"No, you're okay, don't apologize. Do you want to -"
"Talk?" she shook her head, "no, I'm okay. You've done enough tonight. It's pretty late anyway."
"You sure?" Joseph was concerned.
Alyson looked ready to have a mental breakdown which even she wasn't expecting.
"You get home safe, Joe," she quickly turned and walked away.
Joseph sadly watched her walk up the stairs, and disappear inside the house.
Alyson leaned her head on the door, calming herself down.
She hated being so fragile but it was impossible when her marriage was on the rocks. Being home wasn't easy, in fact, she hated it. She was alone and unhappy, anywhere was better than being home.
Pulling herself together, Alyson trudged upstairs to her bedroom. The first thing she did was slip off her sneakers and take off her jeans. As she tossed them on the floor, the napkin that Joseph drew on fell out of her pocket.
She picked it up and smiled at the artwork. Sitting on her bed, as she laid back, something pointy poked her in the side. She looked to see it was Evan's suitcase.
She frowned, pushing it to the side.
If Evan was working late, why the was his suitcase at home?
Her eyes wandered around the room as she looked for any sign of Evan being home. He couldn't be here, especially if his car was gone. But she decided to look around anyway and not surprisingly, he was nowhere to be found.
Ending up outside at the pool, Alyson sat in a lounge chair, calling Evan on her cellphone.
It went straight to voicemail to her dismay.
"Why am I not surprised?" she mumbled, hanging up.
Not even a second later she got a text from him that read: Working late at the office, don't wait up.
It took everything in Alyson not to toss her phone right into the pool. She was so annoyed, she found herself pacing.
All she could think about was the chick he was probably screwing. While the part of her who still loved him argued against it.
It wasn't until her sister's advice rang in her ears that she paused.
"Listen to your woman intuition, okay? It might not tell you what you want, but it tells you what you need to know. She's your best friend, don't ignore her."
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One aspect of Alyson's life that she hadn't been attending to was her friendship with Kelly. Once she started working with Joseph, she didn't have much time to hang out. When she wasn't working, she was spending time with her sister and her nieces. Even after going to Kelly's birthday, the two were barely even texting consistently.
