Why did I let her go?
Tears sting behind my eyelids and will not be held back.
Where are you, Melly?
Her cellphone sits on the bedside table. For one fragile moment, I convince myself she must still be here if her phone is.
But when I pick it up, the truth crushes me. There are missed calls and texts from Mandy, but nothing from me. Line after line of poison. She's mocking my wife, bragging about being with me at Christmas. She set out to hurt Melly, and I gave her the ammo.
I texted Melly before the press conference to let her know I was making a public apology and that she was part of it. I called repeatedly, but she never picked up. None of these are on the logs.
I take out my phone and call Melly again.
But it's Mandy who answers, laughing. "Hey, Jaxson." She's not nervous or surprised, but amused.
My stomach drops when I recognize her. "What's going on? I have Melly's phone in my hand. How are you answering it?"
"Oh, honey," she croons, "You still don't get it."
"Don't get what?" I bark, my grip tightening on my phone. "Answer me!"
"Isn't it obvious, darling?" she sneers. "Every time your conscience bothered you, and you'd send her a message or try to call, they went to me. I changed the contact names. Sent a few messages."
"That's not funny, Mandy," I say. "You're lying."
"I wish I were," she says, "Every message you sent? All the late-night apologies. After rolling off of me, you'd go to another room to call or textherwith your sniveling words of love that mean nothing to anyone. You think if she'd actually received any of them after months of ignoring her that she'd even wanted to hear from you?"
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying exactly what you think I am," she snickers. "When I felt you slipping away, I changed her contact in your phone. So when those apologies started coming through, she never got them, and I doubt she would even want them since they came after you and I had slept together. Every time!"
"You changed her contact on my phone?"
'That's right, lover boy, she never got anything from you. And after you sent your messages, I sent mine to her real contact. She knew every time we made love. I even sent her photos," she laughs.
"We never made love, Mandy. It was just sex."
"Whatever, making love or sex, your wife had a front row seat. I made sure of it."
"You're sick," I choke out.
"And you've got to be the dumbest man alive to think that you wouldn't damage your relationship with your wife by screwing around on her, even under the guise of ‘open marriage.’"
Now I feel sick.
"Oh, and that text fromGord? Also me." She laughs again, sharp and tinkling. "How was I supposed to spend Christmas with you if you were with your wifey? I'm sure it would've been awkward anyway, seeing as you two hadn't spoken in months. What would you even have talkedabout? Your girlfriend? You can thank me for that, too."
"Gord never sent me that message?" I rasp, phone pressed to my ear as my pulse roars in my head. My hands shake, and my chest tight with pain.
"That's right, honey," she purrs, delighted. "It was me. I get what I want, and I keep it."
"Call me when you're ready to admit that Melly's finally gone," she adds. "I'll be waiting."
Her laughter cuts off as the line goes dead.
My head's a mess. I don't know how my life devolved this badly, how I let it come to this. I brought a viper into our lives, and I can feel the venom working its way through everything.
I gave Mandy the power to destroy my marriage, and she used it.
