My chest raises and falls with a slow inhale. “I enjoyed my time with her.” Her face falls, and instead of trying to soften my words, I rush through it. “In the beginning, when I was giving her rides for the garage? Taylor was sweet. She was self-deprecating and asked gentle questions about my life, and soon she became an outlet.” I meet her sad eyes and tell her the truth. “She became the person I told things I should have been telling you.” I close my eyes and release the first painful confession. “That’s where my emotional affair started. When another woman got the words that belonged to you.”
A small sound of distress escapes her, and I know how much she hates the weakness it shows. If that’s not bad enough, she asks me a question I wish I could answer differently.
“How much are you about to hurt me, Carter?” Her vulnerability in this moment is shattering, and I have to look away.
“I hope not much more.” I don’t deserve this sympathy. “Becky, I didn’t tell you this because I was ashamed of my stupidity and my weakness.” I look back to see her watching me. I’ve always loved when she watches me. “But, you deserve to know the extent of it.”
“Go on.” Her words are sure, and her shoulders are set againstme and the things I did to us, to her.
“When she approached me about payment, I jumped on the opportunity, as I already told you.” I’m resigned to say the rest, as much as I want to stop there. “I was disappointed when Paul said we were done giving her rides on the clock.” Becky’s eyes are bright with tears, and her jaw is locked tight against the hurt—or what she wants to do to my face. I keep going because I think we need to have this all out between us. No secrets. No wondering. “She was a bright spot of my work day.” I watch my words land like a slap. She physically recoils from me, looking smaller in her seat, shrinking into herself.
I force the words out of my mouth—my next confession. “That was the first night I lied to you. Taylor had asked for a ride, Paul said no, so I went anyway.” Becky’s trembling frame is tearing me apart, but I keep going. “After work, I went to help her out then explain I couldn’t give her those rides anymore. I wanted to—to tell her in person.” I subconsciously fiddle with my chain and continue purging the poison. “Apparently, Paul had already told her, but she said she wanted to make a deal with me. I agreed…easily.”
Becky’s hands shoot up between us, palms facing me. “Stop. Please. Just a minute.” Her voice is low and raspy, hard to hear, and nothing at all how it usually is. I have to fight the urge to reach out and hold her steady, but she’s not looking at me. She’s staring at the tremor of her fingers. Slowly, she clenches them into fists and let them fall to her lap. Her shoulders rise and fall with her shaky breaths until, after a few deep inhales, she squares her shoulders and meets my stare. “I already know all of that, Carter. I—” Her voice breaks off and she closes her eyes. I don’t dare to move or interrupt. “Ineedto know about the night of the music festival.” Her voice has smoothed back to her normal cadence. Her normalcy soothes me. She has managed to resettle herself into the discussion. Her statement, though? Herrequest? It sets me on edge in a different way. Leave it to Becky to get me all tangled up in one sentence.
“I promise that I’ll get to that.” Her brows lower at my words, jaw tensing.
“Please tell me the plain truth. Don’t dress it up, Carter.” She sits tall again, speaks clearly. She’s already gotten through some hurt tonight, but she’s ready for whatever comes next because she is so fucking strong.
“Yeah, I can do that.” I look her over again and let out a sigh. This part is where I think I hate myself the most. “So, as you know, I started giving her rides or just generally helping when she needed me.” I lean forward and rest my forearms on my legs, holding my hands together for some semblance of balance or comfort. “I was making money, so I justified it to myself that it was basically a second job. I was working with a friend. I think that’s what set me up.”
“Set you up for what?” She asks, her body leaning towards me. I still don’t look at her.
“I didn’t put this together until later. Until it was too late. Maybe I was naive, maybe I was just an asshole?—”
“The plain truth.” Becky reminds me, more gently than I deserve.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” I reorganize my thoughts and find the right words. “She always found reasons to touch me.” My hands squeeze together until they turn white and red. “A laughing touch on my hand or arm here, a brush against me while walking by there. It seemed innocent, and I don’t even know how long that had gone on before the…frequency started to register.” My legs are bouncing now, but I choose not to stop them. “Once, she found some excuse to sit in the middle seat of my truck, and I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Because you’re an idiot.” She insists.
I slump, stopping my movement. “Because I’m an idiot.” I shake my head and continue. “She, uh, put her hand on my leg on that drive, and I pulled away immediately, but that touch was too close to—well, it removed the blinders. She removed her hand like nothing happened, but I started to see how often her hand was on me. My hand, my arm, my bicep, my shoulder, my back, my face.” I shudder. “It’s like, once Irealized, I couldn’t stop noticing, and I didn’t like it. But she’s my friend, and she’s paying me and helping me reach my goal. The week everything happened, I asked her a few times to stop, but she laughed it off. Told me I was taking her too seriously. So I just ignored it, and tried to avoid her touch.”
Becky’s gone rigid in her seat, but I can’t look at her face.
“The night before the Friday night music thing, she was clearly upset, so I told her we would get a pizza on the way home. I don’t know, like maybe greasy, cheesy food would help her like it helps you.” I look up at this detail, but Becky just stares back at me, blank faced, so I keep talking.
“When we got to her place, she was crying, and I went to pat her shoulder in athere, therefriendly touch, when she threw herself into my arms.” My eyes are unfocused on the present now, seeing that night instead. “I was dropping her off—we were sitting in her driveway. She plastered herself to me, ended up in my lap. She was crying, but her hands started wandering. I had my hands up,” I raise my hands up in a weird roleplay of the moment. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I opened my door and practically fell out of the truck to get out of her arms as quickly as I could.” I exhale slowly and reach for my thighs to grip them rather than reach for Becky. “She fell down awkwardly after me, and I felt awful. I told myself she was just feeling heartbroken because her dad cut contact with her.” I avoid her eyes, not wanting to see the judgement there for my stupidity. “I walked her into her house, and she hugged me again before I got in the truck and left.” I finally meet her gaze, “that was the night you approached me about the messages and the meals?—”
“Wait, yes! That! What the fuck was that all about? I saw Tupperware in your truck,” she interrupts me.
I take the opportunity to switch gears. “Becks, are you really bringing up dishware right now?” I ask entertained and grateful by the interruption, despite the heaviness of this conversation.
“Yes! It’s been bothering me.” She holds my eyes for a second longer, then back at her hands.
Oh, I understand.She’s scared to hear the rest. She knows wherethis story is going. Guilt, my constant companion for weeks now, sidles up beside me because it is my fault. All I ever really wanted was the best for her, for us, but I got lost and trapped in the consequences of my choices.
“One night, while we talked about me saving money, I made an offhand comment about how I’ve been eating a lot of fast food since I’ve been getting home so late. She started making me food and giving it to me when I picked her up or dropped her off from something.” She pulls her lip into her mouth, chewing on it before she asks her next question—hesitantly and not like herself.
“When did you start just eating it at her house?”
Confused, I lift my hand to grab hers before dropping it back to my leg. I finger the hole in my jeans, but keep my gaze fixed on her face. “What are you talking about now?”
“Her…messages…about sharing meals together?” She’s now playing with the hem of her shirt while her cheeks fill with color.Oh, baby.
“No, Becky. She handed me a container of food, and I ate it in the truck and brought her the empty containers back the next time I saw her. There were noshared meals.” I didn’t even think about how that sounded in the messages.
Her fingers still on her shirt, and she smooths it out with a quiet, barely audible, “Oh.”
