Homewrecker: Meet me at the Desert Drip in twenty minutes.
I drain the rest of my wine, shove my phone in my bag, and grab my keys before I can talk myself out of it.
The drive is a blur: red lights, brake lights, my own reflection in the rearview looking like someone I don’t quite recognize. By the time I pull into the lot, my mouth is dry, my hands gripping the steering wheel like I’m bracing for impact.
Elaine is already there. Leaning against the hood of a black sedan, arms crossed, hair catching in the late sun, looking just as shattered as me.
I square my shoulders, step out, and shut the door harder than I mean to. “You have one shot,” I tell her, voice flat. “Make it worth it.”
She doesn’t answer. Just pushes off the car and heads toward the door, holding it open like this is a meeting between friends.
Inside, The Desert Drip smells like dark roast and cinnamon. The low hum of conversation wraps around us, a cover for words neither of us wants to be saying.
Elaine orders a black coffee. I ask for a prickly pear latte; I know I won’t drink it. We take the corner booth—the one with the chipped tabletop and the view of the parking lot, far from curious ears.
She sets her cup down, fingers curling around the heat. “Before you bite my head off, you need to understand—”
I hold up a hand. “No preamble. Just talk.”
Her jaw flexes, like she's swallowing back whatever sharp thing she wanted to lead with. “Fine. The night it started wasn’t the night you think. It was actually months before that. I didn’t even know you’d gotten back together after high school.”
The air feels heavier. I lean back, studying her, trying to find the smug girl from high school under the exhaustion in her eyes.
“Why tell me now?” I ask.
“Because Molly’s right,” she says, voice low but steady. “You don’t know everything he’s done. And if you’re going to hate me, I’d rather it be for the whole truth than a half-version of it.”
I trace my fingertip along the condensation of my untouched drink. “Then tell me all of it.”
Her smile is humorless. “It’s a long list.”
“Good thing I cleared my afternoon.”
Her breath catches—small, but I hear it. “I didn’t know,” she says again, quieter this time, like maybe she’s trying to convince herself as much as me.
I lean in enough to watch the way her pupils flicker, the way she swallows like the air’s turned to glass. “Then tell me what youdoknow.”
She hesitates, like she’s deciding how much of herself she’s willing to burn in this moment. Then it comes—not neat, not rehearsed—but jagged and ugly and real.
“It wasn’t some slow build,” she says, eyes fixed on the chip in the tabletop. “It was fast. Stupid. We were at a charity thing—one of those obnoxious ones where everyone pretends they give a damn. He found me outside said he needed to get away from the noise. We talked. He laughed at something I said, and… it felt like we were the only two people there. We left together. And after that—”
Her voice splinters. She forces it steadily. “It was like gravity. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t check to see who else got pulled under with me. I didn’t want to know. That’s on me.”
I let the silence stretch until it’s almost unbearable. My fingers are numb where they curl into my palms.
“I told myself it wasn’t real,” she goes on, softer now. “That whatever it was would burn out—just like high school. But it didn’t this time. He kept calling. He kept finding reasons to be near me. He kept showing up like… like I was something heneeded.”
Her fingers twitch around her cup. “He told me lies, too, you know. Said he loved me.” A shaky breath. “Said I was the only one for him. That we’d get married, have babies.”
The last word lands like a palm to my cheek—hot, humiliating, leaving something raw behind. I swallow it down before it shows on my face, but my pulse spikes hard enough that I can feel it in my teeth.
I lean back just enough to keep from swaying into her, let the silence stretch until I can breathe again. My pulse has gone cold.
Elaine swallows. “I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just… I’m not walking out of here pretending I wasn’t part of the damage. I know I was. But he didn’t just wreck your life. He wrecked mine, too.”
The thought slithers in before I can stop it: two women with the same ruin, standing on opposite sides of the same fire. It’s not forgiveness, not even close, but something sharper—something I could use.
I tip my chin toward her, the ghost of a smile curling at the corner of my mouth. “Then maybe,” I say, my voice like glass, “you and I aren’t on opposite sides after all.”
