I start to pace, running a hand through my hair, the brandy bottle clutched in the other, still hearing all her words. As if she’s here now with me, repeating them over and over.
I look at the bottle and take another pull. It tastes like everything that’s left of us. Bitter, heavy, and gone.
“Imagine me with a younger man. Having sex with him for months. Coming home late at night and lying next to you after letting him do to me everything you did to her. Sharing things with him that I never shared with you.”
I spit out the brandy, coughing as it scorches its way back up my throat. Before I can stop it, my mind betrays me. Flooding with images I never asked for.
Ceci. With other men.
Men I’ve seen look at her the way only I had the right to. Craving her. Wanting her.
Younger, older, it doesn’t matter. All of them touching her, tasting her, tracing the skin I know by heart.
It makes my skin feel too hot, too tight, too wrong. My breathing splintering until I can barely pull air in.
And then the image sharpens. Her and Santoro. In our bed. Exactly the way it was the last time I had her. Only it’s him now. His hands where mine are supposed to be. His voice breaking through hers, making her twist, beg, moan—sounds that belong tome.
My stomach turns violently. I stumble into the bathroom, barely making it before I fall to my knees and throw up into the toilet. It tears through my throat, bile and brandy burning on the way out. Butnothingburns like the images that won’t leave my head.
Because now I understand what she must feel. Every time she tries not to picture me, every little thing her mind tells her I might’ve done.
For months.
All the ways I betrayed her. Betrayedus.
I gather myself off the floor, my legs unsteady, thebitter taste of bile burning in my throat. I wash my face. My mouth. The water feels too cold, too clean for someone like me.
I stare at my reflection for a second, the mess I’ve become, and then I turn away.
Dazed and disoriented, I wander back into the sitting room and sink into the couch. I just sit there for a long time, staring at nothing.
“And Colin? You really should’ve read what I wrote on the blog.”
I pull my phone from my pocket, open Ceci’s blog, and scroll straight to the last post. By the time I reach the end of the page, tears are already running down my face. I read it again. And again. Until the words blur and my throat burns.
By the fifth time, I already know…
of everything Ceci wrote, of all the raw, unfiltered pain she poured into every line, two of them are the ones that will haunt me the most.
You realize that the person who was supposed to protect you became the one who destroyed you.
If he could risk your shared past for a fleeting thrill or a love affair, why should the burden of preservation fall on you alone?
Affidavit of Defendant
I take one last look at the signed papers before closing the desk drawer, the weight in my chest deepening with the dull thud. Three knocks come at my door, forcing a groan from my throat.
Maya steps in with hesitant footsteps and a soft smile. Of course she’d take advantage of Margaret’s absence to sneak in. I gave explicit orders not to let her into my office, and she keeps trying anyway.
When I stay late at the office, I lock the door.
Inevitably, the three knocks come. I ignore them.
If only I’d done that from the start.
I rub my temple. “What do you want, Maya?” I ask, already out of patience.
She touches her belly, like she always does now whenever she’s standing in front of me.
