“You drove me toupstateand tied me to a bed.”
“A bedframe.There’s a difference.”
“There is no difference!”
“Charles.”I set the tray on the nightstand and sit on the edge of the mattress.Not too close.But close enough.“I need you to take a breath and hear me out.”
“Hear youout?”His voice cracks on the last word.“You kidnapped me.”
“I relocated us.”
“To where?A crime scene?”
“To a house.Ourhouse.A fresh start.Away from the noise and the city and the — the women, Charles.Away from all of it.”
He goes quiet.That’s worse than the yelling because quiet Charles is calculating Charles, and calculating Charles is the version of him that knows exactly where to cut.
“This is about Vanessa,” he says.
Vanessa.Even the name feels like a paper cut.
“This is about us,” I say.
“There is nous, Marin.I told you that.I told you clearly, multiple times, in language a child could understand?—”
“You told me I wasn’t wife material.On a Tuesday.While you were eating the dinner I cooked you.”
“I was being honest.”
“You were being a coward.You know what men like you do, Charles?You leave.And then the next woman—the very next one—gets everything.The apartment.The ring.The future you swore you weren’t ready for.You weren’t not ready.You just weren’t ready with me.And I refuse to be that woman.The one you practice on.The one who teaches you how to love someone and then watches you do it for somebody else.”
“This is insane, Marin.”
“You didn’t want to end things—you wanted me to end things so you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about Vanessa.But I don’t quit, Charles.That’s not how I’m built.”
He pulls against the restraints.They hold.He looks at his wrists, then at me, and something shifts in his face.Not fear—he’s too arrogant for fear.Something closer to fascination.Like he’s seeing me for the first time and isn’t sure yet whether to be impressed or terrified.
“You’reinsane,” he says.But he says it softly.Almost gently.The way you’d say it to someone you’re trying not to provoke.
“I’m committed,” I say.“Look it up.”
“Marin—”
“Do you remember the Whitmans’ party?The rooftop in Tribeca?”
His mouth opens.Closes.He’s thrown by the pivot, which is exactly what I want.Let him be the one who’s shocked for a change.
“You wore that fitted charcoal suit.The one I picked out.And you introduced me to everyone as ‘my partner, Marin’—notmy girlfriend,notthe woman I’m seeing.Partner.Like we were building something.Like I was the person you’d chosen to build it with.”
“That was a word, Marin.I used a word at a party.”
I shake my head.“It wasn’t a word to me.”
21
Luke
The drive home takes twenty-two minutes.I know because I’ve made it six thousand times—give or take—and because counting is what I do when I don’t want to think about something.
