Did you see this one from July 23rd? I had I had seen them all, including the one he was looking at where Rachel told Marcus that I was safe but boring and that being with him made her feel alive again. That one had been particularly hard to read at 3:00 in the morning while she was swimming in the Caribbean with the man who made her feel alive. I saw it, I said simply. And you still want to do this face to face?
You could just file for divorce. Let the lawyers handle everything. I could, but I need to see his face when he realizes I know everything. I need to watch them try to explain this while sitting in the house they betrayed. I need I stop trying to find the right words.
I need to witness this, David. Not as revenge, as closure, as confirmation that I'm not crazy for feeling betrayed, that what happened actually happened the way I think it did. He nodded slowly. I get it. I'll stay if you want backup.
No, this needs to be just the three of us, but thank you. At exactly 2:00, Rachel's car pulled up. She sat in the driver's seat for a long moment before getting out. No, Marcus. She walked to the door alone, knocked softly even though she still had her keys, waited for me to let her in like a guest in her own home.
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.
And then we we went upstairs to our bedroom to our bed. She was sobbing now, the words coming in gasps. Afterwards, I told myself it was a mistake, that it would never happen again. But then he texted me the next day and we met for lunch. And it just it kept happening once a week, sometimes more.
Hotels mostly. Sometimes his apartment when his roommate was traveling using money from our joint account. Yes. Money we were saving for a house. Yes.
Money we were saving for the family we were trying to start. She flinched like I'd struck her. Yes. I opened the first folder, slid it across the table to her. This is every text message between you and Marcus for the past 6 months.
I've highlighted the ones where you discuss me, the ones where you complained about our marriage, the ones where you planned your future together. She looked at the folder like it might bite her. I can't I can't read these. Yes, you can. Because I had to read them.
I had to sit in this house alone while you were in the Bahamas and read every single message. Where you told another man things you should have told me. Where you shared intimacies with him that belonged to our marriage. Where you built a whole separate relationship while I was here trusting you. James, please read it.
All of it. I want you to see what you did from the outside. I want you to understand that this wasn't a mistake or a moment of weakness. This was a sustained campaign of deception. This was you choosing over and over again to betray me.
She opened the folder with shaking hands, started reading. I watched her face cycle through emotions, shame, regret, recognition, horror, watched her see herself through my eyes, see her betrayal documented and highlighted and undeniable. There's more, I said when she was halfway through. I slid her the second folder. Credit card statements, hotel reservations, restaurant receipts, a financial record of your affair paid for with our money.
She looked at the numbers, the dates, the paper trail of her lies. I'll pay it back every cent. I'll get a second job. All this isn't about money. I pulled the third folder toward me.
Didn't open it yet. This is about truth. About making sure that when this is over, when we're divorced and divided and dealing with the wreckage, the record is clear. You didn't leave because I was a bad husband. You didn't cheat because I neglected you.
You made choices, Rachel. Conscious, deliberate choices to long and betray and destroy what we built. I know, she whispered. I know what I did. Do you?