Emily (2:15 PM): I’m bored. And I’m not wearing panties under this dress. You noticed, right?
Harrison (2:16 PM): I noticed. I can’t stop looking at your legs.
Emily (2:18 PM): Go to the guest bathroom upstairs. Pretend you have a stomach ache. Give me two minutes, then come find me.
Harrison (2:20 PM): On my way. Be on your knees when I get there.
Sarah dropped the iPad onto the carpet as if it were burning hot.
She gasped for air, the memory of that Thanksgiving twisting in her mind. She remembered him coming downstairs twenty minutes later, looking flushed, apologizing for his "bad clam." She had made him peppermint tea. She had rubbed his back.
He had just been with her. In my guest bathroom. While I cooked his dinner.
Trembling, she picked the tablet up again. She had to see it all.
She scrolled to a random Tuesday in October.
Harrison (6:30 PM): She’s on a call with the contractors. She won't be done for an hour.
Emily (6:32 PM): Perfect. Meet me in the garage? inside the SUV?
Harrison (6:33 PM): No. Too cold. Come to the basement. The storage room.
Emily (6:40 PM): I want you to hurt me a little today.
Harrison (6:41 PM): I’m going to wreck you.
Tears were streaming down Sarah’s face now, hot and angry. The language... it wasn't the Harrison she knew. The Harrison she knew was gentle. He asked if she was okay. He was vanilla.
This Harrison—the one in the blue bubbles—was dominant, crude, and insatiable. He spoke to Emily like she was an object, and Emily loved it. They dissected their sexual encounters with a clinical, pornographic detail that made Sarah nauseous.
Harrison: I love the way you take it.
Harrison: You’re so much tighter than her. It’s a different world.
Emily: Does she suspect?
Harrison: No. She’s too busy with her blueprints. She thinks I’m working late.
"I was building our future," Sarah whispered to the screen, her voice cracking. "You bastard. I was building our life."
She closed the messages. She couldn't take the words anymore. But her finger drifted to the Photos app.
Don't do it, Sarah.
She did it.
The grid filled with recent photos. Screenshots of memes. A picture of a lunch receipt. And then, a block of photos from three months ago.
Date: August 14th - August 16th.
Sarah froze. August 14th. That was the weekend of the AIA Conference in Chicago. She had begged Harrison to come with her, to turn it into a mini-vacation. He had declined, saying he had a critical project launch and needed to work through the weekend. He had stayed home. Or so he said.
The photos told a different story.
The first image was the dashboard of his car. Emily’s feet were on the dashboard, painted toes wiggling against the windshield. The geolocation tag read: Lake Tahoe, CA.
She swiped.
