Chapter 9
More than the locked phone.
Maybe even more than the message.
Because Mark had not merely protected his secret.
He had used my love to protect it.
Every time my instincts moved close to the truth, he made me distrust myself.
That was the wound beneath the wound.
I took a napkin from the dispenser and found a pen in my purse.
I began writing dates.
Not because I needed to build a case.
Because I needed to remember my own reality.
The Saturday he said golf ran late.
The Thursday he came home smelling different.
The weekend trip he canceled because of work.
The night I cried in the bathroom after he told me my neediness was becoming unattractive.
The afternoon he changed his phone passcode.
I wrote until the napkin was full.
Then I folded it and slipped it into my purse.
When I got home shortly after nine, Mark was sitting in the living room.
The television was off.
He stood immediately.
“You could have answered my text.”
“I was reading.”
“For three hours?”
“And drinking coffee.”
He stared at me.
“That’s all?”
Something inside me sharpened.
“What exactly are you asking?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Ask.”
His face changed.
“I’m asking if you were alone.”
“Yes.”
He released a breath.
And that told me everything.
The possibility that I might be doing to him what he was doing to me was intolerable.
Not because he loved me better.
Because betrayal had made him suspicious too.
People who live inside secrets begin seeing secrets everywhere.
I walked past him.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
He looked tired.
For the first time, I noticed a small crease between his eyebrows that seemed deeper than it had a week earlier.
“Can we not do this?”
“Do what?”
“This weird distance thing.”
I almost told him.
Instead, I said, “You wanted distance.”
His face went pale.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I held his gaze.
“It means I finally learned how to give it to you.”
That night, Mark slept close to the center of the bed.
He did not touch me.
Neither of us slept much.
Over the next week, his schedule transformed.
Client emergencies disappeared.
Late dinners became rare.
Golf ended in the afternoon.
The gym across town apparently lost its attraction.
He came home.
He was present.
He offered to cook.
He asked whether I wanted to watch movies.
He suggested a weekend away.