Unhappily Married ✓

19. Free Advice

"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage."—Martin Luther

When Tammy finds me standing near the coffee vending machine, she races towards me, even pushing past a colleague to reach me faster.

I swallow hard and almost drop my cup of espresso.

When she reaches me, she doesn't bother saying hello and practically drags me towards my desk.

"Tammy—"

"Sit down girl, 'cause we're gonna have some serious talk," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

The last thing I want to do is talk to her about what happened the previous night. I didn't expect her to see us kissing, but she somehow did and now I dread to think what she has got to say to me. Although, Tammy and I are good friends, I don't feel like taking to her about something that's too personal to me.

I kinda know what's going on her mind and if I were her, I would react the same way. How else will you react when you see your friend kissing her soon to be ex-husband? And we weren't even drunk, so that's out of my list of excuses.

I sigh, "I know what you're thinking."

"Oh," she scoffs, "you do?"

I look away, fiddling with my fingers. "It d-didn't mean anything, really."

She raises her eyebrows at me. "Just like it didn't mean anything the last time?"

I'm wrong; it did mean something. But I can't tell her that.

I kissed Todd and I loved it.

I know I shouldn't have kissed him in the first place, but I lost control and it just happened. Sometimes, I wish my heart had a brain of its own so that it could always think straight.

"I know it meant something, Stella," she murmurs.

I don't reply her because I'm at a loss of words. She wants answers from me, but I don't know them either. I don't know what Todd thinks about our kiss because when we came back home yesterday night, we ignored it and didn't have a word about it. 

He kissed me first and I followed his lead...but nothing seems right to me.

This problem can't be left hanging in the air.

I grip the chair handles tightly. "What do you think?"

"Stella, I think you need to talk this out. Take my free advice and please talk to Todd."

I slightly shake my head. "I-I just can't."

"Why not?" she says, frowning, "He's you husband and the least you guys could do is talk out your issues. I'm not a fool Stella, and I can see what's going on with you guys."

"Nothing's going on." I shrug.

Liar.

"Oh, please cut the crap," she groans, "you can lie to me, but you can never lie to yourself. I'm sorry if my words are blunt, but you're my best-friend and I think it's high time you find a way to resolve these problems."

I nod.

"Have a proper conversation with him and don't beat around the bush."

"Hmm."

Although, Todd and I have known each other for a very long time, it's not easy to get into this sort of conversation with each other. I don't want to make things awkward between us and I also don't want to ignore this serious issue either.