How didn't I see it happening… see it and stop it?
"Ceci..." I turn to her, and though her expression is impassive, I can see the pain in her eyes mirroring my own. "Youhaveto believe me."
She lifts a hand to silence me, then folds both arms tightly around her torso, as if shielding herself from me.
"Do you know how I felt?" Her voice breaks on the last word. A single tear slips down her cheek, then another, and she doesn't bother to wipe them away.
"I felt like a fool. Always excusing your absence, believing your lies. Lying to myself. And then your lipstick-stained shirt—lying proudly in our laundry hamper. Mocking me."
The shirt...
"Do you know my first instinct was to justify it? To come up with wild lies to explain why my husband's clothes—the man Ilove, the man I've been married to for almost nineteen years—had a lipstick stain that wasn't mine."
She shakes her head, her gaze drifting somewhere far away, as though replaying every moment where she chose trust over truth.
"You'll never understand the strength it took for me to walk into your office that day… only to see you all cozy with her. The way she looked at me. The lipstick was the same, the perfume was the same... the wreck I was when I walked out of your office. The wreck Mark found me in..."
Her arms fall from around her torso, her expression hardening into something colder.
“I had to ask my doctor to run a full STI panel. I asked to be tested foreverypossible disease or infection she could think of, Colin. Me—a married woman who’s only ever had one partner my entire life. And I walked out of there feeling filthy. Humiliated. Cheap. Stripped of every shred of dignity.”
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“Ceci, I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Her voice is steady. Deadly. “I saw the Plan B purchase, Colin. Less than a month ago.”
She swallows. “That was one of the things that made me physically sick the first time I saw it on paper. That—and the lube you…”
Her throat works, swallowing once, twice, three times. As if the mere memory alone could make her retch. My stomach twists into knots.Ceci was never supposed to know.None of this was ever supposed to touch us.
“Was that it, Colin? Was that enough for you to betray me? To tear apart years and years of a life we lived together?”
Her voice is so fragile it’s almost not there.
Desperate, I move toward her, reaching, needing to close the space between us. But Ceci steps back, the distance rising like a wall I can’t break through.
“No, Ceci, listen to me. It was a mistake, okay?A mistakeI willnevermake again. You have my word.”
She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, then straightens, her spine rigid, her voice steady in a way that terrifies me more than her tears.
"What good is your word, Colin, when you've already broken every vow you ever made to me?"
My stomach sinks. I can't reach her anymore.
"You've become someone I don't recognize. Someone I don'twantto know. You were so focused on yourself—on your little escapades—that you never saw me slipping through your fingers, grain by grain. For days, I looked for the man I once loved, trying to understand how he could turn into..." Her hands sweep over me, shaking.
"This."
I take a step closer, but she instantly retreats.
"Ceci,I'mthe man you love. The same man who never stopped loving you," I manage, my voice breaking.
Ceci closes her eyes, and I watch the rise and fall of her chest as she fights to steady her breathing. When she opens them again, it's as if she's retreated miles away, standing on the other side of a divide I'll never cross.
"I want you to pack a bag. The rest of your things can be sent to your new address later. But I don't want you here when I come back with the kids tomorrow night. They're staying at my parents' house right now. Don't go there. I'll let you know when you can see them. That's how it's going to be… at least until the lawyers make it official."
