She looked terrible. Red eyes, no makeup, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Part of me, the part that had loved her for 12 years, wanted to comfort her. The rest of me remembered why she looked this way. "He's not coming," she said before I could ask.
"Marcus, he said this is between us, that he doesn't want to get in the middle of our marriage. " I almost smiled at that. That's convenient. Getting in the middle of our marriage was fine when it involved Caribbean vacations and midnight texts, but now that there's consequences, he's suddenly principled on about boundaries. He's scared, Rachel said quietly. You have to understand, James.
He never meant for this to I don't have to understand anything about what Marcus meant or didn't mean. But fine, he's not here. Well do this with justice. I gestured to the dining room. Sit.
She saw the folders laid out on the table and went pale. What is all this? Sit down, she sat. I took the chair across from her, the table between us like a demilitarized zone. For a moment, we just looked at each other.
Husband and wife, stranger and stranger. Before we start, I said, I need you to understand something. Everything I'm about to show you, everything I know, I discovered on my own. I didn't hire a private a private investigator. I didn't hack your accounts.
I just paid attention. I checked the phone records we both have access to. I looked at credit card statements for accounts we jointly own. I recovered texts from cloud backups we both use. Everything was right there.
Rachel, you just assumed I'd never look. She was crying again. Silent tears tracking down her face. I'm so sorry. Stop apologizing and start explaining.
Start with July, the company summer party. You told me you got a ride home with Sarah from accounting. I lied. I know you lied. I want to hear you say what actually happened.
I want to hear you tell the truth for once. She took a shaky breath. Marcus drove me home. We'd been flirting for weeks, maybe months. Nothing physical, just there was this tension between us.
And that night, we'd both been drinking and he drove me home and I invited him in. I told myself it was just coffee, just a night cap. But I knew somewhere deep down I knew what I was inviting. Go on. We kissed in the kitchen right there where you make me breakfast.