Free Diary of a Mistress by Miasha

the phone for? Tell him I’ll be home when I’m ready to be home!” Monica shouted loud enough for Carlos to hear her in the background.
    “You heard her?” Rita asked Carlos.
    “Hang up the phone, Rita!” Monica shouted again.
    “You heard her. I have to go,” Rita said to Carlos, and hung up in his ear.
    Monica turned to Rita and asked, “What the hell does he care if I read the rest of the diary for? It can’t get any worse.”
    “What good is it doing you, though? Some things are better left unknown, don’t you think?” Rita asked, trying again to get Monica to stop reading.
    “Rita, if you had a husband and a woman sent you something like this, you would read the whole thing too, maybe even twice. Yeah, it hurts like hell to find out so much and in such detail, but as a woman, as a wife, you would just want to know everything, especially if you never suspected anything,” Monica explained.
    Rita accepted Monica’s explanation and gave up trying to get her to close the diary. “Well, can I get you something? Some water?” Rita asked.
    “Yes, a glass of water, please,” Monica said as she reopened the diary.
    Dear Diary,
    I didn’t think I would be visiting Florida again so soon. But when Carlos asked me for moral support, I had to attend his mother’s funeral. I must admit, I was jealous. Carlos sat up front with his wife and their sons. They looked like a happy family, and the way Carlos was with his sons made me wish he had chosen to be that way with our child. Hell, he didn’t even know we had a child. He thought I aborted the baby. I sat in the back of the funeral home and paid my respects quietly. I didn’t go up to view the body. I was just there for Carlos. I couldn’t understand his logic for wanting me there while his wife was there, but I was so deeply in love with him that it didn’t even matter. If he wanted me somewhere, I was going to be there. I just wondered if he felt the same way. Anyway, after the funeral, Carlos and his family went to their hotel. Carlos had set it up for me to have a room a few floors up from them. Although I was the third leg, I found it quite exciting. He came up to my room in the middle of the night. He had told his wife that he went out for drinks with his brother. I wondered if he felt any guilt. I was beginning to peel away the bullshit with Carlos. When we first got together, he convinced me that he was so unhappy with her that he was seeking a divorce. But that was damn near four years ago, and his ass still hasn’t signed no papers. Plus, I can tell that he’s happy with his wife just by the way he looked at her at the funeral. It’s like they just met when he looks at her. So I tried not to think of a future with Carlos like I did in the past. I tried to convince myself that our relationship was much better and much more fun with no strings attached. I tried to hold back my feelings and just look at my affair with Carlos as a roller-coaster ride. It would be thrilling. It would be a bit bumpy. It would be fun. And it would be brief.
    Rita placed a glass of water on the end table beside Monica.
    “Rita, do you remember any women at Carlos’s mother’s funeral who were alone?” Monica quizzed as she sipped the water.
    Rita frowned as she thought back to the funeral.
    “I hardly remember anybody at that funeral. That was over a year ago, why?”
    “She was there,” Monica said calmly as she continued reading.
     
    The sun was going down. The staff members at Taylor’s had their hands full with condiments and leftover food as they led the residents inside the building.
    “I had so much fun,” Angela told Vanessa as they walked side by side through the automatic doors.
    “It was fun, wasn’t it,” Vanessa agreed. “I ain’t partied that hard since my college days.”
    “You and me both. I needed that. I feel like a whole new woman,” Angela said.
    “That’s good. Hopefully the judge will let you go home tomorrow.”
    “Wouldn’t