Chapter 4
Rachel Mercer.
Thirty-four.
Divorced.
Marketing director at Nathan’s office.
Apartment on Westover Avenue.
I knew more than I wanted to know.
I had never met her.
I had never called her.
I had never driven there to confront them.
But I knew.
Nathan swallowed.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t know what you think you know.”
“I know where you’ve been.”
His face emptied.
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“That might be the problem.”
He stared at me.
I could almost see him reaching for the old version of our marriage, searching for the right combination of words that would turn me back into the woman who demanded explanations because explanations meant there was still something to save.
I wasn’t angry enough anymore.
That scared him more than anger would have.
“Did you follow me?”
“No.”
“Did somebody see us?”
Us.
Not me.
Us.
One syllable confirmed months of suspicion more cleanly than any confession could have.
Nathan heard it.
His mouth closed.
I nodded once.
“Goodnight, Nathan.”
I got into the car.
He caught the top of the door before I could close it.
“Claire, please.”
I looked at his hand.
He removed it.
“Don’t make an eleven-year decision at midnight.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I made it over the last eleven months.”
His face changed then.
Finally.
Not surprise.
Understanding.
Maybe even fear.
I pulled the door shut.
Nathan stood in our driveway as I backed away from the house.
For years, whenever he left late, I had stood at that same front window watching his taillights disappear.
That night, for the first time, he was the one watching mine.
And I did not look back.
Chapter 2: What I finally admitted
Laura opened her front door before I reached the porch.
She was wearing plaid pajama pants, a college sweatshirt, and the expression of someone trying very hard not to say I told you so.
I had texted her fifteen minutes earlier.
Coming over. Please don’t ask questions until I get there.
She didn’t.
She simply pulled me into her arms.
That was the moment my knees nearly failed.
I had driven twenty-two minutes without crying.
I had stopped at three red lights.
Signaled every turn.
Kept exactly five miles above the speed limit the way I always did.
But the second my sister hugged me, I realized how much energy it had taken to remain upright.