“I didn’t realize you had a uterus,” ísa said, even as the meaning of his words filtered down to create a big fat lump of coal in her stomach.
“Huh?” A chuckle. “Oh, you’re being funny. You always were funny.”
Biting back further snarky remarks—Had he been this vacuous when they’d dated? Had she been that desperate?—ísa said, “I hope the baby is healthy and that the pregnancy goes well.” It wasn’t the poor child’s fault it would have Slimeball Schumer and Suzanne for parents.
That you couldn’t choose your parents was a truth ísa knew far too well.
“Thanks,” Cody said cheerfully. “We’re getting married too. I just… Anyway, Suzanne really wanted you to know.”
“I hope you two have the life you deserve.” She hung up before he could say anything further.
Then she just stood there, staring at the wall around the windows across from her. That wall had been painted by the art students who’d had her classroom before the school turned it into an English class—the art class had been moved to a location with much better light. Colorful and bright in its interpretative splashes of pigment, the wall suited an English class. Or that was what ísa had always thought.
She could point to it—and did—to demonstrate how any piece of art, including poetry and novels, could be seen in many different ways depending on the eye of the beholder. At this instant, she saw it only as a smudge of color, Cody’s words reverberating inside her. Her cheeks flushed, her heart raced, and her knees, they threatened to shake.
Snark, it appeared, could only protect you for so long.
Even reminding herself that Suzanne was clearly clinging desperately to her past Queen Bitch status had zero impact.
“I don’t love him, not even a little bit,” she said, and it was true.
The hopeful, innocent thing she’d felt for Cody had died a final death that horrible night when he’d ripped her to pieces and laughed at her pain. She’d given him her battered, bruised heart and he’d kicked it.
ísa wasn’t stupid enough to hold a torch for a man capable of such casual cruelty.
But marriage and children and a stable home base—not only for herself but for her much younger sister, Catie, and brother, Harlow—that had always been her dream. It was why she was putting herself through the hell of online dating with the precision of a business merger to end all business mergers.
With her students on vacation since the end of the previous week and ísa having no real obligation to come into school until her night classes began, her diary currently looked like that of a hyperactive serial dater, one who was heavily overcaffeinated at this point.
* * *
Monday morning: Coffee with Manuel. Dark haired, dark eyed. Likes novels and poetry. Fingers crossed!
Postmortem: Did like books and poetry. Also liked the waitress, with whom he made a date while I was sitting in front of him. Then asked me if I was “open to exploring my sexuality without boundaries.”
* * *
Monday afternoon: Coffee with Beau. Five foot nine. Blond. Mechanic. Comes across non-douchey in online conversation.
Postmortem: Non-douchiness was a front.
* * *
Monday night:Coffee with Carl. Sweet guy who likes gaming. That’s okay—if he’s the one, I can read while he games.
Postmortem: His current game was so hot he couldn’t step away from the computer to come meet me. Didn’t message me until I’d been waiting for twenty minutes. Can never go back to that café.
* * *
Tuesday morning: Coffee with Henry. Five foot seven. Brown hair. Lawyer. Seems very practical and sensible and sweet.
Postmortem: Thank God I only ever agree to meet for coffee on the first date. The man spent the entire date on the phone, talking business. If he can’t even commit to a half-hour coffee date, I don’t think he’d be able to commit to a wife and child.
* * *
Tuesday evening: Coffee with Tana. Six foot one. Some kind of finance job. Doesn’t say much online, but some people aren’t good at online conversation. Doesn’t seem like a serial killer.
Postmortem: No chemistry. He gave me his business card in case I want to invest in the future.
* * *
Wednesday morning: Coffee with Wyatt. Thirty-three. Has a name like a cowboy. Wants to work on a farm.
Postmortem: Wyatt forgot to add forty years to his age when setting up his profile. Also forgot to state his photo was from a few decades back. Not ageist but would really like my future husband to have his own teeth.
* * *
Wednesday afternoon: Coffee with Gareith with an i in there. Okay, parents gave him the name so can’t judge him on it. Manager at grocery store. Seems very normal. I am afraid.
Postmortem: He changed his name to Gareith Atlas Bonemaker on his eighteenth birthday and thinks the Great Bonemaker has PLANS for him to LEAD a REVOLUTION.
* * *
Wednesday night: Midweek sanity check with Nayna. Some best friend. Snorted wine out of her nose after hearing of Wyatt + Gareith situation. Then forced me to make more dates.
* * *
Thursday morning: Tea with Ken. No more coffee. Brown hair. Will wear rose in lapel so I recognize him. That’s kind of cute.
Postmortem: Am in shock. He was good-looking, articulate, and polite. Of course we had zero chemistry. Maybe I need to have my hormones checked.
* * *
Thursday afternoon: Tea with Stuart. Rocking a bald look. Sexy. Likes dogs.
Postmortem: Wore dog collar. Wanted me to walk him and call him Woofy. Am sure he will find right woman one day.
* * *
It was only Friday of her first full week of dating, and ísa was already exhausted. Which was why she hadn’t made any further dates. But she would. Because sitting around and waiting for the right man to come along was a recipe for ending up without the life she’d always wanted.
Marriage by thirty. A child by thirty-two. All of it drenched in love.
That was ísa’s timeline, and she was sticking to it. She had two years to make the first part of it happen. But while, after a lifetime of learning not to depend on anyone, she was still scrambling to find a man she trusted to stick around, Slimeball Schumer was about to have all those things with the girl who’d tortured ísa for years.
It just seemed so deeply unfair.
ísa barely restrained the urge to kick the nearest piece of furniture. Maybe, she thought hopefully, fate would throw her a bone and have it rain on Cody and Suzanne’s wedding day. Complete with hail. And flying toads. And a truck that sprayed mud on the bride’s conceited face.