Marcus doesn't have an illness. He's fine. Perfectly healthy as far as I know. Her face went through several expressions in rapid succession. Confusion is relief.
Anger, then back to confusion, cycling through emotions like someone trying to find the right key for a lock. Then why? Because I needed you to run. I interrupted. I needed you to panic.
I needed you to feel even for just a few hours the kind of fear that makes you question everything you thought you knew. She stood up. You're insane. You sent me to a clinic. Made me think I'd been exposed to some some disease.
Made me terrified that I'd she stopped abruptly realizing what she'd almost said. I leaned forward. That you'd what, Rachel? Caught something from Marcus. Because that's interesting phrasing.
Why would you assume you'd caught something from Marcus specifically, unless you were in a position to catch something from him? Unless you'd been close enough, intimate enough for that to be a concern. The color that had returned to her face drained away again. We didn't. I haven't.
Don't. I held up a hand. Please don't insult both of us by lying right now. We're past that. We're so far past that.
She sank back onto the couch and I watched her realize that this conversation wasn't going the way she'd expected. That she'd walked into something she couldn't charm or explain or rationalize her way out of. "How long have you known? " she whispered. "Which part? That you and Marcus have been texting each other at midnight for 6 months?
That you've been deleting messages from your phone but not from our cloud backup? That the work retreat was actually a couple's package at the Azure Bay Resort that he booked using his personal credit card? " I paused. Or that you've been lying to my face every single day, asking me about my day, kissing me good night, making plans for our anniversary while you were planning something entirely different with someone else. " Each question landed like a stone in still water, sending ripples across her face. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. Finally, I can explain.
I don't want you to explain. I stood up, walked to the window, watched rain run down the glass. Explanations are for misunderstandings. This wasn't a misunderstanding, Rachel. This was a choice.
Dozens of choices, actually. Every text, every deleted message, every lie about working late or going to the gym or needing space. Every single one was a choice you made to betray me. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Her voice was small, breaking.
It just it evolved. We were friends. We worked together every day. And he understood things about me that you that I what I turned from the window that I didn't understand, that I failed to provide. Go ahead, Rachel.
Tell me how this is somehow my fault. That's not what I meant then. What did you mean? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you got bored or restless or whatever it is people get when they decide that their marriage vows were more like marriage suggestions. And instead of talking to me, instead of fighting for us, you just I gestured vaguely toward her, toward the space where our marriage used to be, you just found someone easier.
She was crying now, proper tears streaming down her face, mixing with the rainwater. I'm sorry, God. James, I'm so sorry. It was stupid and selfish, and I never meant to hurt you. But you did hurt me.
You are hurting me. Every second you sit there trying to make yourself feel better with apologies that don't mean anything, you're hurting me. I walked to the bookshelf where I had hidden the folder, pulled it out, set it on the key table between us with a sound like a judge's gavvel. This is 6 months of evidence. Phone records, credit card statements, security footage from the office parking garage showing you leaving together at midnight on dates when you told me you were working late.
Screenshots of texts where you called him baby and where he told you what he wanted to do to you when you were finally alone. Rachel stared at the folder like it was a bomb. You've been spying on me. I've been protecting myself. I corrected.
There's a difference. You created this situation and I responded to it. Don't try to make me the villain in your story. She reached for the folder with a shaking hand, opened it, started flipping through pages. I watched her face as she saw it all laid out, the evidence of her betrayal, organized chronologically, highlighted, annotated.
I'd spent 14 days building this case with the thoroughess of a prosecutor preparing for trial. What are you going to do with this? She asked finally. That depends on what? On whether you're capable of telling me the truth.
The whole truth. Not the edited version you have been rehearsing on the drive home. Not the sanitized story where you minimize what happened and maximize my supposed failures as a husband. The actual complete truth about you and Marcus. She closed the folder, pressed her palms against it like she could somehow erase what was inside.
We slept together. The words hung in the air. Even though I'd known, had known for days, really. Hearing her say it out loud was different. It made it real in a way that evidence never could.
It transformed abstract betrayal into concrete fact. When my voice sounded distant to my own ears. The first time was in July after the company summer party. We'd both been drinking and he drove me home because you were out of town and I invited him in for coffee and I don't need the playbyplay. How many times total?
She hesitated. I don't know. Maybe maybe 10, 12 in the Bahamas trip. We were together the whole time. It wasn't a work retreat.
There was no conference. We just we wanted time alone away from everything. I nodded slowly, absorbing this. Did you use our savings account to pay for your half of the trip? The account we've been building for the down payment on a bigger house.
Her silence was answer enough. Okay. I walked back to my chair, sat down, picked up my book. You should pack a bag. What?