Disloyalty

While his once warm but now chilling presence faded more into the distance, I could not help but remember all of what we had.

It was a humid night on the pier, Sonya was blabbering about her on again off again boyfriend, Maria twirling in the breeze like she was in some old film, and Abby focused on the neon lights brightening the bland night sky. I, however, just tuned everything else out and walked along with him. It was ironic, how we were all together yet in our own worlds. “GUYS GUYS GUYS,” Abby squealed. “Have any of you been listening to what I’ve been saying?” Sonya cut herself off from whatever she was saying about Brandon. Ignoring her, Abby continued on, “THE BUMPER CARS ARE OPEN!” And just like that, she took off. Sonya, Maria, and I looked at each other, sighed, and followed after her. 

Abby caught the line at a short length, and before long, we were ushered into the caged-in arena with fluorescent colored bumper cars scattered miscellaneously. Abby ran for the rosy pink one, her favorite color, Maria took her place in the lime cart while Sonya went towards the yellow one. I didn’t care for the color cart I attended so I walked to the one closest to me, jet blue. As soon as I was getting to it, a guy ran up to it as well. “I CALL THIS ONE,” he yelled to who-knows. As he was about to get inside we made eye-contact. 

“Oh... were you here first?” he looked at me like I had stolen something dear to him. What is the big deal with colored bumper cars? “Um, kind of, but I don’t really care, you can take it,” and with that, I walked over to the orange one. I hopped in, buckled my seatbelt, and the games began. Abby began to run into everyone she saw, whether she knew them or not. Me and Sonya migrated away from the crowd and just bumped each other simultaneously, just waiting for the ride to shut off.

Before I knew it, I felt an impact on my left side. When I looked over, I caught sight of the blue bumper car I had attempted to occupy earlier. “You seem uninterested,” the guy from earlier laughed. “Meh, bumper cars aren’t my groove,” I replied. “Mine neither,” Sonya smiled. The guy smiled towards her and returned to looking at me. “Hm, interesting, what would you say is your ‘groove’ then?” He was lookin at me longingly, awaiting an answer.

“Um, are you-”

“Tanner! Get back over here, man!” another guy across the area called.

“Looks like you have something to get back to,” I said, turning my head towards where the noise came from.

He paused for a second, then smiled, “This isn’t over, miss…” he looked at me deep in thought.

“Heather?” he asked.

“Heather?” I laughed, “That’s your guess?”

“I’m not good with names,” he shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and giggled, “Jessica, but people call me Jess.”

“Tanner!” the guy called again.

He chuckled, “Well, this isn’t over, Jess.”

He then attempted to turn his cart around, but it didn’t move, the ride had ended. He looked in my direction, blushing, embarrassed that he must have looked like an idiot, and got out of the cart to walk over to his group of friends. 

I got out of my cart as well, and walked over to where my friends had been standing. “Who was that guy?” Abby asked me. “I don’t know,” I responded with a shrug. “Apparently his name is Tanner.”

“He was totally eyeing her down,” Sonya added, “He’s a fine one Jess, pounce!”

“You really compare guys to fresh pieces of meat, Sony,” I sighed.

Maria ran up, “Hey guys!”

“Can we get a drink? I’m really thirsty,” Abby groaned.

With that, the night continued on as normal.

The next morning, I woke up on Abby’s floor, she had insisted we stay the night at her place. I walked over to the wall to where my phone had been charging all night to see a text from a number that had not been entered in my contacts.

Hey Jessica, it’s Tanner, from last night? I could not help but ask one of your kind friends for your number, I firmly believe our conversation had to end too abruptly.

I squinted, who had given him my number?

“JESS! BREAKFAST!” Sonya yelled from downstairs.

I sighed, placed my phone into the pocket on my sweats, and ran downstairs towards the smell of fresh bacon. When I walked in, I could not hold it down, “Hey guys? Who gave that guy my phone number last night?”

“What guy?” Abby asked.

“The one at the bumper cars,” I replied.

“I did,” Maria piped up.

“Why?” I sighed, rubbing my eyes.

“He asked for it,” she shrugged.

“He was cute, Jess! Go along with it!” Sonya smiled.

“That’s so weird though, I don't even know this guy,” I retaliated.

“You didn’t know us at one point,” Maria added, “Now we are closer than ever, just text him back. I’m not asking you to marry him.”

All three of them stared at me blankly. The room was silent except for the crackling of bacon cooking. They weren’t going to leave me alone about this. I rolled my eyes and got my phone out of my pocket. I went onto my messages and started to type,

It seems someone is eager to talk to me, couldn’t ask me yourself? How disappointing.

I got almost an immediate reply.

Ah, sorry to disappoint you, how about we go somewhere that’s more of ‘your groove’ as some girl would call it, and I will talk straight to you.

“He’s asking me out, guys,” I turned my phone for them to see.

“You HAVE to go!” Sonya squealed.

“By myself?” I scoffed.

“Of course not! We will spy from a safe distance,” Maria explained.

I do not know how I am considering going. This is ridiculous, and way out of my comfort zone.

“Fine,” I said.

We went to a bookstore a couple nights later. An immensely calmer, but still public setting. He was strangely kinder than I was expecting, purchasing me a coffee, listening to me babble on about different novels and authors despite him telling me before he wasn’t a huge reader.

One meet up turned into two, then to three, then to four. We began to get to know each other, and it was emotionally easing. He became a person I could go to when I needed someone, and vice-versa. We became official before too long, and the “I told you so’s” made their rightful entrances.

That was two years ago.

One day, I had just taken a shower when Tanner was home on his lunch break, and I noticed his phone on the counter. Why was it there? No idea. I checked it for the time, but instead saw a message from Sonya.

You still coming tonight?

He had told me he had to work late tonight. Why was Sonya planning on having him over? My birthday wasn’t close, nor a holiday. He had told me he had to work late quite a bit recently, but I had thought that he was trying to get overtime so that we could move out of our apartment into a house. Has he been seeing Sonya instead?

I logged onto his phone and started going through their messages. Apparently, yes, he had been seeing her, pretty often in fact. All at her place. I could not comprehend what I was reading. He couldn’t possibly be doing what i was thinking, I’m just being crazy. I closed the app and returned his phone to the place it had been on the counter.

“Hello?” Abby answered.

“I think Tanner is cheating,” I breathed into the microphone.

“What?”

“With Sonya,” I continued.

“Sonya? Jess-”

“I saw it. On his phone. He told me he was working tonight, but she texted him asking if he was still going to see her.”

Things were silent for a brief moment.

“Does he know what you saw?”

“No.”

“Good. Keep it that way. Call Maria. Tonight we are piling into my car and going to Sonya’s tonight, we’ll see what’s going on.”

I did what she had said, and when Tanner went back to actual work, I drove to Abby’s. Later, in the evening, we were ready. We got into Abby’s vehicle and made our way to Sonya’s. When we got there, we also saw Tanner’s truck there, and the only light in the house was coming from Sonya’s room, and it was a blue light, from a tv. We parked across the street.

“I think I’ve seen all I need to see,” I mumbled.

But Abby didn’t move the car, we waited, for about three hours, just across the street. Eventually, they both came out, and I reached for the door handle.

“Not yet,” Abby stopped me. We watched them head for Tanner’s truck, Sonya rubbing up and down Tanner’s back and then pursing her lips to his, he pulled her in closer and before I knew it I was out of the car.

“Jess-” Maria began but I shut the door. 

I started walking across the street and yelled, “SONYA!”

She immediately broke away from Tanner, “Jessica, it’s not-”

“It’s not what, Sonya? It’s not what I think?”

“No its just-”

“Its just you touching up on my boyfriend, yea?”

Tanner began to interject “Jessica lets just go home and talk about this.”

“Yea, I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“I said no.”

“Jessica please-” Sonya started.

“I don’t need to hear from a whore right now.” I stated coldly. “I’m going home and gathering my things.”

“Wait, Jessica..” Tanner began to say.

I ignored him and went to Abby’s car. We sped off to my apartment and each gathered my things as quickly as possible. As we were walking out with my things, Tanner pulled up. I ignored him trying to capture my attention and packed my stuff into Abby’s trunk, she offered for me to stay with her. I took a look at Tanner for a moment, then got into Abby’s car. We pulled out of the apartment parking spot and as we drove away, I felt a part of myself disappear from me.