Putting things in order.

You swing back home—well, back to Niall’s—to pick up your kit. He’s not there, though on the evidence he has been home since you left. You scribble a couple lines to let him know you probably won’t be around tonight or tomorrow, then head out to take care of some personal and professional business. Among other things, you had just started househunting yesterday, and there’s an open house for a place you think looks very promising. It’s not a huge house, but it looks well-laid-out and well-maintained, and it’s in a good neighborhood with a larger lot than the usual. Of course, it’s on the higher end of the local market, but you can afford it. You make a lot of money, and one thing you haven’t been covering the last four years is April’s house payments. She’s a control freak in some ways, and she wanted her house firmly in her hands.

That thought starts you reflecting on your situation. This morning you were unhappy and depressed, but now, what do you have to be unhappy about? Obviously, when you woke up you couldn’t have known what was going to happen, so April’s rejection of you stood unchallenged at the center of your life; but now? You’re in a new relationship with a younger woman who suits you better—and is, let’s face it, even hotter, and maybe even hornier.

Except, better yet, it isn’t really a new relationship at all. It’s new as a sexual relationship, but you’ve known and loved her for more than five years. Granted, it hasn’t really been a relationship of equals, but you’ve always tried to treat her as an equal, even when she was the half-coordinated teenager you were helping learn to drive. She appreciated that, and blossomed in it. April’s smart, but you would always have admitted that she isn’t intellectually curious; Amber’s smarter, and she learned from you to be interested in and curious about the world around her. You’ve had a lot of one-on-one time with her over the years, and you found her stimulating to talk to and enjoyable to be with long before you ever laid hands on her tits. The future’s never certain, as April reminded you four days ago, but you have as strong a base for building a healthy lifelong relationship with Amber as ever might be.

Now that you have Amber, what have you lost? Nothing, really. You have all the inconvenience of moving, which you hate, but it will pass and you’ll live. Your business isn’t affected, and none of your friends have broken off with you. You’ve even gotten some messages from people who were more April’s friends that they still consider you their friend, too. They aren’t willing to challenge her openly, but they all seem to figure that once a little time has passed, they’ll be able to spend time with you without setting her off. You haven’t lost any of your stuff, except perhaps for a few trivial things. You’ll have a house payment, but for you, that’s not a problem, it’s more like a diversification of your investment portfolio.

Really, the only negative that remains is that she rejected you—and you realize, to your bemusement, that her rejection really doesn’t hurt all that much anymore. You knew Amber’s release had been more than just sexual; now you can see that yours was as well. April rejected you, but Amber rejected her mother to affirm you and to claim you, and she did it in a way that more than offset her mother’s action. Suddenly, you don’t hate April anymore, and you’re not angry at her anymore; oddly enough, you feel sorry for her. It’s not that you think you’re so wonderful, but you see her as her daughter sees her: shallow, self-obsessed, and unable to appreciate the people whom she has around her. Amber’s right: her path won’t end well.

*******

You tour the house and are pleased to find it even better than you had thought from the listing. You decide to make an offer on it, and talk to the realtor before you leave. If all goes well, you think, you’ll have a house before Niall gets tired of having you as a guest.

You stop at a local coffee shop before heading back to Amber’s house. You still have a couple calls to make, and you’ll be glad of a little caffeine. You can bring something home to Amber, too—and you smile to realize that you already think of going to be with her as going home.

You order your drink and sit down in a high-backed booth to enjoy it and make your calls. When you’re done on the phone, you spend a while sipping meditatively and musing on the state of your life. Really, you’re so much better off than you were a week ago that you start to think of April as having done you a favor. Not that she intended to—your opinion of her is no higher than it was yesterday—but that’s how it worked out. What do you have to be upset about? If you could go back and change April’s mind, would you? No way on earth.

With that thought, you take your last swallow and stand up. Suddenly, you hear a familiar voice.