I sat in front of it with a bowl of Cheerios, scooping them onto my spoon and then watching them slide off the tip, back into the milk. I checked my cell. From the last few weeks, I had several missed calls from Lucy, unreturned. One from my mother—confessing to her was a conversation so heinous to even think of that I hid my phone under the nearest pillow.
But even from under there, my mother judged me. I was my father now—worse, because I actuallyhadcheated. Her insecurity had been something I could almost touch as a child. She was so convinced that my father was cheating on her that he might as well have been. It’d eaten away at her. If she ever found out what I’d done, she’d disown me.
So be it, I thought. I wouldn’t take back the affair for all the love she’d always denied me.
I took a bite of cereal and swallowed. I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume of the game to a deafening level. Our neighbors banged on the wall.
Was I disturbing them? Well, too fucking bad. I could not live inside my own head right now. My heart beat too loudly, angry, broken. Fuck my neighbors. And Bill, too, for leaving me alone tonight.
But most of all, fuck David for showing me a light and warmth I’d never forget.
For giving me hope.
For buying the house that could’ve changed everything and making me question my trust in him.
Fuck him for forcing me to face decisions I couldn’t take back anyway.
My jaw clenched. My nostrils flared. How dare he make me question my life? And wonder if I regretted it?
I launched the bowl of cereal across the room, finding comfort in the way it shattered against the wall, splattering it with milk. “Why, David?” I screamed into the apartment. Hot tears spilled over my cheeks. “Why’d you come into my life?”
But, God, how I fucking missed him.
I planted myself facedown on the couch and cried into a pillow. I didn’t even care about the Oak Park house or why he’d done it. I just wanted more. More anything. More of his touch, more of his eyes on me, more of his large, rough hands treating me as if I were unbreakable, more rides in his car, more fucking, more walks, more reflections.
I didn’t know how to go on without him. I compressed the pillow in my grip and cried harder. How much of this had been a game to him? Even through my anger, I knew the answer: none of it. There was no denying what we’d had. The force we’d given into was one thing. But he’d purposely driven a knife through my marriage by buying that house. That was a side of David I didn’t know. It was the same David from the masquerade ball. The type of man who slept with women for sport, stringing them along until he didn’t need them anymore.
“It’s too much,” I insisted, biting into the pillow. Bill had my love and respect, but he no longer had my heart. I’d left it in David’s office, at his feet, and I didn’t care if I ever saw it again. I didn’t deserve it. I deserved to cry, deserved todieright here in this black hole, on this horrible, shit-colored couch, because of what I’d done. And because I would do it again. I only felt hate for the woman I’d become—a weak, piddling mess.
“David,” I begged. “David, David.”
How could I have risked everything for you? How could I have ruined a life for you? And how can Bill and I ever be happy again in my black hole?
Clenched into a ball on the couch, I admitted that it was because I needed David. That there was something stronger than the two of us forcing us together. We’d made mistakes, we’d made decisions that could never be changed—but we belonged together. And now I would have to live the rest of my life knowing that I was separated from the person I was supposed to be with. And knowing that as much as he had pushed me away the night of the ball, I had pushed him back.
It wasn’t something that could be remedied—the damage was done. People didn’t just leave their husbands on a hunch that they’d met their soulmate. I realized that that had never been an option, no matter what David had thought. He and I were destined to be together, but destiny had torn us apart.
* * *
When my phone rang from under the now damp pillow, I almost sent it in the direction of the cereal bowl to shut it up. But instead, I extracted it and answered. “Now’s not a good time,” I told Gretchen, sniffling.
“Bill called me.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He asked me, in a very clipped tone, to keep an eye on you while he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He shouldn’t be involving you. You’re the only person who knows, though. What did you say?”
“I told him to fuck off.”
I smiled barely. “No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t, but only because you need me around right now. He’s being paranoid, right? You’re not still talking to David?”
“Of course I’m not. You know it’s really over with David, but I can’t tell Bill that the house was the final straw for me. He’d flip if he found out David bought it.”
Her tone changed. “Maybe youshouldgo see David and get some closure.”
