“I can’t,” she whispers back, and I watch her begin to sob again. “I have no one if I don’t have you.”
“You didn’t have me before,” I say.
Carrie smiles and looks at me, our gazes colliding. “Of course I did. You just didn’t know it. You belong to me, Ethan. You always have. You always will.”
“I don’t want to anymore. You hurt me.” I should feel anger, but I don’t.
I just feel pity.
Pity for her and for me.
But mostly for the children we should have been.
And she’s right. It’s probably the most truthful thing she’s said in three days. “I want to be free,” I say, and I sound pitiful. I want to cry.
“So did I,” she replies. “But I’m still not.”
Finally you decide to be honest with me, Carrie.
“Adam doesn’t want me—not like that. I’m not his other woman,” she says, shame flooding her bruised and broken features. “I really am his whore, Ethan. I traded my dad for Adam. I’m not stupid. I’m not just his mistress, I’m his paycheck too. Hell, I’m whatever he wants me to be. He’s never going to leave me for her. I know that and so does he. And I’ve never asked him to.”
“But then why?”
Because I don’t understand why anyone would do that. Why would you fuck someone that doesn’t want to be with you? Why would she belittle herself like that, and allow him to do the same? How can she ever be okay with that? With coming second and knowing that she’ll never be his number one?
You were always my number one, Carrie.
“I need to pay the rent,” she replies coldly. “He pays me. They all pay me.”
“They?” I ask. But inside I’m begging her not to speak, because I know what’s coming before I hear it. And I don’t want to hear it.
She’s too good for that. Or so I thought.
She’s worth more than that. Or so I thought.
She deserves better than that. Or so I believed.
But I guess I really am the fool in this. I know nothing about this woman in front of me. I know nothing about her at all.
