“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
My pulse spikes.
“I was drunk,” he says, voice cracking. “And angry. And stupid. But I stopped it. Lore… I stopped it before it went too far. I swear to God.”
The room tilts.
I stare at him, too shocked to even breathe. My voice barely comes out. “Stopped what?”
He flinches, actually flinches, like I stabbedhim. Like he didn’t just admit to…
He looks at me with eyes full of guilt.
Oh God.
Patrick
Lore looks like she’s seconds from collapsing.
I push up from the chair so fast it scrapes across the floor, rushing toward her before she falls. But the moment my palms touch her arm; she jerks away like I burned her.
“Don’t touch me,” she snaps, voice sharp and breaking at the same time.
She backs up until the table is between us, bracing herself against it with both hands. She keeps her eyes on the wood grain, breathing unevenly. I’m about to ask if she’s okay, senseless question, when she finally speaks.
“You cheated on me.” It isn’t a question.
It’s a verdict.
“I mean, not really,” I say helplessly. “I didn’t-”
Her head snaps up. Her eyes are glassy, already filling. “Did you kiss someone else?”
My throat closes. I look away, staring at the crooked back door I’ve been meaning to fix for months. Anything but her.
I see her swipe tears off her cheeks from the corner of my eye.
“Did you sleep with her?” Her voice cracks in the middle, so soft it sounds like she’s asking from far away.
“No,” I say immediately, rushing the words out. “No, I didn’t. I just… I was drunk, and she came onto me and-”
“Oh, so she came onto you and you were helpless?” she spits. “Do you know how many men have come onto me since we got married? And I never did a damn thing becausewe were married.”
“That’s not always true,” I mutter, the bitterness slipping out before I can stop it.
Her eyes go wide.
Horrified.
“Oh God,” she whispers, voice strangled. “Oh God.”
Her hands fly to the sides of her head as if she can physically hold herself together. “You got revenge.”
I open my mouth, stupidly, instinctively, because some ugly part of me wants to justify the unjustifiable.
“I mean,” I say with a shrug, “I only got drunk because of whatyoudid. And you didn’t even tell me until you had to.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know they’re wrong.
