Seven Years of Bad Luck Read Free

future. We laid to rest all-consuming regrets and dreamed up new adventures. We laughed uncontrollably at inside jokes that only she and I shared, and we cried while sharing memories of painful times that only she and I were witness to. She was perhaps the only person with whom I had shared all my hopes, secrets, dreams, and nightmares. Our friendship was a valued outlet, an outlet that was dependable and safe. Those two things didn’t really exist for me outside of my close bond with her.
    I had to give her credit. She was highly skilled in a kitchen. Watching her in her element brought a painful reminder that as far as I knew, my dearest friend had set aside her goal of a self-owned and operated bakery indefinitely. I had fought her tooth and nail over that sacrifice to no avail. Although she did well as a masseuse, I knew it was a far cry from her passion, her dream. I made a mental note that weekend to confront her once again about the bakery.
    After driving her to the airport and saying some quick goodbyes, I returned to my dreadfully quiet house. When I met her, quite by accident, I never would have guessed that we would have become such close friends. We were both living in Denver, Colorado at the time. Aidan was in real estate development and had been offered a great position in the mile high city. Cheyenne had been living there with her now ex-husband, Matt, who held a job as an accountant for a major ad firm. I was the ‘new neighbor,’ and Cheyenne was the accommodating, friendly neighbor. We hit it off immediately, mostly since we were both born and raised in southern states. My being a Texas girl and her a Florida girl, we had more than enough in common, including the Gulf of Mexico. Two years in Colorado came and went, and Cheyenne’s marriage came to a sudden halt one day after Matt’s request for a divorce. She did not do much to fight him over it. She had too much dignity for that, and I understood her reluctance to fight for a marriage to a man who adamantly refused her. I asked her if she was going through with the divorce, and she spat out the words that I eventually shot back at her years later.
    It was months later that we discovered the reason for Matt’s request. Her name was Monica, and she was a real piece of work. It was all I could do just to keep Cheyenne from going after the little hussy with a baseball bat. We later heard that Monica cheated on Matt and got knocked up—on accident of course. Matt ditched her, and so did the mystery sperm donor. Well played, Karma, I thought to myself. The night we heard the news, we shared the thrill of silent victory over a really great bottle of wine… or two.
    We drank and laughed, and I imagined the two of us hauling ass around a professional racetrack for our victory lap. I could see us jumping out of our cars, popping open expensive bottles of champagne, and shaking them obnoxiously. I pictured confetti raining down around us and camera flashes going off wildly like seizure-inducing strobes. Revenge was sinfully sweet on my lips. I thoroughly enjoyed the thought of this Monica woman being miserable as part of some kind of cosmic reparation for hurting my dear friend. I felt guilty about my vengefulness for all of two seconds before the guilt fled and contentment flooded back in. It felt like this wrong in the universe had righted itself. It was a great feeling and I made sure that I lapped up every drop of it while it lasted.
    With only a couple of hours alone to gather my thoughts before Aidan would be returning from his business trip, I was scrambling to compose myself. He had always been incredibly determined, ambitious, and clever. If I let him see that I had undergone a grand epiphany with the help of some favorite coffee cup, he would quickly start bringing down my defenses. Even if I put up a fight against his persuasion, he would pull out all the stops when necessary, and according to my track record, I always was terrible at refusing him