The noise seemed strangely loud.
Nobody spoke.
I folded the board.
Placed it over the pieces.
Closed the lid.
Rachel appeared at the end of the hallway.
Her eyes were red.
Cole remained several steps behind her.
I rested one hand on the box.
“Game’s over.”
Nobody moved.
I walked toward the entryway and took my jacket from the hook.
Rachel crossed the room.
“Mark, wait.”
I pulled on my jacket.
“Please.”
I looked at her.
There were a hundred questions available.
How long?
Was that the first kiss?
Why did you invite him?
Did you want me to see?
Did everybody at work know?
Were those condoms his?
Had he been inside our bedroom before?
Why humiliate me in front of my own friends?
But something became clear.
Questions could become negotiations.
Explanations could become loopholes.
Rachel had already spent the evening teaching me that whatever I saw could be renamed if she talked long enough.
I did not want to debate my own eyes.
So I opened the door.
She grabbed the edge of my sleeve.
I pulled away gently.
“Mark.”
I said nothing.
Then I walked into the hallway.
The elevator was taking too long.
I used the stairs.
I had reached the fifth floor when the apartment door opened somewhere above me.
“Mark!”
Rachel’s voice echoed down the stairwell.
I kept walking.
“Please come back!”
I reached the lobby.
December air rushed across my face when I stepped outside.
It was cold enough to hurt.
I welcomed it.
I walked without knowing where I planned to go.
Three blocks.
Then six.
Then almost a mile.
My phone kept vibrating.
Rachel.
Olivia.
Rachel again.
Ben.
Then a number I did not recognize.
I assumed Cole.
I blocked it without reading the message.
Eventually I found a twenty-four-hour diner near Colfax Avenue.
I sat in a booth beside the window and ordered coffee.
I never drank it.
At 12:42 a.m., Olivia texted.
I’m sorry. I had no idea.
Another message arrived a few minutes later.
For what it’s worth, everybody thought the lap thing crossed a line.
That made me feel worse.
I did not want witnesses confirming my humiliation.
I wanted to rewind the night until there was nothing to confirm.
Rachel called again.
I turned off my phone.
At two-thirty in the morning, I checked into a cheap hotel.