One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison

Author:Beth Harbison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466842205
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Diana

I was embarrassed about my first impression on Chelsea. My small mothering instinct told me it was wrong to make everything seem so hopeless to a girl who had the optimism to believe she could still get it right. On the one hand, they were adults in that room when I’d spilled my soul all over the place. But on the other hand, I didn’t need to be another woman lamenting the lost illusion of love. Maybe I could find a way to say something less hopeless to her the next time I saw her.

Then, of course, I also didn’t want to come off as such a loser. But bigger than all of that, I just barely had a relationship with my sister-in-law. (Soon to be ex-sister-in-law, I guess; what would she be then? Would she even be a friend? Or just someone who was relieved as hell to get rid of the dead weight of her brother’s ex-wife?) When I called Prinny it was because I could literally not think of another person in the world to turn to, partly because the last place he would look for me would be with her.

It was like an emotional hangover. At the time, spilling my guts to them had felt easy and comfortable. Good, even. But by the time I got to think for way too long about it, I was sure I had talked too long, been too wordy, been too raw. Been too much all around.

As far as Leif was concerned, that would be the definition of me sleeping with the enemy. He had counted on me for years to coo and caw and agree with him that life was horrifically unfair to bring That Woman (Prinny’s mother) into his charmed life, steal his father away, and then make that loss irretrievable with the introduction of the Little Princess.

That’s how Leif usually referred to her, by the way. As the Little Princess. Obviously their dad did call her Princess until it was shortened to Prinny, but Leif could not bring himself to refer to her in any way that was even remotely affectionate, so he managed to make every little girl’s dream title into an insult, dripping with loathing.

Now, I also remember a time in life when I longed for the title of Mrs. Leif Tiesman so desperately that, honestly, I could practically taste it. In fact, I think in some ways I could: It tasted of blood and sweat and dark, leaden, metallic desperation. I was so sure that it would make me happy forever. That, once it was accomplished, the hardest part of my life would be over and there’d be smooth sailing forevermore.

I could stop being Diana Warren, and I could become the one and only Diana Tiesman. Mrs. Tiesman. Mrs. Leif Tiesman. Picture it scribbled all over a composition book.

Anything I didn’t like about Diana Warren could be completely rewritten in my new, married life. The second act of my life.

Instead, I killed my old self, and that New Me I wanted so badly is being slowly poisoned.

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