I see how she looks at you.
It’s not just her doing it, Mike. I see how you look at her when you think nobody’s watching.
“Tell me why she left,” I insist.
Turning around, squaring his shoulders as though readying to fight, Corbin looks at me still standing by the door. “She knows everything. Victoria, Gabe, and she’ll soon know who you are to her and what you’ve been doing without her consent.”
My chest seizes. A sharp pain strikes like a flame behind my eyes. It’s bad enough Lucy found out from someone other than me, but knowing she’ll never forgive me pierces my gut with unrestrained revolt.
“You fucked her,” he claims with pierced venom. “In more ways than one.”
His way of putting together Lucy’s and my relationship, tainting it with vulgarity and labeling it for all it isn’t, pisses me off and offers a distraction.
“Don’t talk about her like that again.”
“You did. You couldn’t resist her. Young, beautiful, single mom. You lost your family. Lucy was your chance at redemption. Does that cover it?”
“Corbin, I swear to Christ, shut your fucking mouth.”
“You’ve taken care of her all these years. I thought it was enough. I thought if you could do that, you’d eventually move on. But you moved on with her.”
“You pleaded with me to meet her, Corbin. Spontaneous, remember? You urged me to talk to her, then you fucking hired her.”
“So you made sleeping with you part of her job description?”
He’s pushing. Corbin knows me better than anyone else. He was there when I lost everything. He also knows, deep down, I’d never hurt a woman as long as I could help it. He’s angry because he had to break the news to Lucy when, by all rights, I should’ve been the one to do it.
Rather than bloody his lip, I calmly tell my best friend, “This isn’t your concern.”
His arms extend in front of him. “You hurt her,” he snaps, leaning in closer, even though he’s still a good ten feet away. “Fuck, Michael. She had no idea and you…” He points to me with added ire. “This killed her.”
“I was going to tell her, Corbin,” I lamely admit.
Walking closer, getting in my face, Corbin spits back, “When? After she fell in love with you? Did you think she’d forgive everything you’ve done then?”
“She’s not in love with me,” I quickly deny. It’s not true, but the possibility washes over me, leaving only a calming peace in its wake, which quickly vanishes. “She can’t…” I stop, shake my head quickly. “I…”
“God, you’re a fucking idiot,” he snaps. “She’s a good girl.”
My throat tightens as I nod once. “I know.”
He takes a breath, then sighs. “She was in love with you. She told me this at the same time I was tearing her safe little world apart with the truth you made Lillie and me keep from her.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I hear myself say quietly.
“You can’t fix this. The way you’ve lived your life has cost you the only happiness I think you’ll ever have a chance to find.”
Lucy
BETRAYAL.
The consequence it engraves takes but a few moments to burrow itself so deep under your skin and into your heart, you feel nothing more than its unrelenting and lasting effect. As time and life push you forward, the pain doesn’t yield. Instead, it becomes a worsening ache, leaving you without any power to control it.
God, this hurts.
When Corbin finally admitted to me who the woman talking to Michael was, I felt the ground shift as though it had opened up and I was left free-falling into an empty field of loneliness and doubt.
I’d been there before. Almost five years ago. In many ways, this is so much worse. The pain I’m engulfed in this time isn’t just about loss. It’s about both loss and betrayal. To know I’ll never be able to talk to Gabe, to hear his reasons why he did what he did, leaves me gutted. The only person who could truly answer so many questions I have spinning through my mind is a woman I’ve quickly learned to despise and who, at one time, I thought was dead.
The woman who had an affair with my husband has come back from the dead to taunt me. She already had Gabe, but now, with Michael’s deception in more ways than one, she’s taken him from me, too.
If this weren’t happening to me, I may find it funny.
After hearing all Corbin had to say, a panic flared from deep inside. My world crumbled around me, bringing down all my memories of Gabe. How he used to say my name, soft and gentle. The sound of his laughter, rich with sincerity. Watching him hold and talk to Dillon as though our son understood every word. The feel of his touch, although never lighting with fire and bursting with flames, was always a reminder that I was loved.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy,” Shannan expresses again as she stands in my kitchen and watches me sit at the table, looking down and twisting my hands in my lap. “You really never knew anything about it?”
Shaking my head, I answer, “No. I really didn’t.”
“You weren’t happy with Gabe. You told me as much. But this…” She looks down and walks to the table. “I can’t imagine what you’re thinking.”
I do. I’m thinking about how much I wish Gabe were still here. I’d like him to tell me the reason he felt he couldn’t talk to me before cheating. I thought we’d worked things out, at least enough to be honest with each other. However, I was wrong about that, as well as so many other things.
“Lucy?” Shannan says. “I’m not so sure I understand.”
The file she’s thumbing through dissects the truth Corbin led me to. Michael knew who I was before we met.
Before he let me fall in love with him.
When I called my landlord yesterday and told him I had a suspicion he’d been involved with Michael Holden and I wanted to know how, he stuttered through his words. He was surprised at my call and apprehensive to discuss anything. I advised him that I now worked at a law firm in town, namely Mercer Law. It was then he immediately folded. He asked that I meet him first thing this morning, so I did.
The ride home was agonizingly long as the road ahead of me was blurred. Michael Holden had burrowed himself into my life without my knowledge. He’d been ensuring my bills were paid, which my landlord allowed, gaining a healthy profit of his own.
In many ways, I mourned.
I mourned as a single mother. All this time, I thought I was taking care of Dillon. I worked hard, wisely spending whatever money we had, even when I wanted so much more for him. Our small apartment is our home, and proudly so. Finding out Michael had been keeping tabs, checking up on me, and never mentioning any of this the entire time I’ve known him all but killed me.
Maybe my overstated self-pity might seem over-the-top, but I feel how I feel.
Looking up, I turn my focus to her. “Look harder, Shannan. My rent is double what it was the day I moved in here, but I still pay the same. Michael’s been paying the difference.”
She studies the file longer, holding it closer to her face so I can’t make out her expression. “Is this legal?” she questions, finally setting it down in front of her and looking at me.
“I don’t know. Whether it’s legal or not isn’t the issue.”
Shannan sighs and pushes the file away. “Don’t get pissed at me.”
I roll my watery eyes, then use my tissue to quickly swipe the tear. “Go on.”
“So, let me get this straight. You never knew Michael before we went to Tryst, and he only knew of you,” she starts.
“Yep,” I exhale.
“Michael’s wife, who you now know is alive, had been having an affair with your husband.”
“Yep.”
“So, because he felt obligated in some unconventional way, he’s been helping you financially for…” She opens the files and looks at the date Dillon and I moved in here, “the past four-and-a-half years?”
“Yep.”
Sitting up in her chair, Shannan swallows hard and doesn’t say anything until she’s sure she has my attention. “You and me… We’re different,” she explains. “I mean, you’re telling me you’re sad about a man whose reasons for doing what he did were his own, but because of the man he is, he did this so you’d live well after the loss of your husband.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, pointing to the file. “You’d be so willing to let this go?”
“No,” she answers quickly. “I’m not saying that, Lucy Loo.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Shannan stands from her chair at the end of the table and walks to the one next to me. She sits, grabs my hand, and squeezes.
“I’m saying don’t be sad. Don’t be sad over Gabe having an affair. Hell, don’t even be sad for him dying. You can’t change either of those things, and by using up your energy on that, you’re missing…” She slides the file in front of me. “This is what you’re missing. Get angry. Be pissed. Yell. Scream. Whatever. But when the dust settles and you have time to really think, you’ll see what I do.”
That I fell in love with a man who jeopardized anything we could’ve had without me ever knowing?