

“All they do is lie and throw off your PH balance. They are a constant reminder that we don’t choose our sexuality, because who in their right mind would choose to be attracted to men. They are completely worthless as partners. Did you know that when a wife becomes seriously ill, she is six times more likely to be abandoned by her spouse than a husband is?”

“But remember, you can’t spell disappointment without men,”

“That’s it,” I mumbled. “I’m giving up. I should just accept that I’m never having sex again. I’m canceling my bikini-wax appointments. Just gonna let the forest reclaim the land, succumb to my inner swamp witch.”

Imagine being the reason why someone hated their new job. That was me. I was the reason.

that bar. I went to the farmers’ market with her. She wanted to bring stuff back, I carried a watermelon.” “You carried a watermelon?” She sounded amused. “Yup. Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

I had to remember that not everyone over-thought everything the way I did. Wouldn’t it be amazing to live like that? To not carry that burden around with you. To not feel constantly overwhelmed and overstimulated and second-guess every little thing.

I needed to ask for the days off for Benny’s transplant in July.

Wont she find out when they both habe time off

But Jacob wasn’t like that. He was a hero, but he was the kind that never let anyone know.

When I knocked at almost eight o’clock, my anxiety was at a low hum. But when she opened the door, it quieted down and then disappeared with a blip.

And all this strengthened my desire to return the favor that was a favor to my favor.

No. It felt like relief—because that could have been me down there, at my own engagement party with her. And that would have been the biggest mistake of my life.

I almost forgot I was at my ex’s engagement party. Or that I was at a party at all. Briana did that to me.

Because I no longer cared. I loved Amy. But I was not in love with her. I saw that now. I was completely and utterly over it.

Have you ever heard the saying that if you’re with someone who doesn’t speak your language, you’ll spend a lifetime having to translate your soul? Amy

Even now, rejected and gutted, I still wanted to orbit around her, even if she never wanted me to land.

She’d known I needed the details. I didn’t have to ask her, I didn’t have to explain it to her—or not explain it and just deal with not having it. She understands you, even when you don’t say anything at all …

“So now I’m locked in a room with a man that I’m half in love with and extremely attracted to, who wants to have sex with me, and I’m sorry, but I have about as much willpower as a piece of broccoli.”

She was wearing my shirt. It would smell like her when I got it back. I couldn’t wait.

“I said I poured glitter all over the house.” I choked on my laugh. “What?” “Five gallons of it. I put it on the blades of the ceiling fans too. For later. I got a ladder and I took so much of it and I poured it up there so when they turned on the fan—” I descended into a fit of laughter. “It’s not funny, Jacob! I’m not proud of this, this isn’t how rational people behave!” “No, you’re right,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “You should be in jail. I’m calling the police.” “Jacob!”

“That’s not all.” She swallowed hard. “I stole the microwave plate. And the lightbulb out of the fridge. I took the lid for the blender and the oven mitts and the garage door opener and I untuned his guitar and I tore out the last five pages of the book he was reading. I put red Kool-Aid in the shower head and peeled the labels off all the canned food and I put raw shrimp into the curtain rod on the window next to the bed—stop laughing! ” I was practically crying. “They call it Pulling a Briana Ortiz at work,” she said miserably. “It’s so embarrassing. I think the nurses tell it to their boyfriends to scare them straight or—” I had to pull her in and kiss the top of her head. I couldn’t help it. She looked so despondent. “They had to replace the carpet,” she whispered. “They couldn’t get the sparkles out.” “Well, in your defense, I think he deserved it,” I said, chuckling into her hair. She nodded into my chest. “He did. He really did.”

I wasn’t falling in love with her. I already was.