"No." She cut him off, stepping closer, her presence unyielding. "You're so busy charming every woman but your wife. Ignoring me, us, while you indulge in… in this!"
"Angie, please, it's not—" Will attempted to stand, to reach for her, but she recoiled.
"Save it!" She punctuated each word with pointed jabs of her finger. "I watch you. I see how you are with them. Laughing. Touching. Where is that man when he's with me?"
"Angela, let's talk about this," Will's tone softened, the plea clear in his eyes.
"Talk? Like you 'talk' to her?" Angela swept her arm toward the woman, whose face had paled, caught in the crossfire.
"Angela, don't do this here," Will implored, but the levee had broken. “I’m sorry everyone….”
"Here is exactly where we do this, Will! Because it's always here, among them, that I lose you!" Her voice swelled with a mix of sorrow and fury.
"Angie, you're overreacting," Will tried to reason, his anger simmering beneath the surface. “Am I not allowed to talk to anyone but you?”
"Overreacting?" Angela laughed, a harsh sound. "No, this is me reacting, Will. This is me tired of being invisible."
Angela stood, breaths coming fast, the taste of bile and Merlot in her mouth. She stared at the wreckage before her—a nice dinner turned battlefield—and knew there was no retreat, only the grim march forward.
A plate shattered against the wall, a hair's breadth from Will's head.
"Angela, stop!" he shouted as another missile—this time, a fork—narrowly missed him.
"Shut up!" Angela's voice was a whip-crack in the dining room, her usually gentle blue eyes ablaze with an incendiary rage that belied her nurturing nature.
"Angie, please," Will's plea drowned under the clatter of silverware raining down on him.
"Please? Please?" Each word was punctuated by the thud of objects hitting the walls, the floor, and the table. "You never begged when you were ignoring me!"
"Angie, look at me. Look at me!" Will stood firm, arms raised defensively, trying to bridge the chasm of fury between them.
She lunged, hands clawing. Instinctively, he caught her wrists, pulling her into his chest, absorbing the kinetic wrath into his own body. "This is not you," he whispered, breath hot on her ear.
"Let go! You don't know me!" Her struggles were frantic and desperate, but slowly, the fire dimmed, choked out by sobs that racked her frame.
"I'm here, Angie. I'm not having an affair, I swear." His words wrapped around her like a blanket, soft and insistent.
"Then why?" she gasped, her voice muffled against his shirt. "Why do you push me away?" The vulnerability coiled within her, a wounded animal caged by its own despair.
"Angie, I'm not," Will's voice cracked, the lie of omission heavy on his tongue. He held her tighter, willing his heartbeat to steady hers. "I'm right here."
"Here," she echoed, the word hollow. "But not with me. Never with me."
"Always with you." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze, to see the truth—or at least the semblance of it—shining back at her.
“I wanna go home.”
Angela ripped herself from Will's grasp, the fabric of his shirt still clutched in her trembling fingers. She staggered back, the image of their entwined shadows on the wall imprinting itself into her memory like a dark omen. Without a word, she turned, the echoes of her heels against the hardwood floor punctuating her departure. She ran to the car and got in, then waited for Will to join her. They drove home in silence.
The living room lay ahead, drenched in the soft glow of the evening light filtering through half-drawn curtains. Angela collapsed onto the couch, the cushions embracing her fall, while Will paid the babysitter and then went up to the bedroom without uttering a word to her. Her hands sought the familiar comfort of the throw pillows—tools of domestic bliss now smothered by the weight of her crumbling trust.
She lay there, her body a sprawl of abandonment, staring at the ceiling where the chandelier’s crystals cast a mosaic of broken light across the plaster. Anger seethed within her, hot and acrid, gnawing at the edges of her composure.
"Perfect," she murmured to the empty room, the word a bitter twist on her lips. Their friends' laughter and wine glasses clinking now seemed distant memories. Betrayal, an unseen guest at the dinner party, had claimed its seat at the table.
Her thoughts spiraled with the ferocity of a storm. Every smile he had given that woman, each touch of his hand on her back—a tally of transgressions real or imagined. Angela's mind raced, replaying the evening's events, dissecting every gesture, every glance. In the quiet aftermath, doubt crept in, whispering sinister tales to her heart.
"Is there more?" she whispered into the dimming light, tracing patterns on the fabric of the couch as if it could yield answers. Her gaze settled on a photo of them on the mantelpiece, captured in a moment of genuine joy. How hadthey come to this—a tableau of affection now tinged with the hue of suspicion?
