Burned(32)

After Collin walked out the door earlier, I finally spelled it out for Jordan. He told me he was going into rehab and he told me he made arrangements for us to go to marriage counseling. I laughed in his face. It probably wasn’t the best reaction, but I was still raw and upset about the look on Collin’s face when I asked him to leave. I was pissed at Jordan for waltzing into the house and screwing everything up. Hearing that he’s most likely been cheating on me for years, I don’t feel bad at all for lashing out at him.
“We’re not going to marriage counseling, Jordan. Our marriage is over. You got the separation papers, right?”
He huffed and crossed his arms in front of him. “You’re just pissed at me, I get it. I screwed up. We can just go up to the courthouse and tell them you made a mistake.”
“I didn’t make a mistake. For the first time in seventeen years, I did something right. I’m happy you’ve decided to go to rehab, but frankly, I don’t give a shit, Jordan. You need to leave. If you want, I’ll pack up your things and drop them off at your mom’s house, but you can’t just come over here whenever you want and think that it’s okay.”
He took a step towards me and, for a moment I wished I had never asked Collin to leave. Jordan has never physically hurt me before, but there’s always a first time for everything.
“Need I remind you again that this is my house, too? You can’t keep me out of my house. I already called the police and this house is half mine. I’m staying here and you can f*cking leave,” he told me angrily.
He said those exact same words to me before, years ago when I tried to get him to leave. Like a coward, I believed his shit and I was the one that packed a bag and spent a week at a hotel. Then, just like always, he begged and pleaded and I came running back to him, the vicious cycle continuing over and over.
Until now. I finally grew a backbone and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving MY house.
“Fine,” I told him easily. “I’ll leave and you can have the house. You can also pay the mortgage, the electric bill, the gas bill, the property taxes, the home owner’s insurance and everything else that comes along with owning this house. In case you can’t do the math, that’s around twenty-five hundred dollars a month, give or take.”
The cockiness on his face immediately died and he stared at me in shock, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish gasping for its last breath.
I knew he couldn’t afford to pay the bills on his own. He couldn’t hold a job for more than a few months. His most recent bartending job wouldn’t even cover half of the mortgage alone. It was a low blow reminding him that his career potential was shot to shit but I didn’t care. I’d been paying the bills practically on my own for years. If he wanted the house and the responsibilities that came along with it, he could have it.
“You are making the biggest f*cking mistake right now,” he tried to threaten.
“The only mistake I made was trusting you. Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson. Now either get out, or I’m going to call the police you supposedly spoke to and have them remove your ass.”
He threw in a few more idle threats about how he was never coming back if I let him walk out the door and a last ditch attempt at guilt by telling me he couldn’t believe I would ruin everything we had by sleeping with someone else. Thank God I didn’t let his words get to me and make me second-guess anything I had done with Collin.
“So, what are you going to do about Collin?” Phina asks, bringing me back from my thoughts.
With a heavy sigh, I push myself up from the couch. “I have no f*cking clue. There’s still that little problem of me kicking him out of the house right after we had the best sex I’ve ever had. Oh, and jumping into whatever this thing is between us without knowing anything about him.”