I did not take his hand.
“Do not call me buddy.”
He sat.
For once, he did not look intimidating.
He looked desperate.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“That's lie number two.”
His expression tightened.
“I care about Melissa.”
“Then call her.”
“She blocked me.”
That surprised me.
Cole leaned forward.
“Tell me where she is.”
I almost laughed.
“You came to the husband whose marriage you helped destroy because your girlfriend stopped answering you?”
His face reddened.
“She won't talk to me.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“Please.”
“No.”
He stared.
“What do you want from me?”
I thought about the question.
Three weeks earlier, I might have wanted to hurt him.
Now I wanted something different.
“Nothing.”
He looked confused.
“I want absolutely nothing from you.”
The gym owner approached from behind him.
“Cole. Office.”
Cole turned.
Greg’s expression said the conversation was over.
His employment ended shortly afterward.
The professional coaching association received the complaint.
Whether Cole could eventually work somewhere else was not my concern.
I stopped following the story.
I already had enough of my own to rebuild.
Chapter 15: Melissa’s Letter
Two weeks after the separation, an envelope appeared beneath my door.
Six handwritten pages.
Melissa.
I almost threw it away.
Then I read it.
According to her, everything had begun after the weight loss.
At work, a coworker named Vanessa started telling Melissa she looked too good for the life she had. Vanessa was single, constantly involved with married men, and treated fidelity like a weakness people performed because they lacked better opportunities.
Melissa liked the compliments.
Then she liked the attention at the gym.
Vanessa kept feeding the new version of her.
You deserve a more exciting man.
Nathan is insecure because he knows you can do better.
He wants to control you now that other men notice you.
The Smith-machine argument became proof.
When I asked Melissa to leave the original gym with me, Vanessa told her I had shown my “real controlling side.”
Melissa started resenting me.
Then, months later, she saw Cole at the shopping center.
He approached.
They had coffee.
Then lunch.
Then he told her he had always wanted her.
Melissa wrote that she knew exactly where the situation was heading.
She went anyway.
The first time happened that day.
Nine months before I caught them.
Vanessa taught her how to hide it.
Do not change your phone password.
That creates suspicion.
Use a female contact name.
Delete most conversations.
Use work phrases as code.
Leave your phone at the gym so location history remains believable.
Everything I had spent a year interpreting as evidence I was paranoid had been deliberately engineered to make me doubt myself.
That was the part I hated most.
Not the sex.
The gaslighting.
Melissa wrote that every time I tried harder to repair our marriage, she felt guilt.
Instead of stopping, she withdrew from me because avoiding my affection made cheating easier.