I'll Tear Down the Stars for You

I stepped out of the warm house, my shoes landing on the paving slabs and the wind smacking me in the face which reminded me of how cold it was. For saying we’re just coming out of Summer, it’s gone cold pretty quick. In fact, it seems like it’s been winter for the past 3 months already.

The streets had gotten slippery after the short amount of snow we had had earlier on, followed by the sudden beam of light we had to melt it and now, ice cold weather to turn it into ice. I don’t get it, but because of it, the school bus had been cancelled so I had to go and collect Hailey and Emily from school.

At this moment in time, I was thankful that we lived at the bottom of a hill. But, I wasn’t thankful that I didn’t have shoes that had a good grip on them.

“Leela!” I cried as I reached the end of the street, nearly slipping for the 3rd time. I shouted my friends name again and she turned around, smiled, and slowly staggered towards me.

“I am so glad to have someone to cling onto!” Leela grinned, linking her arm with mine as we began to slowly make our way to the school.

“Is Mark collecting Robbie from his school?” heh. Robbie being collected from school from his parents. He would kill me if one of us did that to him as we are too embarrassing.

“No. He’s going to his friends house tonight so his friends mom is collecting them in the car,”

“Ah. His friend isn’t embarrassed by his mom?” I grinned and shook my head.

“Unfortunately I got the son that wants to be cool in front of everybody. I think he got that from Tom,”

“You say that as if you’re proud about it,” I was taken aback by that at first, but only shook it off and took it as a joke.

“No, no. I’m not,”

“You seemed pretty happy to say it after what he’s done to you though,” I looked over at Leela and glared at her.

“I’m not happy about it after what he’s done. I’m just trying to move on and there’s no need to be bitchy about my children having some of his traits because as much as I hate it, he is still their father. They may not call him dad anymore, but they’re still related,” I shrugged, slipping on the ice.

“May I ask a question?” Leela asked after our fit of giggles from the slip on the ice.

“Sure,”

“What do your children think of Mark?” I smiled. Mark.

“They adore Mark. I mean, they just. I don’t know. They don’t mind him dating me and they act like they’ve forgotten Tom. Mark is like a father figure to them, and to the kids he’s like their non-biological father. They get on really well and it’s like nothing ever happened between Tom and I,” I smiled when I remembered hearing Emily call Mark “dad” by accident the other day.

“A bit like Tom,” Leela mumbled, thinking I hadn’t heard her.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,”

“No it’s not nothing. You think Mark is like Tom. Why do you say that?” we stopped as we reached the end of the pavement and waited to cross to the other side.

“Well, Tom was a good father to the children too. And when Megan was Hailey and Emily’s age, Megan grew fond of Tom really quickly. And I remember you telling me that before you star-“ I interrupted Leela.

“Hold that thought,” I told her, pulling her slowly to hide behind a tree.

“What the hell are you doing?” Leela laughed.

“There. You see that woman with that man?” I pointed over at the couple who were holding hands.

“Yes? What about them?”

“That woman is the one who is now engaged-“ Leela interrupted me this time.

“To Tom. What a whore,” I smirked and kept my eye on Olivia. What the hell is she doing with him? “That’s not Tom is it?” I squinted my eyes and shook my head at Leela. She is a whore.

The moment I saw Olivia kiss this unknown man, I stood up straight and linked my arm with Leela. “Let’s get to the school. I have to pick the girls up as soon as possible so I can tell Mark what I saw. I’m sure he’ll blab it to some people,” I smirked, walking around the tree and along the pavement, purposely walking past Olivia to see what she would do.

...She hid behind the random man.

“That’s really bitchy, Ebony,” Leela shook her head at me, an unimpressed look on her face.

“And? She deserves it after what she did to me,” I shrugged my shoulders and stepped onto the grass knowing that it’s safer to walk on than the icy pavement.

“And what did she do to you exactly?” Leela asked. I could tell by the look on her face that she was expecting some petty excuse.

“She made Tom cheat on me when we first dated which is why we first broke up which also left me pregnant with no boyfriend and so I was a single parent for 6 years. And then she came along now, 10 years into our marriage. Our marriage went sour when he started seeing another woman. Her. It’s obvious that she’s the reason for it. I bumped into her the other day with Megan, and she said that she was happy that she broke Tom and I up 16 years ago, so she obviously wanted to break us up this time too. She’s a jealous bitch and Tom needs to know what she does behind his ba-“ I stopped mid-sentence. Why am I backing him up? He ditched me for her.

“Oh. Now I understand why you want to give her payback. But, you care about Tom. You just said he needs to know what she does behind his back. You care for him. You do. No matter how much you’ll deny it, you do. And you know it,” we stopped at the school gates, Leela grinning like a kid who had just had their first kiss.

“Whatever. Can we drop this till another time?” Leela nodded her head as we stood and waited for our children to come out of school.

***

I opened the front door and let Hailey and Emily in first who instantly ran towards Mark as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Hey sweeties. How was school?” he asked them, kissing both their cheeks.

“It was really good!” they replied in synch. Heh. I love identical twins.

“Mark,” Marks eyes fluttered to look straight into mine, “I saw Olivia today. Without Tom,”

“Really?” Mark put Hailey and Emily down onto the floor to let them go into the living as he stepped towards me, “Did you say hello to her?”

“Are you kidding me?” I giggled, “She was with another man,” I watched Mark’s eyes widen.

“That fucking bitch,” I didn’t think he would react that way.

“Why so touched by it?” I asked him, my hands on his stomach.

“Because she’s supposed to be with Tom,”

“Yeah. Supposed to be with Tom. She’s a whore, Mark. Don’t get involved with her. Please?” I moved my hands so that they were around his neck and looked into his blue eyes. I stared into them while I waited for Mark’s answer, but it never came.

“Mark?” I repeated.

“Huh?”

“I said; Promise me you won’t get involved with Olivia? I don’t want to lose you to her too,” Mark laughed and shook his head,

“You act like she’s a fucking witch or something,” I pouted at Mark and pulled my hands away from his neck, stamping my foot on the ground.

“Don’t swear when the twins are near, and Olivia is a witch!” I giggled and waited for Mark to laugh with me.

“She’s not that bad,” he glared, turning his back towards me and walking into the living room, calling Hailey and Emily’s names at the same time.

How does he know what Olivia’s like? Unless? No. He wouldn’t. Would he?