A firm believer in "Exes can be friends," Chassie Lewis has proven everyone thinking otherwise wrong. For almost four years now, she's been happily divorced from her ex-husband, Nathaniel Forester. The sparks had flown and crashed between them a lon...
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Chassie George
My ticket home was a burgeoning headache. Although Kathie took dozens of convincing to stay with Margaret and endless reassurance that I won't end up lost in the streets, I was successful in the end. One obstacle crossed out. I was faced with another when I called my dad for a ride home. He suggested Nathan comes instead while they watch Ethan. I tried to decline. He insisted. I am unsuccessful this time.
Which is why when I saw his car pulling into a stop at the parking lot of the museum, I wasn't pleasantly relieved. I gathered the skirt of my dress and shivered as the wind gusts by, hostile and crisp. Dark clouds gather overhead, threatening a rainstorm. I've felt a slight warning of drizzle as I unceremoniously darted around the passenger side before the engine could go into a full-stop.
Nathan struck me a confused look. "You're excited to go home."
Desperate to be alone.
"How was it?" He turned the ignition back on.
The question retraced the source that laid the concrete perching heavily on my shoulders: Sydney and her plastic little smile.
"Chassie?"
"It was fine." I looked out the window and watched the raindrops pelting down in furious scrapes.
His hand covered mine on my lap. "You okay?"
I keep my eyes on the window. I nod. "Just a headache. Too much champagne."
"Okay. Can you tell me that again but with your eyes on my face?"
"Really, I'm fine," I answered, my eyes refusing to oblige.
The rain poured.
He took his hand off mine, putting it back on the stirring wheel. And then I was cold. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him why Sydney knew about the hell he went through shouldering all responsibilities for Starlet and that I don't.
A new flash of juvenile indignation slices through my guts. "I ran into Sydney," I managed to say.
"Oh?"
"Yes." I gulp down the glum in my throat. Aside from the unwarranted anger, there's also hurt I keep restrained. I turn to face him. "She told me about Starlet."
Nathan glances briefly toward me, then shifted it back to the windshield where wipers thud back and forth. "About Starlet?"
"Yes."
His knuckles turned white on the stirring wheel before speaking again. "Chassie, it's—"
"No, it's fine." I struggled to grasp for rationality. For the mature side of me to take the matters in her hands in the most sensible way.
"Chassie, listen it's—"
"Nathaniel, I said it's fine!" I snapped, all rationality aside.
