This is going to sound bad, but I started to avoid phone calls from my dad. Every time his name popped up, I had a panic attack thinking he was going to tell me the news I’d been dreading: my mom was in the hospital with liver failure or she’d driven drunk and killed herself or someone else or he was divorcing her and she was going to have to figure this out on her own. So I ignored his phone calls and waited until he sent a text telling me what he wanted. If I didn’t hear about it then maybe it wasn’t really happening.

Meanwhile, Winnie started school and she absolutely loves it. I figured she would. She loves waking up and getting dressed in the outfit we picked out the night before and the short walk to her school where we always see the same 3 cute fluffy dogs who she is obsessed with. Her best friend is a girl named Olivia, who is basically Winnie in a different font. They’re adorable! And since Winnie loves school so much she’ll be going 5 days a week in starting January. I haven’t run that by Brady yet, but I can’t imagine he’ll have an issue with our child furthering her education. And like I mentioned in my last post, Brady was being a lot nicer to me. Well, maybe nice isn’t the right adjective — but he was cordial, and not actively being rude to me. After we figured out Winnie’s school stuff and we had nothing else to fight about, I guess he had no choice. He was clearly happy in his new relationship and he got out of having to pay for school like he said he would so he had no reason to be mad or mean.

It probably helped that Caroline was almost always at Brady’s house on Saturday mornings when I dropped Winnie off. Which is when I would spend the most time (arguing) with Brady. He couldn’t be mean to me in front of his sweet new girlfriend, could he?

So Brady would half heartedly ask how I’m doing or how my week was and then fuck off to do something else before I could answer. See, he was attempting, but can’t help being an asshole.

Whatever! I was starting to like Caroline, mainly because of how much she seemed to like me. Brady would ask questions and then walk off, but then Caroline would say, “Tell me everything!”

Gladly! I’m like, “My week was fine except I might have to fire my babysitter because she had a manic episode the other night while I was at dinner with my boyfriend so we had to leave. It was really weird and scary.”

“That is so crazy!” Caroline said and she seems way too earnest for it to have been sarcastic.

“I know!” I said back.

Brady was a few feet away and didn’t even bother asking for more details. If he told that story, I’d want to know more!

I guess since we talked about me so much Caroline wanted to open up about herself as well. She told me about work and the grueling 24-hour shifts she has to work since she’s new and how she nearly failed out of college her freshman year because she partied so much. Same bestie! She also opened up to me about how her mother battled breast cancer for most of her childhood and it gave her bad anxiety. This was before everything really kicked off with my mom, but I felt for her.

One day, she even asked to follow each other on Instagram. This was great for me because her account is private and now I could really dig into who she is. But I’m like, “Oh god, this girl really wants to be friends.” I liked her enough, but I wasn’t trying to become friends. Who even knows how long she’s going to be around?  

Lo and behold, Caroline is just as sweet and average and basic as I thought. What? Her Instagram is filled with monthly photo dumps of her “stinky” dog, unflattering candids of her eclectic group of friends and faux artsy nature shots. Very little sign of Brady outside of the occasional story. Most interestingly, she has a few reels posted that I can only categorize as “cringe” — morning routines as a nurse, skin care routine for a 28 year old, and GRWMs that I’m sure no one asked for. I guess she does have really nice skin, to be fair. It’s just weird to me that she’s cosplaying as an influencer with a private Instagram profile.

Anyway. Once the school year was in full swing, Winnie’s school had another wine night an evening “activities presentation” (whatever the fuck that meant) followed by a wine networking hour. This school sure likes to provide wine. I was like, fine — I guess if they insist, I’ll make an appearance. Obviously I invited Brendan to tag along with me and he said he’d go with me. He’s basically Winnie’s stepdad at this point and the following day he was leaving for a long weekend in Montreal with some of his friends so I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. I forwarded the invite to Brady’s email, but he didn’t confirm if he was coming. I figured he wouldn’t since it was at 6:30 PM on a weeknight and you know those are peak Brady working hours. Plus this was just an excuse to socialize/drink, it was not important for him to be there at all.

This was on one of the first nights it got chilly in New York so I wore straight leg MOTHER DENIM, booties by Aquazzara and a chic Veronica Beard blazer draped over my shoulders. I wanted to serve old money cool mom. Brendan on the other hand wore a head to toe Under Armour ‘fit (hoodie and joggers with a vest) like he was about to go warm up before a soccer game or something so I was beyond annoyed by that. I had emphasized that the night was supposed to be super casual, but still. We looked like fucking Justin and Hailey.

But I guess that didn’t really matter anyway. The event was basically just three tables set up in the school’s main hallway advertising the different activities each child could sign up for and a fourth table where a guy was pouring wine. And it turns out, not only was Brady coming to wine night, but he was bringing Caroline as well! For fuck’s sake! As much as I was growing a soft spot for her, I didn’t see why she needed to be at all of Winnie’s school functions. She’s basically still a child herself!

Brendan and I were standing there gabbing with Olivia’s parents (the mom, Victoria, was bitching about their nanny and I was waiting for her to finish so I could bitch about my babysitter). We hadn’t visited any of the displays and Winnie’s teacher had already confronted us about how Winnie and Olivia are both good and smart students, but were picking up bad habits from each other. Excuse me? Did I ask for feedback? This wasn’t exactly hard to believe as Winnie can be a bit of a troublemaker, but it wasn’t easy hearing that my perfect little angel isn’t perfect. So we’d have to work on that.

“She’s like an energy vampire,” I was telling them about my babysitter. “Every time I speak to her she trauma dumps and I never know what to say. Obviously I want to distance myself, but I don’t have a replacement.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brendan lift his hand to wave at someone. Uh, hello? I turned and saw Brady and Caroline making a beeline for us, each with a glass of wine in their hand. Ugh. I shot Brendan a look and he stopped waving.

“Hi Reese! You look so great!” Caroline said, still waving. “Hi Brendan!”

“Thanks,” I said. I get that she’s sweet and all, but I could feel a cavity forming. I really needed her to settle down.

“Hi, I’m Brady,” Brady said to Olivia’s parents before I could introduce them.

“Winnie’s dad,” I clarified in case it wasn’t obvious. “And this is Caroline.”

“Or Cara!” she chirped.

“We’re Olivia’s parents,” Victoria said.

“Olivia and Winnie are besties,” I explained.

“I know. Winnie tells me about Olivia all the time,” Brady said.

“Does she really?” I asked because I didn’t believe him.

“Yes, Reese,” Brady said in that Brady sort of asshole way and shot me a bombastic side eye.

I rolled my eyes back. Whatever. We all stood there sipping our wine while everyone got to know each other. You know, the typical “where are you from, what do you do, where did you go to school?” These people love talking about where they graduated from. I’m like, I went to the biggest party school in the country and barely survived, NEXT! Turns out, Caroline and Olivia’s dad have the same alma mater, but she graduated 11 years after he did. Because she’s fucking 28.

“Does that make you like, Gen Z?” I asked in a judgy tone.

“Uh, nope. I’m definitely a millennial,” Caroline said, giggling. “It’s so funny though because I’m a super young millennial and some of the characteristics—”

Blah blah blah.

So we all started talking about the city (no one grew up in the city except Brendan) and neighborhoods (I gladly mentioned that Brady and Caroline both live in Connecticut) before they started talking about inflation and the economy. I guess Olivia’s dad is a Wall Street dude. They kept mentioning their “portfolios” including Caroline which annoyed me because now I want a portfolio. Then they started talking about Bitcoin which turned into stocks which turned to business. I didn’t understand any of that other bullshit they were talking about, but I could definitely talk business.

“All I know is whatever Kim has done with Skims is genius and should be studied in marketing courses,” I said.

“You don’t think it’s because she’s a Kardashian and arguably the most famous person in the world?” Brady said like I’m fucking stupid.

“Uh, actually I don’t. Obviously it’s helped, but just because she puts her name on a brand doesn’t automatically make it successful. Hence why her other ventures haven’t been,” I said. I couldn’t believe Brady, who doesn’t have a single business savvy bone in his body, would try to argue with me about Kim Kardashian.

Brendan touched my shoulder. “I’ll get you another glass of wine. Unless you want to leave?”

Leave? So then Brady and Caroline could try to steal my new friends? Absolutely not.

“No, I’ll take more wine please,” I requested.

Once we all had more wine, we started talking about the October break for the kids (they were taking Olivia to Disney, ew and I had nothing planned for Winnie). Then we were talking about Thanksgiving and how quickly the holidays were approaching and Caroline mentioned Hanukkah. I was like, wait, is Caroline Jewish? I didn’t want to flat out ask because it doesn’t make any difference to me, but there’s so much about her I don’t know! Does Brady’s mom know he’s dating a Jewish girl? Caroline also brought up something about Brady’s birthday “last year” that made me wonder how long they’ve been dating. From what Brady told me, I assumed that they started dating earlier this year. Didn’t he say that they’d been together for a “couple months” in May when he first told me about her? This would need some investigating.

Eventually, they started folding the tables back up and we were almost the last group left. It was like last call at the club.

“It’s not even 9, I don’t want to go home,” Victoria said. “Should we get a drink next door?”

“I’m off tomorrow so sure!” Caroline enthused.

“I’m not, but we can stay for one drink,” Brady said.

“I have an early flight,” Responsible Brendan said.

“We can stay for one drink too,” I assured him because again, Brady and Caroline were not going to steal my new friends away.

But I should’ve listened to Brendan.

The six of us walked down the block to a dirty little dive/pub. I love New York. Brendan grabbed my hand on the walk and said, “You good?”

“Uh, yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?” I said back.

“Dunno. Just checking.”

He could probably sense that things were going downhill. I mean, it was weird right? Why exactly were we having a drink with my ex/baby daddy and his current girlfriend? The conversation wasn’t going that well. And I really needed to get home to relieve my emotionally unstable babysitter. But here I was.

We got inside the bar and found the one table that wasn’t covered in trash.

“I’m going to the bathroom!” I announced before even sitting down.

“I’ll come with you, I need to go too!” Caroline said.

“Okay, what do you want to drink? Wine?” Brendan said.

“Yeah!” I said.

“Same for me!” Caroline said to whoever was listening.

We scurried to the bathroom and each went into a stall. I discovered that Caroline is a pee-talker. I’d rather not with her.

“Ah! Don’t you fucking hate breaking the seal?” she asked over our peeing.

“I don’t really mind,” I said. I don’t think I’d ever heard her curse either.

“Plus I’m so icked out by bar bathrooms, like I feel I’m going to catch chlamydia from this toilet seat,” she continued.

I ignored her and finished up. She met up with me at the sink.

“I always love how you’re dressed,” she said. “I hope I’m hot as a mom, but I’m afraid I’m going to get fat and lose all my hair.”

What? While I appreciated her saying all that, I really only had one thing on my mind.

“So how long have you and Brady been together?” I asked. It totally didn’t matter, but it did matter to me because I wanted to know.

Caroline’s face lit up as she pretended to rack her brain. She strikes me as the kind of girl who has their anniversary written down in several places. “Officially since last September. We were casual for a few months before that.”

For no reason at all, my stomach dropped. This was in September. “A year?”

“Yeah. It flew by!” she said.

A whole fucking year.

“Well, he’s a cheater, so…” I blurted out. I don’t know what possessed me to say that to her, but I said it.

“What makes you say that?” Caroline asked.

I didn’t answer and left her in the bathroom. I guess I called him a cheater because we had that make out last year when Brendan and I were fighting, that was in October. And if they became “official” in September then he definitely had no business making out with me. And if he was casually dating Caroline, then why did he come to my birthday dinner at the end of the August? And then in December, his other ex, planned a birthday party for him, remember? This was after I’d gone through his messages and saw that they were hooking up again over the summer. When did Caroline even come into the picture? And then in February, OF THIS YEAR, he was still asking me if I wanted to get back together and work out our relationship. While he was actively dating Caroline! I assumed that he asked me, I said no and then he got with Caroline. So yeah. Totally a cheater and shady overall.

I got back to the table and was glad to see that my wine had appeared. Brendan was talking to them about the trip he was taking and Olivia’s dad was acting like a know-it-all with his recommendations even after Brendan told him that he’s already been to Montreal several times. Caroline came back to the table and I avoided eye contact with her. Maybe — if she was lucky — I’d explain my comment to her one day.

Olivia’s dad started speaking French with a crude accent which offended me and I’m not even French. Victoria was cringing and begged him to stop, but he and Brendan thought it was funny.

Suddenly Brady blurted out (rudely), “Reese, I never fucking cheated on you. Are you serious?”

The whole table quieted and looked at us. Oh, so Caroline left the bathroom and immediately told him what I said? Nice.

“I didn’t say you did,” I said which is technically true. I never said he cheated on me.

“You’re such a fucking child. Unbelievable. Are you ever going to grow up? Seriously! You’re such a liar,” Brady continued, sounding aggressive and heated.

“Do not speak to me like that,” I said calmly. What else was I supposed to say?

“Aren’t we a little old for your fucking games? Honestly. Grow the fuck up.”

Caroline just stared at me while her man yelled at me.

Finally Brendan said, “That’s enough.” He’d previously just been sitting there, sipping his drink and not saying anything.

“Fucking ridiculous,” Brady muttered under his breath.

“I think speaking that way to a woman is ridiculous,” Victoria said quietly to just us.

And while I completely agreed, couldn’t Brady have saved his little outburst for another time? Maybe a time when other people weren’t around to judge us (but mostly him)? Whether we liked it or not we were connected through Winnie and now we looked bad. Caroline continued to stare at me. I couldn’t wait to never speak to her again.

“Anyway,” I said loudly.

So, yeah. Brady and Caroline quickly downed the rest of their drinks, politely said goodbye and then left and we headed out after that. On the walk back to my apartment, I was like, “I am so embarrassed. I told you Brady is an asshole. I’m sorry about him, that was so unnecessary.”

Brendan said stuff like, “I agree that was rude, you don’t have to apologize, etc,” that made me think he was on my side. He was like, “If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s him.”

And I was like, “So true! Thanks!”

Winnie was already in bed when we got upstairs and Claire (babysitter) went into a 15 minute sob story about how she’s being treated unfairly at work. She was on the verge of tears. See what I mean? I just wanted to spend some time with my boyfriend before he went on his trip. Eventually I pretended to yawn and asked her to text the rest of it to me so I could go to bed (and she absolutely texted me the rest of the story in four long paragraphs).

So then Brendan and I went to my room and fooled around for a little bit and then we had sex. And it really bothered me because do you remember how I said previously that sex with Brendan is different because he takes his time and focuses on me and is just really sweet about it? Idk. But not this time. He got on top of me, fucked me hard until he was finished and then he started putting his clothes back on. I was like, uhh…okay.

Brendan cuddled me for a bit and then he said, “So did Brady cheat on you? You never told me that.”

So he just wanted to fuck quick so we could go back to talking about this?

“He didn’t. At least not that I can confirm,” I said. I don’t have any proof, but I’m pretty sure Brady did stuff behind my back.

“Then why did you tell Cara he did?” Brendan asked.

“Uh, I didn’t.  Are you just assuming that’s what I said or are you going to ask me?” I said.

So he wasn’t even there for the conversation, but believed Cara based on what he observed at the bar? How presumptuous!

“What did you say?”

“I told her that he’s a cheater,” I said simply.

“Well, why did you say that if he didn’t cheat on you? Were you just being mean?”

What the fuck?

“No! I said that because he’s a cheater and he’s cheated on her!” I exclaimed.

“Okay…” Brendan paused. “With you?”

“No!” I screamed. “Why are you questioning me about this? Why do you even care?”

“Just asking,” Brendan said innocently, like any of that was innocent.

“Thanks for immediately taking her side and assuming I’m the one being mean. You don’t even know her!”

“I’m not. That’s why I asked,” he said.

“This doesn’t concern you so you don’t have to ask!” I screamed/yelled. “God, I am so fucking annoyed!”

“Okay.”

I could tell Brendan was annoyed at me, but I was annoyed at him too. It was so unnecessary for him to come at me like that especially after I’d already been attacked by fucking Brady. He sat there for a few minutes not saying anything.

“I still need to finish packing and my flight is early,” he finally said.

“Yeah, I know you have an early flight. Goodbye!”

I laid in bed while Brendan finished getting dressed then he kissed me and left and didn’t talk to me at all while he was in Montreal.