Hey.

My parents came to visit at the end of August for my birthday. It was such a relief to finally get to see them again after so many months. My mother arrived wearing a face shield, gloves and a mask because she’s not fucking around. My mom’s immune system is trash so she’s been being extremely safe since she gets sick often. So I was even more grateful that she traveled on a plane to see us.

They stayed for the weekend, giving Brady and me both alone time and much needed relief from each other. Brady got to talk to my dad about news and politics — things I have no interest in — and I got to complain to my mom about his behavior.

I told her about Sydney and the girl from the pool and she said, “Is something wrong with him?”

Yes, Mom, there is!

And then she offered to talk to him.

“I know sometimes you have a hard time expressing yourself,” she told me. “So I’m happy to translate how you’re feeling to him.”

And it’s just like, Brady understands exactly how I feel. He’s just choosing to act stupid about it. I appreciated the gesture though and since my parents left, he’s been on his very best behavior.

Okay, but the reason I really wanted to post is because I found out some juicy information from Brendan. I’ve been going into the office once a week, just to catch up with Mike and use some of the fancy equipment we have there. Brendan stopped by on one of the days I was there. We don’t talk or text as much as we used to; just a “How are you?” or stupid meme here and there. We used to text constantly, but I’ve been busy with the baby and he’s been busy with his wife and we just sort of fell out of it.

But he invited me to lunch and I happily agreed. I was excited to catch up with him. I used to love hanging out with him and talking to him.

He immediately started talking non stop about his wife and I was just like, 🙄😒. Even before their little separation, he never talked about her this much. So it was kind of weird and it almost felt like he was overcompensating.

“Well, I’m happy you guys aren’t having problems anymore,” I finally interjected.

“Yeah. I guess the issue kind of worked itself out.”

“Mmhm. So what was the issue? You never told me,” I said, taking one of his French fries.

I figured he wouldn’t tell me because he’d been so evasive up until this point. But then he looked at me and said, “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course!”

“It was because of you,” he said and immediately took a sip of his drink.

“Excuse me? Because of me?”

Brendan nodded. “Yeah. Because of how I felt about you.”

I just sat there, speechless. I had so many questions. But mainly, how did he feel about me?

“What?” I said.

He was suddenly super interested in the condensation on the side of his glass. He explained that his wife found out how much we were talking and hanging out last year and when she confronted him about it, he admitted that he liked me in “an intimate way.”

An intimate way? Fucking Brendan!

And she proceeded to blab to their families about what he told her and they had a meeting about it which resulted in the trial separation. And you know how Brendan and his wife hang out with Mike and his wife a lot? And vacation together? Apparently the wife even talked to Mike about it during one of their trips. Can you fucking imagine? I was so horrified at the thought of Mike knowing anything personal about me or hearing gossip about me. But apparently this is how and when he found out I was pregnant. He never mentioned anything.

After finding all of this out, I sat there for a moment and then I just started crying.

“Uh, I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Brendan said. He tried to touch my back, but I shook him off.

“I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

“You asked me to,” he said back.

“And why would you tell your wife that you had feelings for me? You’ve never even told me that.”

“Well, I’m not going to lie about it.”

And maybe it’s irrational, but I was so annoyed with him. I felt blindsided. I had no idea he felt like that, especially after we had the talk about being just friends. I know we were kinda flirting, but I never thought it was harmful enough to cause problems in either of our relationships. I don’t even think Brady knows who Brendan is. I can’t believe he told his wife that he had feelings for me, but didn’t bother telling me this and continued hanging out with me and complaining about his wife to me as if everything was normal and didn’t have anything to do with me.

In my mother’s words, is something wrong with him?

“We probably shouldn’t hang out anymore,” I said once I’d stopped crying.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said back.

We haven’t talked since that day. I need space to gather my thoughts. I had so many questions. Like, how much does Mike know about me and Brendan’s relationship, does Brendan’s wife know we had lunch that day, does he no longer have feelings for me and that’s why “the issue worked itself out.”

I’ve toyed with the idea of texting him, even started typing messages to him, but I don’t even know what to say. And I definitely don’t want his wife to see me texting him.

Bye.