Fuck. Someone knows. Or saw. Fuck!
Sunday, 5:54PM
Becky:Ok? Ok?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN Ok, Caleb?!
We were busted.Busted!I was just starting to get the gears turning again when the words Mom was saying registered with me. It took a minute too long for it all to click.
“What? Say that again?” I demanded, finally cluing into the conversation.
“Which part?” She scoffed, annoyed with me. Annoyed that I’d ruined her relationship with Devin. Annoyed that I turned out to be a dumpster fire of a husband.
“All of it. I don’t know what’s going on, Mom.” I said, finally letting the defeat seep out. She let out a sigh that sounded like it weighed about two tons on her shoulders.
“Caleb. Don’t you dare insult me by thinking I don’t know. Thatshedoesn’t know, I mean, come on! Who do you think told me? We’re not idiots, Caleb!Devin knows!She sent me the proof! Even after you promised not to contact that two bit floozy again, you were! You were still texting her.Why?! She tried to get you to see she wasn’t comfortable with that vile trashy woman trying to insert herself into your lives, so, I just have to know.Why?! You threw everything away! For what?! For who?!” My mother sobbed into the phone. They weren’t just angry sobs. They were heartbroken, incredibly sad sobs pouring from my mother. I had never felt so small as her words started sinking in.
She knows? She can’t know.
“I know. I should have listened to her when she first brought me her concerns, and that’s on me, Mom. I didn’t listen. But I haven’t talked to her other than to tell her to leave me alone in weeks! It’s been weeks, Mom.” Another heavy sigh came from my mother. How many of those did she have saved for me? How many had she already sighed for me?
“Caleb. Youneedtohear me.She is leaving you. Devin is leaving you.” She paused, and it was completely silent. That silence hung heavy in the air, uncomfortably so until she continued.
“Devin heardandsaw you having sex with that nasty tramp on the terrace at the holiday party! Devin is done. She said she changed the locks and that I could come with you to get your stuff on Monday or Tuesday from the front desk. The doormen have been keeping your things since this morning. Eddie and Emilia were the ones who made sure to get everything that’s yours packed. There is no trace of you left in her space. She told me she’s already hired a deep cleaning company to come in and give the entire apartment a crime scene clean, and to take any and all soft surfaces to the dry cleaners. Just in case. She wanted to make sure there would be no trace left of you.”
I sat there on the hallway floor, my ears ringing. My brain couldn’t compute what was being told to me.
She was leaving me. She knew. My wife was leaving me because she caught me fucking Becky.
What the fuck did I do?
“No. No. She can’t leave me, Mom! I made a mistake. A mistake, Mom! One mistake! That’s all! It was just a drunken mistake!” I was running my hands through my hair. I stood up and started banging on the door now, desperately trying to get to Devin.
“Devin! Dev! Baby! It was a mistake! I swear! It will never happen again! Devin,please!Please, baby!” I still had my phone pressed to my ear, thinking my mother would hear my pleas and give me some kind of emotional support. Until her raised voice came through the speaker. She made sure I could hear every cutting word.
“Amistakewas not listening to Devin’s concerns.You fucked up!Literally,fucked. Up. And multiple times.Multiple times, Caleb!” Her voice was ice.
No…
I could feel the panic setting in, my banging became more frantic before I heard someone behind me telling me to move along. I turned to see two police officers.
Had she called the police on me? What do I do now? Where was I supposed to go?
It felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole. What the fuck was going to happen to me? I had just epically blown up my whole goddamn fucking life, for some pussy that wasn’t my wife’s.
Fuck.
It wasn’t even worth it.
Chapter Fifteen:
Becky’s POV
By Sunday evening, I was frustrated. Like, beyond frustrated! I hadn’t heard from Caleb since he left my place super early this morning, even after I tried my very hardest to persuade him to stay a little longer. He left, even after I tried to seduce him, and sway him with promises of taking him back to the land of ecstasy. I mean, who knew he’d actually stay the whole night with me? I could tell he didn’t want to leave in the morning either.
Maybe,just maybe, he really was thinking of leaving his wife for me. Maybe he really was that unhappy in his marriage. I know when we talked about his private life however many weeks earlier, he told me how much hated how tense and toxic everything was between them. He literally called their marriage a Mexican standoff.
Whatever that was.
And who wouldn’t feel even more stressed and pressured to be perfect when she showed up to the Christmas party like she was the star of the show? Her blazing green dress that was visible for miles with that awful, frizzy red hair? She looked like Christmas threw up on her. So tacky! I didn’t understand why everyone thought she looked good. She looked absolutely ridiculous. And then she had the nerve to ignore me like I wasn’t even there!
