"Sure. You go ahead. I'm going to grab another drink." She went back to the living room. I watched her sit back down next to him, immediately leaning in close again, resuming whatever conversation I'd interrupted.
She didn't look back at me once. I set my beer down on the kitchen counter and walked out the front door. Didn't say goodbye to anyone. Just left.
Update One.
I drove home in complete silence. No music, no podcasts, just the sound of my thoughts getting louder with every mile. My phone started buzzing around 10:15. I didn't look at it.
When I got home, I did something I'd never done before. I went to her laptop, the one she leaves open on the dining table because she has nothing to hide. I opened her message app, which was still logged in. I found their conversation thread immediately.
It went back four months. Four months. At first, it was work stuff, then inside jokes, then complaints about me. "He's been so distant lately."
"He doesn't get my humor anymore." The kind of thing you say when you're building a narrative to justify what comes next. And what came next was exactly what I suspected. Plans to meet up for lunch that she never mentioned to me.
Late-night conversations that happened after I went to bed. Photos she sent him that she never posted publicly. Nothing explicit, but intimate in a way that made my stomach turn. One message from three weeks ago.
"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we'd met first." His response: "We still could find out." Her response: "Lol, maybe." Not no.
Not, "I have a boyfriend." Just maybe with a laughing emoji, like it was all a fun hypothetical. I took photos of everything with my phone and sent them to my email. Then I closed the laptop and sat in the dark living room waiting.
My phone had 15 missed calls and about 30 texts by the time I looked at it. The messages started concerned, then confused, then angry. "Where did you go?" "Hello?"
"This is so immature. Everyone is asking where you are. You're embarrassing me. Fine."
"I'll get a ride home from someone else." That last message came through at 11:20. I didn't respond to any of them. At 12:47 a.m., I heard a car pull up outside.
Voices. Her laugh. That same laugh from earlier. I looked out the window and saw him.
He'd driven her home. They sat in the car for almost 10 minutes. I watched them talk, watched her touch his arm, watched him lean in close. Then she got out, waved, and he drove off.
She came in through the front door, saw me sitting in the dark living room, and jumped. "Jesus, you scared me. Why are you sitting in the dark?" "Waiting for you."
"Why didn't you answer your phone? I was worried." "Were you?" She frowned at my tone.
"What's your problem?" "You tell me. How was the ride home?" "It was fine."
"He was nice enough to drive me since you abandoned me." "Abandoned you?" I repeated. "That's an interesting way to describe leaving a party where my girlfriend was sitting in another man's lap."
"Oh my God. We're back to this. I already explained." "I saw the messages."