“You used to, but you haven’t done that in a while. Plus, you hate Seattle in the winter,” Lucy points out after wiping the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
“I despise this city regardless of the season.”
“Then why are you moving back?” Lex asks with irritation. His mother briefly turns to me, and the faint glimpse is enough to make my insides churn with anguish.Oh, shit.
“Someone needs to occupy the house every now and then since you refuse to live there.”
“You could also sell it,” he retorts. Everyone is eerily silent, focused on their exchange.
“I have friends here and events to attend. Like Evora’s gala, which I’m looking forward to. Did you know she was back in town?” she asks.
“Yes, we had dinner with her and Kevin.”
“Oh, she’s your old friend, right?” I ask Lex, finally feeling like I’m not completely lost. “The one you met with last Saturday.” He nods, visibly uncomfortable, his jaw tense.
“She’s more than that,” Mrs. Coleman corrects. “She’s practically family.”
“Mother, not now,” Lucy mutters.
“What? It isn’t a secret, is it? It’s a fact.”
Okay, now I’m lost again. More than ever, I feel like I don’t belong among Lex’s family. Our story is still fresh, so I lack a lot of context. Without breaking eye contact with me, Mrs. Coleman addresses her son again. “Alexander, is it a secret you and Evora were married?”
It’s so unexpected that her words don’t make sense for a few seconds. When they do, their meaning pierces through me like a sharp blade, tearing through the skin of my chest and right into the pumping organ there. What is she talking about? Lex was never married. He never even had a girlfriend before me.
Confused and distressed, I turn to him, expecting him to deny her lie. But the look he gives me isn’t reassuring or confident. It’s apologetic, ashamed. Blood leaves my face despite how hard my heart beats, its irregular rhythm thumping in my ears.
Fuck.
No, it’s not true.
It goes against everything he’s ever told me, every whisper he’s murmured into my ears. How often has he expressed how special and unique I am to him? That there’s never been anyone else like me? Just before dinner, he told me how I was his first everything.
The table is so quiet that all I can hear is the wild drumming of blood in my ears.
I stare at Lex, expecting him to deny once more. But the pure guilt all over his face is like the final nail. Hewasmarried to her. And he met her last week, with Kevin. He married her, and I feel cheated and duped. I’m not unique. I’m not as important as he pretended. He went through all this and more with another woman.Evora.
Everyone’s looking at me, and I feel sick. I need to get out of here.
“Andrea, I—” Lex starts with a shatteredvoice.
But I don’t let him finish, standing so abruptly that my chair falls back. Fuck, I forgot about that stupid fucking plug. “Excuse me,” I apologize with haste, walking off at a quick pace.
“Well done, mother,” Lucy says with sarcasm as I flee the scene.
With a hand on my stomach like it can appease the way my guts twist into tight knots, I seek a safe space away from everything.
This isn’t happening. Lex wasn’t married. Because if he was, then everything has been a lie the whole time. And I can’t cope with that. I just can’t.
My feet take me to Lex’s bedroom, but I realize it too late. This is a terrible idea, but I can’t go back out there. I feel angry, sad, betrayed, disappointed… How could he do this to me? To us? After everything we went through, how could he keep a secret like that from me?
I pace the room, trying to calm down and rationalize. But I’m hyperventilating, so my head spins and I can’t think straight. When the door opens behind me, I turn around in time to see him enter. His familiar presence, so comforting moments ago, is now an insult to me, my pride, and my dignity. He joins me with urgent steps, and when his hand reaches out for me, I jump back.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
“Andrea, it isn’t what you think.”
“You weren’t married?” I want to believe him, but I also want to hurt him.
