Happy Tuesday everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed a nice long weekend. I did a lot of weed pulling and other garden chores and am now sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore. But the chores needed to be done. It is kind of a relief to be back at the desk to be honest. SO let’s jump in with a shiny new prompt for the shiny new month. Timers set and off we go.
Not where I thought this would go but I kind of like it.
Tuesday, September 2nd: And you believed him?
“And you believed him?” Margaret said. She stared at Chuck. He looked down and shuffled his feet. His hands were in his pockets.
“Well, yeah,” he said.
“Why?” Margaret asked. She stared at Chuck baffled as to why he would think she cheated on him. He shrugged but still wouldn’t look up. “There has to be a reason you thought I would cheat on you? Something I did or said.” He shrugged again. “Seriously?”
“Look he told me and I thought, why would he lie?”
“But he did lie,” Margaret said. “You didn’t think of asking me about it”
Chuck shrugged again. Margaret fought not to grind her teeth at the gesture. “This is getting us nowhere.”
She turned away and walked towards the table where she dropped her purse.
“Where are you going?” he asked. He finally looked up from his feet but when she turned to look at him he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
She thought about shrugging her shoulders. “Out,” she said instead.
“Look, I made a mistake,” he said. He sounded exasperated, which, given the circumstances she thought was a bit much. Margaret didn’t stop. She slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder and walked towards the door.
“When will you be back?” He asked. This time Margaret didn’t bother answering. She let herself out of the back door and walked to her car.
Scott told Chuck that she cheated on him. ‘With someone I don’t even know,’ she thought angrily. To her knowledge she didn’t actually know anyone named Calvin.
Chuck, for whatever reason believed Scott and to get back at her, he cheated. She shook her head and got into the car. “Not just once,” she told herself. While she was at a work conference he spent the week cheating on her with at least six different people. He had angrily shouted the names at her when she got back to let her know.
Margaret turned the key in the ignition and after checking for other vehicles pulled away from the curb and into the street. She drove across town to her apartment. Or what was her apartment. She had it for another three weeks. She parked in the lot but didn’t go in. She just sat in the car. Upstairs nearly all of her belongings were boxed up and ready to go. She was supposed to start moving in with Chuck this weekend.
‘That’s not happening,’ she told herself. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay here. The apartment was already spoken for. Once she moved out the management would send in a professional cleaning team and the following week someone else would be moving in. “I need a place to live.” Margaret started the car again, backed out of her space and drove across town to the real estate agency where her sister worked. She parked and went in.
Margaret braced for Jennifer’s ‘I told you so’, knowing she never liked Chuck. It didn’t come. Jennifer smiled sympathetically and took a deep breath. “So, you need a new place? She asked instead. Margaret felt choked up and could only nod.
Ten til Midnight 