I was about to destroy his life. Blow it apart the way mine had been blown apart. He'd watch that video and something inside him would break, the same way something inside me had broken.
Or maybe I was protecting him. Maybe the truth was a kindness, even when it cut. Maybe he deserved to know who he was married to, who he was trusting with his future.
Either way, it wasn't my choice to make. Angela had made it for me when she'd fucked my husband. When she'd begged for more time instead of owning what she'd done.
I pressed send, and the message went through. No taking it back now.
I sat there in the grass beside my mother’s grave and waited for the swell of feeling to come. It didn’t. All I felt was the weight of the morning pressing down, steady and blank.
I felt tired.
I didn't know how I was going to get through this. Didn't know what came next: the clinic, the house, the lawyers, the rest of my goddamn life. It was all just fog, shapeless and cold, and I was standing in the middle of it trying to find a road.
But I knew one thing.
I came from strong stock. I came from Margaret Rose Whitaker, who never cried and never quit and never let anyone make her small. Who faced down death with lists and pie recipes and a grip like iron.
I was going to survive this.
I didn't know how yet. Didn't know what it would cost me or who I'd be on the other side.
But I was going to fucking do it.
CHAPTER 10: MATT
Icalled in sick for the first time in six years.
Told Sergeant Donovan I had a stomach bug, maybe food poisoning. He said feel better, get some rest, see you tomorrow. I said thanks and hung up and sat there with the phone in my hand, staring at nothing.
I wasn't going in tomorrow either. I knew that already. Maybe not even the day after that. Maybe not ever again. How could I walk into that station, look those guys in the eye, pretend to be the man they thought I was?
The house was quiet.
Every small sound stood out, pressing in on me from every side. The refrigerator cycling on, the clock in the hallway, the sound of my own breathing. All of it too loud in the emptiness.
Elena's absence was everywhere.
I could see it in the empty hook by the door, the ceramic bowl she made in that crooked pottery class sitting without her keys. The coffee maker was still set for two cups, the way it had been every morning of our marriage, but there was only one of me now.
Her reading glasses sat on the side table. The book she'd been halfway through, some thriller with a red cover, was splayed open, spine cracked, waiting for her to come back and finish it.
Except she wasn't coming back.
I’d texted her twelve more times since last night and called twice. I listened to the phone ring and ring until it finally dropped to voicemail—her voice asking me to leave a message so familiar it made my chest ache.
There was no answer. Had she silenced her phone? Or she was watching my name flash across the screen and letting it ring? I couldn't blame her for any of it. What would I even say if she picked up?
I stopped trying around noon.
She was at her dad's, I was sure. Three hours away in Millbrook, in that farmhouse where she'd grown up, where she'd learned to ride horses and birth calves and turn into the woman I'd married. She'd be safe and loved there. Her father would take care of her the way he always had.
I'd give her a day or two, let her breathe. Then maybe I'd drive out there, stand on that porch, and try to talk to her in person. And then…
Then what? What would I say?
I'm sorry? I didn't mean it? It was a mistake?
She'd taken apart every one of those excuses last night, dismantled them like a surgeon removing tumors. She'd stood in this kitchen and made me see myself clearly for the first time in months. I wasn’t a good guy, and I sure as hell wasn’t a hero. I was just a selfish piece of shit who wanted to feel needed and didn't care what it cost.
