Corbraxicodone

Susan and I had "the talk" a few weeks later and became exclusive. That was when she told me how we really got together, or at least as much as she knew about it. Shelby had always been Susan's favorite student. And Susan had spent the last couple of years since Shelby had been in her class as kind of Shelby's mentor. Susan had handled all of those embarrassing girl things that Shelby went through while Darla was on the road. I up until that point had never known it. When Shelby had her first period, it had been Susan who helped her through it. By the time she'd gotten home that night she had pads and was lying down. I'd been amazed that she could handle it alone. I'd always thought that when it happened I'd have freaked out unless Darla was there, but Susan had handled it and done it well. Susan had become such a good friend to Shelby that when the divorce rolled around Shelby had schemed to get Susan and me together. However it happened, it worked. Over the next few months, I totally forgot about Darla. All of the pain of our divorce and her betrayal was behind us. I even started letting her come over to the house to pick up Shelby for their time together. Of course Shelby hated those Saturday visits with her mom and often tried to get out of them.

"Dad," she cheated on us. Why do I still have to spend any time with her, you don't," said Shelby.

"I'm not married to her anymore Shell, but she's still your mom," I quipped.

"Well Can I divorce her too?" snapped Shelby right back. "I mean she cheated on me too. Besides, I have a perfectly good step-mother lined up if you'd get off your butt and ask her, before someone else sweeps her off her feet. You're not getting any younger, and the prime days for me getting a younger brother or sister are getting away from us."

"Shelby, your mom is on the porch," I said. Darla knocked and then came in. At least start figuring out when you're going to do it and how, Daddy," said Shelby as she pulled on her pink suede Shelby GT500 jacket.

"How he's going to do what?" Darla asked her.

"Daddy's going to ask Susan to marry him," Shelby said cheerfully. Darla almost fell off the porch. I guess it was wrong of me, but I smiled just a bit when I saw Darla's obvious distress at Shelby's impromptu announcement. But she'd hurt me badly and I guess the thought of getting just a small chunk of revenge wasn't beneath my code of ethics.

A few minutes later the phone rang, I looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was Susan. "Hey Sweetie have you started washing the car without me?" she asked breathlessly.

"No Susan, I'm not going to start for about 2 hours, I have an errand to run," I lied.

"Well good. I went out for a run and ended up going farther than I intended and just got back. Can I still come over and help you wash it? Please kind Sir?" she begged. Since we became an item Susan was always using any excuse she could to come over, or to get me and Shelby over to her house. There were some weekends when she slept over or I did and we ended up spending the entire weekend within 3 feet of each other. Strangers often mistook the 3 of us for a family, with Susan and me, as the parents and Shelby, our daughter. I couldn't deny that she made me very happy, and hoped that I made her equally so. There were actually times that I was almost glad to have lost Darla and found Susan. It was like fate had seen that Shelby and I weren't really fulfilled in our life with Darla, and wanted us to have someone who wanted to be with us instead of always leaving us. It was at that moment that I decided that Shelby was right as usual. I dashed out of the house and jumped into the Laguna Mustang. I had to time this just right. I was counting on a lot of things to make this work perfectly. One of those things was the fact that Shelby rarely stayed with Darla for more than an hour before they started arguing and Darla had to bring her home.

I pulled into the mall that Shelby and Darla went to a lot and headed straight for the Kay jewelers there. I bought the prettiest engagement ring they had and told the jeweler that my fiancé would be in to have it sized if necessary. Then I looked around the mall until I spotted Darla and Shelby. They were sitting in the food court arguing about something. I waved so they could see me and went over. "Ladies forgive me for interrupting, but Shelby I need you home in one hour no later," I said. "Darla, I need to talk with you about something, could you come to the house Monday at about lunch time?"

They both agreed and I dashed back to the house to make my preparations. I got all of my car wash supplies out; including, my Turtle Wax Ice wax and all of my brushes, and gels and polishes and cleaners. Darla pulled up a short time later and let Shelby out of the car, still arguing. She smiled and waved at me, and then pulled off.

"Thank you so much Daddy for getting me away from that Bitch!" said Shelby.

"Language Shelby," I said softly.

"Sorry Daddy," she cooed. "Was there a real reason for me coming home early or just you rescuing me from a fate worse, than a fate worse than death?"

"Well Shell," I began. She looked at me and then turned her side sideways slightly, as if she was reading my mind.

"Daddy, you asked her!" she exclaimed. "Of course she said yes so..."

"Nope," I began. Before I could finish Shelby's innocent face twisted in front of me.

"What!," she said sharply. Suddenly I realized that I would never want to be on my daughter's bad side.

"I haven't asked her silly," I said. "How could I do it without you being here?" Shelby's face was back to normal in an instant. She was even happier than before. Not only would I do what I think she wanted from the beginning, but she'd be here to see it, and even help. I handed her the box with the ring in it, and she excitedly opened it.

"Holy shit, Daddy; it's beautiful" she exclaimed. "If this is the kind of things you're giving out, I'm marrying you next." She tried the ring on and stared at it. Then she pulled it off and slipped it back in my hand as Susan pulled up in her Jeep.

Susan in shorts was something to be seen. She had legs for days and used them to her best advantage. She walked over to me and looked Shelby straight in the face and smiled. "Do you mind?" she asked. When Shelby shook her head, Susan kissed me. It was one of those airport kisses. The kind of kiss, that people in love, that haven't seen each other for a very long time and have been missing each other awfully, give each other. The kind of kiss where time and everything around them simply ceases to matter because they're so locked in on each other.

"Uhm earth to parents; we have a car to wash here," said Shelby.

I got out the hose and Shelby busied herself, spraying foam wheel cleaner on all of the wheels. "What should I do?" asked Susan.

"There's a bucket of soap suds over there," I pointed at the bucket. "Could you run your fingers around the bottom of the bucket to make sure that all of the powder has dissolved?" I asked.

"It won't matter," said Susan showing off her science teacher muscles. "If the powder is heavy enough to settle to the bottom, we're not very likely to pick it up on our wash mitts."

"It'll matter Susan, trust me," said Shelby.

Susan reached down into the bottom of the bucket and ran her hands around it. She looked at us as if she was expecting one of the pranks we played on her so often. "Hey there's something weird in here," she said. She pulled the ring out and her eyes got huge. She turned and looked at us. Shelby and I were both down on one knee. "Will you marry us," we asked.

Susan dropped the bucket but held onto the ring, and held her arms out. "I guess I'll have to," she said. "If you guys are leaving stuff this big at the bottom of your wash buckets, you're going to scratch the crap out of that car."

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I went out last night to try and get drunk. I also looked around for someone to get drunk with. It didn't work of course. I've never really had any desire to sleep with any man other than my husband. Yeah I still call him that, even though he's married again and out on his honeymoon as I write this. Naturally they took my evil daughter with them on their fucking honeymoon. No matter what happens, I'll never stop loving Jim. If this doesn't work out for him, I'll be the first in line to try and snap him back up. In fact I hope it doesn't. I have to say though that he handled this with class. He called me over and we talked, and I was the first person other than him and Shelby to know that he'd asked Susan to marry him.

He finally let me have my say about my screwing around on him. I told him that I love him, and I always have. I told him that I'd never intended to cheat on him, but I just couldn't help myself. He still doesn't believe me about being drugged. I guess in his mind it's just too far-fetched. He still couldn't see how anyone would have a motive or gain anything from doing it. But he listened. I asked him to wait for a while before he got married, because after all of the time we'd been together, I deserved one chance to get my family back. I wanted him to take me out on a few dates, and if it didn't feel right, he could go ahead and marry Susan.

He sadly shook his head, and I realized that I'd lost him for good. He told me about how he first felt when he found out what I'd done. He talked about how devastated he was, and how if he hadn't had Shelby depending on him, what he might've done. He told me how his feelings alternated between finding me and beating the shit out of me, and finding me and fucking the shit out of me to take back what was his. But he realized that he couldn't do either, because neither would work. If he beat me up or killed me, he'd go to jail and Shelby would be left alone. If he fucked my brains out he'd still be left with a wife he couldn't trust. And he was no wimp, but every time he saw me he just melted because he loved me so much and for so long that he knew if he saw me he wouldn't have the strength to stay away from me. Shelby had convinced him that the best thing for his sanity was just to never see me again. That's why he'd refused all of the meetings with me.

Then he told me what he and Shelby had been feeling all of those times when I'd leave them to go on the road. He told me how he'd met Susan and fallen in love with her. He told me how the three of them just love spending time together and wished that it had been like that for us. Maybe none of this would have ever happened if I hadn't been on the road so much. We both actually listened to what each other had to say, and he told me that he wanted us to be friends. He told me that I not Susan was Shelby's mother, and whether Shelby knew it or not there would always be a place in their lives and their hearts for me. He even gave me the keys to look after their house while they were gone.

I was looking through their house, even though I knew I shouldn't. But I wanted to find out what my daughter was into. What she liked and didn't like. I was hoping it would give me a way to make peace with her. It just wasn't natural for a mother and daughter to hate each other the way I felt Shelby hated me. She sure didn't hate Susan that way. Then I found them, hidden way at the back of Shelby's desk drawer, and I started crying. My daughter really did hate me. And she had hated me for a longer period of time and with far more venom than I'd ever imagined. I knew that Jim would never believe me, but I had been outplayed from the beginning, and I had proof. It wasn't a gun, or a voodoo doll with my name on it that made me realize this. It was a small bottle, in my daughter's desk drawer with one word on the label. Corbraxicodone.

Kharma is a bitch, I thought. Asshole's words had come back to haunt me. I'd had 2 years of fucking around out on the road and not thinking about who I'd hurt. Even though I'd never sought to cheat, I also hadn't stopped going out when it happened, or come clean. Even if I had been drugged, I could have just stopped going out and scratched my itch with Jim, who'd have been more than willing. So at least some of the blame was mine. In the end Kharma had exacted her price. The one I'd hurt among others, turned out to be me. Kharma's price for a lot of unfulfilling sex, was my marriage, and the man I knew that I would always love. Was it worth it? Hell no, not nearly. The worst part of all was when asshole said that the instrument of my downfall would be somebody's kid, he'd been right on the money. I had no idea though and I'm sure he didn't either that somebody's kid would be my own.