All Chapters of Loved by My Ex-husband's Rival. : Chapter 21 - Chapter 23

Dr. Mendel's office smelled excellent. Next to a stack of art books and a ceramic bowl full of smooth stones, the lemon oil diffuser sat on a side table. Angela had been coming here for six weeks, which was long enough for her to know that everything in the room had a purpose. The warm lighting was set up to soften the shadows, the comfortable chairs were angled so that they didn't feel like an interrogation, and the window looked out over a small garden where nothing had to bloom out of season.Angela took her sketchbook with her this morning. Dr. Mendel never told her to bring it, but the therapist had said once that sometimes the hands knew things the mouth hadn't learned to speak yet. Angela had begun leaving the sketchbooks on the side table after sessions. Dr. Mendel would look through them carefully before giving them back, never saying anything about the pictures themselves but sometimes bringing up a specific drawing weeks later, as if the drawings were a language they were b

Angela was twelve minutes late to the café, but she convinced herself that it was okay because of the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. The truth was more complicated: she had spent hours at home thinking of why this was a bad idea before eventually deciding to step out. She had been trying to convince herself that seeing Alex outside of work would be okay. Businesslike, formal, nothing more. The years had given her enough time to heal the emotional wound of Alex’s betrayal. That she could sit across from him and not remember exactly how she had felt when she found out he was cheating on her back in college. The way her stomach had dropped, the way the world had tilted sideways, the way she cried her heart out. The courtyard café at Silver Lake was just like Alex had said: plants spilling over every surface, a little water fountain, and furniture that didn't match yet looked like it had been carefully chosen. It should have been romantic. Angela was set on not feeling anything romantic