Anger at myself. At Maya.
Somewhere between one light and the next, I feel my pulse accelerating and the bitter taste of regret.
I rake a hand through my hair, trying to control my breathing. It doesn’t help. The pressure won’t ease
Her voice won’t leave my head. Every word. Every pause. It hasn’t even been twenty minutes since she called, but it feels like a lifetime.
I thought I had already lived through the worst—that nothing could cut deeper than the night I walked in and realized Ceci knew everything, or the moment I was served divorce papers.
I also thought nothing could be worse than hearing Ethan tell me his father had been dead for years. Than listening to Alicia sob into her mother’s arms because of a pain I created.
But I was wrong.
The meeting’s been dragging for almost an hour. Numbers, forecasts, damage control, the same corporate noise that’s been eating at me lately.
I’m trying to focus, nodding at something one of the directors says, when my phone vibrates on the table.
Cecily.
I reach for my phone before I realize what I’m doing.
“Excuse me,” I say, pushing my chair back. I don’t wait for a response.
The door shuts behind me, the conversation fading out. I loosen my tie as I step into the corridor, my pulse quickening for reasons I can’t quite explain.
“Cecily?” I answer, voice lower than I intend.
“Colin,” She says in a whisper, “we need to talk.”
Her breathing is ragged. “Maya was here.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “What?”
“She showed up at the house,” she says, her voice faltering. “Alicia answered the door. Maya told her she was a friend of mine, that she wanted to surprise me.”
The blood drains from my face. “Fuck!”
“She walked right in, Colin. Found her standing in the living room like she belonged there.” Ceci’s voice breaks on the last word. “After I asked Alicia to wait by the pool, she started talking… not about you, at first, but about my father. About her mother. About everything that happened between them.”
I stop pacing. “What are you talking about?”
“She said my father had an affair with her mother, for almost a year. That he promised to take care of them. And when he left... when he went back to my mom...” Her breath catches. “Her mother killed herself.”
The words come out in pieces. Broken, like she’s trying not to choke on them.
“She told me she was the one who found her. Dead in her bed.” Ceci says, then falters. “She said she called my father that morning and he told her to never call again.”
My stomach knots. “Christ, Ceci...”
“After throwing all that in my face, she basically told me our perfect family was built on lies. That my father destroyed hers… and that what happened to our marriage—” there’s a pause. “To our family. Doesn’t even compare.”
For a moment, neither of us seems able to say anything to break the silence.
“You understand what this all means, don’t you?” Ceci finally asks.
I don’t answer. But I do.
I was part of whatever twisted plan lived inside Maya’s mind. And I walked right into it of my own free will.
