Her Second Chance At Love

(1) Prologue

Lisa’s POV

                “You can’t be serious?”  I could hear voices coming from the hospital room.  It wasn’t the first time today that I had heard those words.  Mom and the triplets had said the very same thing when I told them I was moving out on the first of the month.  That was only a few days away.  At first, they didn’t think I could have earned or saved that much money to do this on my own. The look on their faces was priceless when I had informed them otherwise.  They didn’t realize that I had made enough money to move out.  I remembered when I first mentioned getting a job my mother telling me that she would allow me to entertain the idea of having a job because eventually I was going to have to fulfill my destiny of being a wife and mother.  When I told her that I was tired of cleaning up after the triplets and everyone else in the house my mother looked insulted.  “I’m just helping you to be the best wife and mother that you can be.  You know the more that you learn to do around here the better you will be when you get a home of your own.  I only wish I would have had the chance to learn to be domestic so that I could have been a better wife and mother for my family.”  I couldn’t help but to shake my head at that very statement.  My mother wouldn’t know how to be domestic if it slapped her in the face.  For her to insinuate that she wasn’t given the chance to learn household chores and the like was absolutely hysterical after all I didn’t learn my domestic abilities from my mother.  In fact, I learned it from my darling grandmother.  I was very close to that woman.  Grandma was more like a mother to me than my own mother.  I was always able to talk to grandma and cry to grandma about just about anything.  Grandma taught me how to cook.  I found myself smiling inwardly about how grandma cooked.  she didn’t measure anything the way most people do when cooking.  Grandma used her hands and her eyes to measure ingredients and I had to say that grandma’s cooking was the best ever.  Grandma also taught me how to sew and clean.  My mother had no clue about such things and from what grandma had told me it wasn’t due to lack of trying to teach her.  Grandma said that mother’s domestic skills were non-existent.  I was busy musing about grams and how excited she was to hear that I was getting my own apartment.  Grandma was apprehensive about my next announcement though.  “Grandma I also wanted to tell you that I’m engaged.”  Grandma looked at me over her wide rimmed glasses and just sighed.  “I hope it’s not to that loser Evan.”  I just shook my head and said “grandma yes I am going to marry Evan.  I love him more than anything.  He treats me really well and respects the choices that I have made about staying pure for marriage.”  I cringed at that last statement because lately he had been pushing me to have s*x with him since we were engaged and going to be married.  If I said something about that to Grandma, she would have latched on to that as being another reason to disklike Evan.  Grandma was adamant that I should hold on to my virginity until marriage because that would be the way to make sure that any man truly loved me.  If he was willing to wait for me and respect me in that way, he would be worth marrying.  While I was starting to question if Evan truly loved me or not, I wasn’t about to tell grandma about what had been happening lately.  I didn’t want her telling me that he wasn’t the one.

                “Evan, how are we going to tell her?  She needs to know the truth and you know that.”  The mention of my name pulled me out of my musings.  Did I just hear my best friend say my fiancé’s name? Why would Mary be asking Evan about how to tell me something?  I decided to listen a little more.  Eavesdropping wasn’t something that I ever did on purpose I generally tried to avoid it actually.  I hated people who would do that sort of thing.  That meant that you didn’t trust the person enough to let them come clean with you.  However, I got the feeling there was something my best friend and the man I was going to marry weren’t telling me and I needed to find out what it was.  Maybe I would regret this.  They could be planning something special for my bachelorette party.  Maybe Mary wasn’t going to be able to make one happen and was worried that I would be upset.  If that was the case, I would gladly calm my friend down.  I didn’t really want to have a bachelorette party anyhow.  I just wanted a nice night with dinner and maybe a little wine to celebrate with my girlfriends before the big day.  Now that Mary has had her baby, we could move forward on the wedding plans.  I was more than excited about being married to Evan because as mom had put it, I was “fulfilling my destiny.”   When I had told my mother that I wanted to go to college and get a law degree my mom had told me that was a waste of time.  “You will just spend all that time and money on a degree you won’t even use it.  Lisa honey use your head you were born to be a wife and mother.  That is your destiny and while you may get a degree you wouldn’t be able to use it because you would be too busy taking care of your family.”  Mom had a point if I did have a family, I wouldn’t want to be stuck in an office for long hours I would want to be taking care of the kids and my husband.  I had my priorities in my head and a job was at the very end of those priorities.  When I told my mom, I was going to get a job so that I could save money for me and Evan to have a place after we got married my mom wasn’t completely on board with the idea but understood.  Especially when I pointed out that it would be my job as a wife to help out my husband as much as possible and this was just a small way that I could help him out

                “I’m not sure how we are going to tell her but we can’t keep it a secret any longer.  She’s going to take one look and just know.”  I c****d my head and wondered what in the hell they were talking about because that was definitely not about wedding or prewedding events.  My heart started to plummet into my stomach and I had a bad feeling I should walk away but yet for some reason I just couldn’t.  Then I heard the words no woman ever wants to hear her best friend say to her fiancé.  “Evan, I love you and now we have a beautiful baby boy.  We have to tell Lisa that we have been together for the last almost year.  It’s going to upset her but she deserves that much.  I hate lying to her about where I am all the time when I’m with you.  I hate hearing her cry because she isn’t sure if you love her anymore.”  I could hear him let out a sigh.  “I know Mary.  God if she wasn’t such a cold-hearted prude little b***h, I wouldn’t have felt the need to look in other places for the love and physical affections I needed.  This is as much her fault as it is ours.  But of course, she won’t see it that way and other’s wont either.  Any guy that gets with her is going to have be ok being married to a cold fish.”  Tears were forming in my eyes when I heard his words.  How could he say things like that?  He told me that he understood why I wouldn’t take our relationship to the bedroom just yet.  I told him the reason I stopped our make out sessions when I did was because if I didn’t stop, I wasn’t sure I would keep my vow to my grandmother.  He always responded with “you don’t owe that old lady anything and she doesn’t need to know about your s*x life.  For God’s sake baby you are an adult and it’s a whole new era people don’t hang on to a virtue like this anymore.  I mean we are engaged and will be married quite soon so why the hell do you insist on being such a f*****g prude?”  He just couldn’t get it was something that I felt very strongly about and something I wasn’t going to waiver on.  Grams was right if a man didn’t respect my wishes on this topic, then he wasn’t the man for me.  When I said as such to Evan, he looked hurt at my words.  He promised me that he loved and respected me but being engaged was just as good as being married.  Marriage was just a formality at this point in our relationship and he knew that more than anything in the world.  That they were meant to be together forever as man and wife.  So, what if they started their life as a couple a little earlier.

                I brushed away the tears in my eyes and fanned my face so that it wouldn’t appear that I was crying.  Took a few deep breaths to steady my racing anger and hurt heart after hearing his brutal words.  I wasn’t going to let them see how much their betrayal affected me if it was the last thing, I did.  After a few more minutes I knocked on the door and called out my friend’s name pretending like I had just arrived.  Then I pushed through the door and walked in.  The fake surprise on my face upon finding Evan there was worthy of an Emmy award.  Neither one of them realized I had heard their conversation.  I beamed with fake enthusiasm over my friend.  “I can’t believe he’s here already I can’t wait to hold my new little nephew.”  Looking over at Evan I then followed through with “and just think now that he’s here we can get cracking on our wedding date.  I caught the subtle glimpse between the two lying cheats but didn’t let them catch on that I knew.  I just kept gushing on and on about how adorable the baby would be as a miniature ring bearer and how Mary would have some time to get most of her figure back and would be stunning of course not as stunning as the bride but a very close second.  I talked about how finally Evan could achieve his dreams and we would be able to consummate our marriage and commitment to each other.  If the cards played out right even maybe give my little nephew a playmate in the way of a baby of our own in the very near future.  I was pretending to be completely unaware of the looks on their faces all the while smiling inside knowing what they had just talked about.  Suddenly Evan broke in and said “Lisa we need to tell you something and you are not going to like it at all.”  I looked at Mary first and then looked at Evan.  “Let me guess you have been sleeping with my best friend for just about a year now, our entire engagement pretty much.  Oh yes and let’s not forget that the baby she just gave birth to is your little bastard son.  What was it that you said oh ya that’s right this is just as much my fault as it is yours?”  I said the last part while pointing a finger at each of the other two adults in the room “Well I guess the joke is on you both because I know and I never want to have anything to do with either of you again.”  Looking straight at Mary I said “you are the worse kind of friend not only did you sleep around like the cheap slut you are but you chose to do it with my man.  If that’s how you treat your friends, I would hate to see how you treat your enemies.”  Then looking at Evan I said “I guess grandma was right about you after all.  She tried to warm me that you weren’t the one.” 

                After I said my peace to the both of them, I turned around and walked out of the room.  I went straight to the elevators and hit the button.  When the elevator stopped on my floor I got in and turned around just in time to see Evan coming out of Mary’s room.  “Lisa, you f*****g little b***h stop right now I have a few things to say to you.”  I just looked at him smiled and pushed the button to close the doors.  Once the doors were closed, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.  How could I have been so stupid.  When I got home and told my mom what had happened my mom hugged me and said “well at least you found out before it was too late.  Guess you won’t have to move out after all.  You can just save that money for when you find your husband and have a nice little nest egg.  You can quit that job of yours since you won’t have to worry about paying bills and just resume your role around the house.”  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I was just dealt a horrible blow to my self-esteem and all my mother could think of was that her little maid could be a full-time maid again.  “No mom that isn’t going to happen.  I’m still moving out. The money I make at the bar will more than pay my bills.  It’s time that I move out on my own and it’s time that the triplets learn to take care of themselves.  I think I’m going to talk to the bar manager about staying only for the summer and then I’m going to go away to college.”  My mom looked at me as if I had grown a new head.  Maybe in a way I had.  It was time for a change and time for me to venture out on my own.  Time to go to college and see what I could achieve.  I spent the next several days packing up my room getting ready to move and thinking back to my life with Evan.  Smiling to myself I then thought of life I was about to have.