"Thank you, Ryan," Julie says quietly, and the way she says it carries more weight than the words themselves.
Now that she knows the truth, she can fight back. And I’ll be there for her in whatever way she needs me. No matter what.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
JULIE
The door clicks shutbehind Ryan and the silence that follows is deafening. My mind is racing. Everything Ryan said keeps replaying on a loop. The engineered meet-cute. The deadline from Dean. The therapy ambush orchestrated with his college hookup. Every single moment of my relationship with Asher has been a lie. There is no truth to it at all.
"Sit down," Jamie says gently. She guides me to the couch and sits beside me, her hand never leaving mine.
I sit and mentally catalogue the coffee table to try to center myself. There's a stack of magazines. Two remotes. A stack of coasters. Everything looks so normal. So ordinary. My entire life just imploded and the world is still spinning. But I need to get my head on straight because I’ve been handed a mulligan, and I need to use it strategically. I’ve been on the back foot this entire time. That ends now.
I take a deep breath and sit up straight. “I need to go home soon.”
Jamie's grip tightens. "What? Julie, no. Stay here tonight. You don't have to face him yet."
"I do." I look at her. "I need to go home and act like nothing is wrong."
She blinks. "What the hell? Why?"
"I'm not going to confront him. Not yet." My voice is steadier than I expected. "I'm going to go home and pretend everything is fine. And I'm going to watch him. I made myself a list last night of things I need to do and then I followed through on none of it today because I was feeling overwhelmed. That’s not happening again. Avoiding it is only going to make things worse. Step one is covering my ass before I kick his."
"Julie—"
"He thinks he's so smart," I say. The anger is starting to burn through the shock. "He thinks he's got this all figured out. He picked the wrong woman to fuck with."
Jamie's eyes widen. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to give him exactly what he wants. Exactly what makes him happiest, apparently," I say. "I'm going to serve myself up as the broken, frustrated wife. Sad. Quiet. Stressed and on the brink. A woman besieged with abandonment issues and emotional trauma who’s barely holding it together.”
Jamie stands and crosses her arms. "What are you thinking?"
I stop pacing and look at her. “I’m thinking I need ammunition. So step one is removing myself from the equation to find out see what he’ll do when I'm not around. When he thinks he has the house to himself. I need proof. Not just suspicions. Not just gut feelings. I need to know exactly what I'm dealing with and use that to my advantage.”
Jamie nods slowly. "Okay. So what's the plan?"
"I need to buy time, but I cannot stay in that house with him. Not long term. So you're coming over tomorrow morning,” I say. “You're going to show up and tell Asher that you're taking me on a girls trip to the San Juan Islands for a few days. You'll say I've been under too much stress and I need to relax. You'll needto be extra standoffish with him, which makes sense after what happened at therapy. We need to sell this just right so he feels secure enough to let his guard down.”
"But we're not actually going to the islands, right?"
"No. We'll stay nearby. Close enough to get back to the house when I need to.” I tell her.
Jamie's expression shifts from concern to something sharper. Something strategic. "You want to catch him."
"I want to see who he really is when he thinks no one's watching. He's a two-faced fucking liar." I sit back down on the couch. “I need evidence so I can fight.”
"Why not just leave?"
"I have my reasons." My voice cracks slightly. "But I'm through being his doormat. I'm through thinking I'm losing my mind. Now, I'm going to build a case."
Jamie sits beside me again. "As well you should. You’re not losing your mind. You've been gaslit and manipulated."
"I know." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "And I'm done being the victim in my own life. I'mdoneletting him control the narrative. I need information and detail and evidence so I can use it against him."
"Okay." Jamie takes a deep breath. "So I’ll show up tomorrow morning and say I'm taking you on a trip. I’ll be passive aggressive to him so he thinks nothing has changed. And then we disappear for a few days and see what happens."
