Breaking Free: The Broken Hearts Club Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Breaking Free

  Michele Barlow

  Coffee, Friends, and Tales of Woe

  Copyright © 2017 by Michele Barlow

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Jacqueline Sweet

  Last Page Publishing

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Connect with Michele

  Also by Michele Barlow

  Chapter 1

  A true friend is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes your smile.

  Luna was doing her best to control the panic attack that was building inside her chest. She was sitting in the back section at an IHOP with the women she would forever call her soul mates.

  One of her friends was leaving and it felt like she had been punched in the gut. She was happy for her friend Cambry, and wanted the best for her, and it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t see her anymore, just not as often.

  She still had Dawn, Waverly, Elena, Adalyn, Paisley, Claire, Gianna and her friend Evie and now Cambry who had moved away. The miles that separated them didn’t dampen their friendship, and she hoped it never would.

  The one thing that was always a constant, was that even if people left their group, there was always someone new that needed to find solace.

  Luna’s purse was sitting in her lap and she could feel the vibration of her phone through the fabric. Another buzz. Text messages from her ex-husband’s family. They sent them to her regularly, even though they had refused to speak to him.

  They blamed her for all of their troubles. It was her fault that their son, brother, grandson, was the way he was. She must have done something to break him. That was the only logical explanation for his drastic life changes, and they needed to blame someone. They picked Luna, and for some reason she took their anger and hurt and held it close to her. She shouldn’t, it was obvious that they were using her as their punching bag and she shouldn’t put up with it. But Luna hadn’t forgiven herself for her part in her failed marriage, so why should they?

  So, she read their messages and she’d apologize. She had been doing it for months and months. The messages never got better, and they never got kinder. Her moments with her support group were the only time she felt whole again. They made her feel like she was a good person and they gave her those moments of clarity that reminded some part of her that she was worthy of their affection.

  Without her friends, Luna didn’t want to think of where she might have ended up.

  Two years earlier

  “What are you saying? Al, I don’t understand. You aren’t making any sense.”

  Luna felt like her brain was exploding and her heart was shattering. Her husband of six years was asking for a divorce.

  “Lulu, you do know what I’m saying. It’s not like you haven’t considered it.”

  “Of course not, you’re my husband. Why would I ever think that?”

  Her stomach was aching and she couldn’t let the words out to confirm what he was saying. She hadn’t let herself think it, although plenty of people had brought it up to her. She’d tried laughing it off, and then she had become angry and indignant. How dare they suggest her marriage wasn’t happy and perfect?

  “Because you’re smart, you’re not stupid. I can’t keep doing this, Lulu. I need to be honest for the both of us.”

  “Is there someone else?” Dear god, what if there was someone else? Another person who had stolen her man away. Someone who had convinced him to leave her? Where was the bitch? Luna would tear her a new one.

  “Honey, it’s not that there is someone else, it’s that I need to be someone else different. I’m not saying this is new, or maybe my acceptance of it is. You know how I was raised. This is not something I even allowed myself to think about. I was even willing to live with you happily for the rest of my life. I love you so much, Lulu, I’m just not in love with you.”

  Luna felt each word like a knife to the heart. It’s not you, it’s me. Except this one burned a little harder. I love you, I’m just not in love with you. That meant the love he was feeling for her was in his head, not his heart.

  “What will people say?” She hated uttering those words, but there were so many things going through her mind that it was just the first thing that popped out. There was also explaining to everyone why they broke up. Listening to the ‘I told you so’s.’ People looking at her like it was her fault. Which in a way, it was. She wasn’t his type.

  “Luna, you will say whatever you need to. Everyone is going to give their fucking opinion and I don’t give a shit about them. My only concern is you. I don’t want to live a life without you. I’d understand if you never wanted to see me again. I don’t know if I could forgive someone for breaking my heart either. I just need something else in my life.”

  “Like what? Dick?”

  Luna knew the words were cruel. She wanted him to hurt the same way she was. She did love him. Her heart didn’t feel whole without him. How was she going to breathe if he was gone?

  “Maybe? I know that I need to be true to myself. And Lulu, that is only secondary to wanting you to have everything you deserve.”

  “I deserve for us to be together!”

  “No, you deserve to have a man who loves you heart and soul. Someone that can give you what I can’t.”

  “Our sex life was… okay.”

  “Yeah, just okay. You deserve someone that will rock your world. That will make you crave them like a drug. I can’t be that man for you. I never will be that.”

  “But I’m fine with what we have! You know sex isn’t that important to me.” Luna had decided a long time ago that not everyone has to have fireworks in the bedroom. Maybe she just wasn’t built that way. Maybe for her it was more about the cuddling and comfort. She had tons of that from Al. In fact, he was a master cuddler. True, there wasn’t a lot of spice in their relationship, but there were so many other things that made up for it. At least in Luna’s mind.

  “Lulu, that breaks my heart, because sex is important. It’s healthy and normal to crave the person you’re with. We schedule sex because we think it’s been too long. That isn’t love, it’s obligation. I want more for you, and for me, honestly. I need to find a man that I love and that loves me. I’m gay and it’s taken me way too long to be able to say that out loud. You are the first person I could even think of saying t
hat to, because I know that you love me.”

  He had her there, she did love him. She also needed him so much. The air that was in her lungs had been used up and there didn’t seem to be enough air left in the world for her to refill them.

  She didn’t know what else to say to him. So she cried. Silently. Her world was crashing down around her and there was no hope for her future to change.

  6 months later

  “Luna, I’m not saying you haven’t made progress. We have been going over the same things for six months without any change in your attitude.”

  Luna wanted to glare at her therapist, but the woman had helped her so much she couldn’t start acting like her input was new.

  “Maybe my attitude isn’t the one that needs changing?” Luna was sweet, normally. Her family and friends always talked about how kindhearted she was. That she didn’t swear, that she barely drank. She was the first person to volunteer for something. Overall, a goody two-shoes.

  “You really think that we can change everyone else? Your friends and family? We can get all of them to change their opinions. Are you still taking their calls? Reading their messages?”

  “Maybe,” she said, picking at an imaginary speck of lint on her pants. “Why do I have to do all the work?” That sounded shockingly petulant and childish, but it fit since she was sitting with her arms crossed and scuffing her Birkenstock foot across the floor.

  “Because my job is to get you to a better place. I want you to be happy and healthy. I’m sorry, but the rest of your family doesn’t pay my rate.”

  “No, my ex does. How effed up is that?”

  “Luna, we talked about being honest with our words. If you want to say fuck you should say it.”

  Luna frowned. She didn’t want to say ‘fuck.’ It wasn’t a nice word. It also didn’t make her feel any better. She’d tried saying it before in the mirror, and just felt silly.

  “I don’t want to say the F-word. I don’t want to have to say it. I don’t want to be the type of woman that swears and turns their husband gay!”

  Her therapist gave her a long look over her glasses. “You know we’ve also agreed to stop blaming yourself for someone else’s sexual orientation. You didn’t make him gay; he was gay before you met him.”

  “Hah! His parents don’t think that. They want to know what I did to him. Can you believe that? Like I did some voodoo hex or something to make him want muscled beefcake over a nice pair of boobs. Did I tell you that he’s seeing someone from his gym? He goes to the gym now, and tans. He TANS!”

  Luna wasn’t upset that Al was getting fit, or that he had decided that early onset skin cancer was worth tanning for. But he had moved on. He was dating a man named Toby who was an attorney. They met during a spin class and went out for mojitos. The rest was gay history.

  “He sounds like he’s happy.”

  “He says he is,” she murmured. They still lived together even though the divorce was final. He knew she couldn’t afford the mortgage on their house alone, so he had stayed while they put it up on the market. It was going to get a good price when it sold and that should have made her happy, but it didn’t.

  “I’m… angry.”

  “Good, what about specifically. That he’s happy?”

  “No, I love him too much to deny him that. I’m angry that he’s being so kind to me. Like I’m going to crack or have a meltdown. I haven’t actually had a meltdown, not really. But he won’t bring Toby over; even though I told him I didn’t care.”

  “But you do care. You don’t really want to see him being happy with someone else. You want him to be happy; you just aren’t in a place to see it. He seems to know that about you.”

  He did know that. He had always known what she needed and when. Being in tune with her feelings was never a problem for him.

  “Well, it’s sweet and annoying. I’m not effing fragile!”

  “Aren’t you? You haven’t given yourself permission to grieve yet.”

  “Grieve? He’s not dead; he’s just… into guys.”

  “You need to grieve the loss of the future you had planned out. The loss of the work you put into your marriage. You have suffered a loss that can’t be fixed, but one that can be learned from. You had your whole life mapped out, and now you don’t. You’ve been left in limbo while the man you loved has found someone new. What is Luna going to do to move on?”

  “I don’t want to grieve. It’s weak and we are both still alive and I should be grateful for that.”

  “Yes, you can be grateful for that while still acknowledging the fact that your marriage has died.”

  Damn, that was brutal. Her marriage was dead, and she should be grieving. Now what?

  Another 6 months later

  There was a feeling that couldn’t be put into words. It was when a group of women came together to create a village out of the kindness of their hearts. Her friends were an army of support, love, laughter, and affection. On the fateful day when her therapist had uttered the words, ‘your marriage is dead;’ Luna finally started to feel the pain. She took her doctor’s advice and joined a loss group. She thought it would be only for women whose spouses or family members had died, but it turned out to be so much bigger. The women circled around her and validated every thought she had been pushing away as crazy or improper. They hosted a spa night to remind her that she was beautiful and sexy, and that any man would be grateful to have her. Any straight man that was.

  They had taken her to boxfit class to help her get out some pent up anger and aggression that stemmed from the feelings of betrayal that her ex had let the lie go on for so long. Then they hosted a bachelorette party to remind her that she had a future ahead of her, and being single and ready to mingle could be embraced and enjoyed.

  Her squad had given her some mojo back. And as long as it was just them, she could talk the talk and walk the walk. Alone, her true feelings didn’t always match up with her bravado. There were times that everything she had gone through felt like an overwhelming vise, squeezing the air out of her. Her therapist said they were panic attacks, and had given her a prescription to help combat them. It was a reminder that on the outside, she looked fixed, but on the inside, there were still some parts that were more than a little broken.

  Chapter 2

  Hair slivers, a little known side effect from cutting hair. It’s just like a real wood or metal sliver, just so much harder to remove. Hairdressers got used to them, it was all part of the pain of the normal day-to-day business of using sharp scissors and trimming human hair.

  Luna had stopped cutting herself a while ago. It still happened when she got distracted, or when someone called her name. But it was a rarity that she now appreciated. You could never keep that cut clean or dry. It was a lingering pain.

  Lingering pain. It was funny how you could make something like that a regular part of your life. Pain that didn’t fade. It would often morph or change. Sometimes you could even forget about it long enough to be distracted by something else. But it was there, hiding in the background waiting for a chance to poke its head up again.

  “Luna, your two o’clock is here.”

  Luna looked over at her receptionist, Larissa. She was just finishing up with Mildred, one of her favorite customers. She came in once a week to get a wash and set. Luna’s days usually involved a mix of men and women, cuts, trims, and lots of color. It was comforting knowing that once a week she got to wash and curl a ninety-year-old woman’s hair and gossip about the people in her retirement home.

  “Thanks, Rissa; tell her I’ll just be a moment.”

  Luna could feel the sickening panic well up inside her. It wasn’t that her next appointment was bad. She couldn’t actually say why her skin started to feel clammy; her breathing would get short and rapid. It was a hangover from stifling her feelings for so long.

  She had refused to let her mind accept her reality so she pushed it away, but her body was smarter than that and had started manifesting physical reactions to displ
ay what was going on in her head. She’d spent months on anti-anxiety medication and had been trying to wean herself off them for a while. At least while she was at work. They made her distant and slow. That wouldn’t work for a busy hair salon.

  Luna had opened Salon Luna six months earlier. It had been a lifelong dream to open her own salon. It wasn’t big, just six chairs in a strip mall located in the suburbs of Denver. She had decorated it like a high-end salon but did it with a garage sale budget, with a good eye for value.

  It was a huge step for Luna that was only possible because of a year’s worth of therapy and another year’s worth of support from some of the best friends a woman could have.

  “Miss Mildred, I declare you are looking prettier and prettier every day."

  Luna turned around to see Al, Alton now, schmoozing with Miss Mildred. The only reason she had her dream salon was because of Al and Toby. It wasn’t so hard a pill to swallow now. Her friends were helping her to appreciate the gifts and opportunities that had been presented to her. Maybe all the pain she had gone through was because this is where she was supposed to be.

  After she and Al had sold their house, she had made enough on her share to buy a smaller house in an older part of town that she was turning into her own little haven. She had been able to put down almost half the asking price, and now she had a small mortgage that was easily manageable.

  After Al and Toby had been together a while that they approached her with the idea of opening the salon. Al had gotten his cosmetology degree and was blossoming into the world of makeup, and eyelash extensions, and had goals to learn cosmetic tattooing.