“Do you want it faster?”
“Yes. God, yes. It's so good. Just... don't stop. Please.”
Audrey dropped the phone onto the marble counter as if it had burned her skin. The device clattered loudly, the audio mercifully cutting off, but the damage was already done. The horrific, visceral reality of those words—the very words Simon had confessed to in therapy—echoed through her head, loud and agonizingly real. Hearing it wasn't a timeline in a therapist's office. It was a knife straight to the chest.
A violent wave of nausea hit her so hard she stumbled backward.
"Mom?" Lily asked, looking away from her tablet. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, sweetie. Keep watching," Audrey choked out, pressing a hand over her mouth.
She turned and sprinted down the hall to the downstairs bathroom, slamming the door shut just before she fell to her knees in front of the toilet and vomited. Her whole body shook violently. She stayed on the cold tile floor for ten minutes, gasping for air as tears streamed down her face. She felt dirty. She felt violated all over again.
She dragged herself up, turned on the shower, and stepped under the scalding hot water fully clothed, desperately trying to scrub the phantom feeling of the betrayal off her skin.
When she finally managed to compose herself, changing into dry clothes and splashing cold water on her swollen face, she walked back into the kitchen. She gave Lily a fresh snack, made sure she was settled on the living room rug, and pulled outher phone. Her hands trembled so badly she could barely type the message.
Are you done with work? Can you come over to the house?
∞∞∞
Now, standing in the open doorway, looking at the bright, desperate hope on Simon’s face, Audrey felt her heart shatter all over again.
"I received a new email, Simon," Audrey repeated, her voice a hollow, shattered rasp. She stepped past him onto the front porch, pulling her cardigan tight around her shoulders. "We can't do this in the house. Lily is inside. We need to talk in your car."
Simon didn't ask questions. The sheer terror in his chest silenced him. He nodded, turning around and opening the passenger door of his sedan for her.
They sat in the quiet, insulated cabin of the car. The evening sun was setting, casting long, dark shadows across the dashboard. Audrey didn't look at him. She stared straight ahead through the windshield, her hands clutching her phone in her lap.
"Emily sent it," Audrey stated, her voice completely dead of emotion. She unlocked the screen, hit play, and turned the volume up just enough to fill the small space.
The sounds of the hotel room played through the car speakers. The moans. The breathlessness. Emily's taunting questions. And then, Simon’s voice, begging the other woman not to stop.
∞∞∞
Simon
Simon stopped breathing. The color drained completely from his face, leaving him ashen and terrified. He looked at the phone as if it were a live grenade. He hadn't known she recorded him. The sheer, malicious cruelty of Emily sending this to his wife, directly into their home, made him feel violently ill.
Audrey stopped the audio. The silence that rushed back into the car was deafening.
"You begged her," Audrey whispered, a fresh tear sliding down her cheek. "You told me in therapy that it was just an ego trip. You told me it was a mistake. But I just heard you, Simon. You were completely lost in her. You begged her not to stop."
"Rey, please, listen to me," Simon pleaded, twisting in his seat to face her fully. His voice shook with pure, unadulterated desperation. "I told you the truth in therapy. Every single word of it. What you are hearing... it wasn't love. It wasn't even about her. It was pure adrenaline and cowardice."
Audrey squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. "It doesn't sound like cowardice. It sounds like you wanted her more than anything in the world."
"I wasn't thinking about what I was doing!" Simon cried, reaching out to grip the edges of the steering wheel to keep himself from grabbing her shoulders. "I wasn't thinking about her as a person. I was drowning in the pressure of my life, and I used her to numb it. It was a physical reaction. It meantabsolutely nothing to me, Rey. The second it was over, I felt nothing but disgust. I cut her out of my life that exact morning. I never touched her, never texted her outside of absolute work necessity, never looked at her the same way again."
Audrey turned her head, looking at him with red, swollen eyes. The pain in her chest was suffocating. "But what about the day you introduced her to me? You smiled at her. You two were so friendly, Simon. You stood there with your arm around my waist, laughing with the woman you had just slept with. How can you say it meant nothing when you were so perfectly fine around her?"
"I wasn't fine!" Simon insisted, the tears finally spilling over his dark lashes. "I was terrified! Audrey, we were in public, and I was trying to keep a mask on so I wouldn't cause a scene. I wasn't going to be rude to her in front of everyone and raise suspicions. Every time I looked at her, I felt sick to my stomach. I smiled because I was a coward trying to pretend the grenade hadn't already gone off. I was just trying to survive without you finding out what a monster I was."
He let out a ragged, agonizing sob, leaning toward her. "Emily stopped me in the hallway at the office today. She tried to hit on me again. I told her she was the most pathetic mistake of my life, and that I am selling my shares and never coming back. That is why she sent this to you. She is trying to ruin the progress we made because I rejected her."
Audrey stared at him, her chest heaving as she absorbed the truth. The pieces fit together. The cruel timing of the email, the malice behind the recording. But knowing Emily's motives didn't erase the agonizing reality of the audio file.
The adrenaline suddenly left Audrey’s body, leaving behind a bone-deep, crushing exhaustion. She couldn't fightanymore. She was so incredibly tired of carrying the weight of his mistakes, of constantly navigating the landmines of his past.
