SIX
Two Years Later
My fiancé is having an affair.
With my maid of honor.
My cousin.
I found out, via email—a seemingly innocuous email, sitting between an invoice from the wedding photographer and a request for the final guest count from the caterer.
Flicking a quick look at the sender, I see that it’s not from a vendor. It was sent from a blind email account and the subject line sayslast weekend. There’s an attachment included.
Even though I don’t recognize the email, I open it, thinking maybe they were pictures from our bachelorette weekendin the Hamptons (yes, even though my sister’s bachelorette weekend there was a nightmare, I chose to go back for my own. Call it a full circle moment.). The body of the email was harmless enough.
I thought maybe you’d like to see these.
Opening the attachment, it took me nearly a full thirty seconds to understand what I was looking at and another thirty minutes to process it.
Text messages.
Between my fiancé and my cousin.
Allister: I wish you didn’t have to go. I wish you could get out of it and stay home. I want you so bad, baby.
Paige: I know. It’s going to be so boring, just like last time. Maybe I can sneak into town after everyone is asleep. We can rent a hotel room for the night and you can fuck me as a free man.
Allister: Forget about this weekend. I want to fuck you now. Come to my office so I can bend you over my desk and nail you to it with my cock.
Paige: OMW. Tell your assistant to take a long lunch.
Scrolling through the attachment, I feel my stomach drop and my hands start to shake because there are pages of them. Pages and pages, going back almost the entirety of our relationship. The very first one is fromPaige?—
Paige: Hey, Allister. This is Paige, Millie’s cousin. I borrowed your number from her phone, hope you don’t mind. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to chat with me, later on this week. Maybe we can meet for lunch?
She sent it only a few days after we got back from the Hamptons for Gwen’s bachelorette weekend.
Correction—aftertheygot back.
I left early.
Pushing the memory away, I keep scrolling, every page making me more and more sick. Each text exchange adding another layer of shame and anxiety, pulling tighter and tighter. Shrink wrapping my chest until my vision goes blurry and I’m almost positive I’m going to pass out.
Paige: Tell me you don’t want to marry her. Tell me that when you’re standing at the altar, promising to love her forever, you’ll be thinking about fucking me.
Allister: Fucking you is the only thing I ever think about. Especially when I’m fucking her. I can’t even get it up for her unless I’m thinking about coming in that beautiful pussy of yours.
Paige: You mean this pussy?
I feel my face go up in flames when I see the accompanying picture attached to the text. Paige sprawled out across her bed, naked. Legs spread wide.
Allister: Jesus, baby—you’re killing me.
Paige: Then come fuck me.
Allister: I can’t. I’m having lunch with her.
Paige: Cancel.
