Our perfect fucking marriage!
I screamed into the empty room as those stupid balloons continued to taunt me. They refused to fall despite being witness to how my heart shattered.
If someone had asked me yesterday if I thought my husband was capable of cheating, let alone breaking my heart so completely, I would have laughed at them and given a resounding ‘no’ for an answer. There had never been a sign, not even a warning flag before a red one was raised. I didn’t even think he had lied to me during our marriage, but I had been so wrong. So wrong, in fact, that his lies ended with him sinking into another woman while trash-talking me as our families and friends listened. Some of his employees had been at the party, a couple of his clients, my little brother. Me. I had been there with the front row seat to my own complete and utter devastation.
When the front door banged open, I realized I’d fallen to the floor right next to the half-full bag of garbage. Some of our well-meaning friends and family had brought all the party decorations and food back to my house and left it lying around the kitchen and living room, as if I needed a reminder of how messy the day had become. I had started to shove the party remnants into the garbage before my legs weren’t strong enough to hold my heartache up any longer.
Ridge looked a bit like death warmed over. His hair was a mess and still damp, whether from his sex-a-thon or a shower I didn’t want to know. He didn’t appear to be wearing the same outfit he had on earlier. He’d been dressed in khaki pants then and he wore a black suit now. At least he had the decency to shower off the stink of his affair before he came back to our home.
“Vi!” How could one syllable sound like the end of the world? “Please, let me explain.”
A dark chuckle escaped my lips. “I always thought that was so cliché. You hear that line in every movie, every book, and even a few songs. I always rolled my eyes because what was there to explain? I saw you fucking another woman on our anniversary. While all of our family and friends were waiting on you to come to our special place in the park for your surprise party that I worked so hard to pull off, you were too busy fucking your assistant to care. Another cliché I was sure would never touch me.”
“It wasn’t like that, Vi. I swear to you, it wasn’t like that. You can even ask Gabby.”
“Gabby?” I asked in an incredulous tone. “Was she there, too?”
“No, she is the one who showed me the real pictures.”
“I have no clue what pictures you’re talking about.”
“I drank a whole fucking bottle of bourbon,” he admitted. Maybe that was his way of excusing the way his thoughts ran away from him. Maybe it was his excuse for the whole debacle. He shouldn’t have been drinking with his secretary though, so that was a moot point.
“No one spoke to me today. Not a single fucking one of my family or friends. It wasn’t just my birthday, but my anniversary – our anniversary, and you were gone when I woke up. No texts, no phone calls. Months of you acting weird, disappearing, taking calls you didn’t want me to hear, hiding your texts, and…”
“So, this is my fault? Did you ever think to ask what I was up to?”
“I did!” he shouted. “I asked you and you kept saying it was a party you were planning.”
“And it was. It was your fucking surprise party.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You weren’t supposed to!” I yelled back.
“You always tell me about the things you have going on and this time it was all secrets and disappearing acts. I worried. Then Moreland was acting strange, too. My wife and best friend. I saw him in town several times and he lied about it. He lied to me. You lied to me. She was there at work. She brought me gifts and a cake and bourbon. She showed me the pictures.”
“What pictures?” I don’t know how I managed to ask that after he admitted the start of his night. Part of me could see how he might get the wrong idea about what I was up to. My husband was right; I never failed to tell him about one of my planning projects before. That was a detail I should have thought about in advance, but then again, I never thought he would doubt me either. It turned out he was the one I should have been doubting all along.
He pulled his cell phone out and held it out to me. I refused to take it. He moved a couple steps closer until I flinched and crawled backward to get away from him.
The complete sorrow and devastation that drooped his shoulders and sent tears down his cheeks almost made me relent. Almost. Then, that stupid video started a new loop in my mind.
“You and Moreland with your heads together in an intimate, candlelight setting.”
“We have never been in an intimate candlelight setting.”
“Know that now. She must have doctored photos from a lunch you had. Gabby sent me a real picture from that day. It was so different. I could see your planning book and everything in that one. I thought you both betrayed me. I had already taken a couple of shots because I thought everyone, my wife included, forgot about my birthday and anniversary. Felt sorry for myself. She told me she saw you two together and showed me the pictures. I drank some more. Don’t even know how I got into that position with her. I don’t remember.”
I scoffed at that. “Convenient that you’d have selective amnesia.”
“Not kidding. I will look at the security footage from my office tomorrow. Already sent it to my laptop. I must have passed out at some point, Vi. I only realized what I was doing when I heard your dad screaming at me from the phone.”
“Well, let me refresh your memory. Just before my dad yelled at you, you said: ‘Fuck my wife!’ Then we couldn’t make out exactly what you said next, but it sounded a whole lot like you told your assistant that she had better pussy anyway.” He stood there speechless before I threw the last bit out. “And then you said something about how you should have taken her up on the offer she made to screw you last year for your birthday. Maybe that was her that mentioned that bit. I honestly don’t know because either way, it was a betrayal then that led to you cheating now”
What little color was still in Ridge’s face drained, and he sobbed as his legs gave out from underneath him. “I was angry. I thought you cheated.”
“I didn’t. I would never!” I shouted at him.
