Rubbing my fingers over my lips that I swear are still tingling from his kiss earlier, I half listen to my mom as she talks to Molly and me. It’s not that I’m not interested in what she’s saying, I just can’t seem to focus with my body so aware of the male temptation across the room who’s currently talking to a group of businessmen.

Feeling a hand touch my lower back, I turn my head and inwardly groan when I come face-to-face with Matthew.

“Hey.” He leans down, touching his lips to my cheek, and I immediately want to wipe at the spot he kissed. “I messaged you earlier.”

“Sorry. Molly came over, and we had to get ready.” I step sideways out of his space, and he frowns slightly before turning to greet my mom.

After kissing Mom’s cheek, he looks at Molly but doesn’t even fake a smile. There was a period of time when the two of them pretended to like each other for my sake, but when I ended things with him, the fake niceties came to a screeching halt, and the animosity between them since then has only grown.

In Matthew’s head, my friends were one of the major reasons our relationship came to an end. And Molly, being one of the people I leaned on, knows everything that happened prior to me even considering divorce.

To him it might have felt like it was a decision I made on a whim; he doesn’t know that I fought with myself every day, tried to convince myself that I could stick it out a little longer. Told myself that things would get better, that we were just in a rough patch. And there were times after I’d tell him what was bothering me, and he’d make promises to change that I really thought everything would be okay. But before long, things would go back to the way they were, and I’d be right back where I was—contemplating my reasons for sticking things out.

It was during the last year of our marriage that I really understood what people mean when they say that a woman leaves a relationship long before they actually leave. By the time I got to the point where I told Mathew I was done, we might as well have already been divorced because there was no going back.

“Oh, Shell’s here,” Mom says, dragging me from my thoughts.

I look to where her eyes are focused and watch Shelly look up at Billy like she loathes him before she places a very pretty, but plastic, smile on her lips and greets a couple who approaches the two of them. Seeing that look on her face, I know without a doubt that she didn’t buy whatever story he made up about him not having an affair.