Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next morning, I found myself walking with leaden steps through the half-dead heart of downtown, heading toward a café I’d never noticed before and would have crossed the street to avoid on any other day.
The awning was sun-bleached and cracked, and the sign—CAFE SOLITUDE—looked like it belonged to a place that specialized in stale biscotti and graduate student tears.
It was the perfect venue for my meeting with Lacey.
The street was mostly empty, too early for the office crowd, too late for the drunks.
I wasn’t hungover, but my nerves vibrated with the kind of exhaustion that usually followed a night spent oscillating between panic and pointless hope.
Lacey had texted me the address the night before, along with a polite: Thank you for agreeing to see me.
I owe you an explanation. The message sat in my notifications all morning, an emotional threat I scrolled past without ever marking as read.
I didn’t want to do this. Every instinct screamed at me to ignore the whole thing, bury it under work or sex or whatever new compulsion might fill the void.
But curiosity gnawed away at my resolve, and here I was, ordering a black coffee from a teenager who looked like he’d been born with a nicotine patch already applied.
I chose a table by the window, far from the register, where I could watch the street and the entrance without having to make eye contact with any of the five other patrons.
None of them looked up. The mood was exactly what the name promised: solitude, plus the faint smell of over-roasted beans and disinfectant.
I stared at my phone. I’d turned off the ringer, but I was still waiting for something to happen.
I wanted a text from Rachel, a call from Nate—anything that would give me an excuse to leave.
Instead, the minutes ticked past. I sipped at the coffee, let the bitterness burn away any traces of cowardice, and thought about all the possible ways this meeting could go wrong.
Lacey arrived precisely on time, down to the second.
She was almost unrecognizable from her Instagram-perfect headshots: dark sunglasses covering most of her face, lips bare and colorless, hair pulled back in a severe ponytail.
She wore a designer maternity dress, navy with white piping, stretched tight over a bump that was far beyond “food baby.” She looked like someone who wanted desperately to be invisible but had never succeeded in her life, and now had resigned herself to being noticed for all the wrong reasons.
She scanned the café, spotted me, and walked over, one hand bracing her lower back in the way pregnant women did when they’d had enough of pretending everything was fine. I stood, awkwardly, and she gave a stiff nod before sliding into the seat across from me.
“Olivia,” she said. Her voice was soft, maybe intentionally so.
“Lacey.”
The silence was immediate and heavy. I waited for her to make the first move.
She peeled off her sunglasses and set them on the table.
Her eyes were rimmed with red, like she hadn’t slept—or maybe she’d been crying for longer than I’d known her.
I tried to muster some sympathy, but I was too busy bracing myself for whatever nuclear option she’d called me here to deliver.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” she said.
I nodded, folding my hands on the table so she wouldn’t see how badly they trembled. “You said there was something I needed to know.”
Lacey laced her fingers together, stared at her knuckles, then back up at me. “I should have reached out sooner, but I—I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to make anything worse. But after our last call, I realized you deserved the truth. About Cam. About the baby. About everything.”
I swallowed, wishing I’d brought a flask instead of a phone. “I appreciate that. Just—say what you need to say.”
She looked relieved to be given permission. She took a deep breath and let it out all at once.
“Cam never wanted to sleep with me,” she said.
“Not at first. Not even after your arrangement started. He—he told me point blank that he was only interested in an open marriage because he was spiraling and didn’t know how to stop.
He told me he didn’t want to sleep with anyone he worked with.
Too messy. Against the rules. Blah, blah. ”
I didn’t want to believe it, but the way she said it—so matter-of-fact, so utterly without drama—left little room for doubt.
“He told me you pursued him,” I said. My voice was flat, but inside, the floor shifted under me. “That even when he told you no, you pushed and pushed until he broke.”
Lacey smiled, a sad, crooked thing. “That’s not wrong.
It started with him confiding with me. He didn’t want you to know how depressed he’d become.
How sometimes he thought of ending it all.
But it was me, Olivia. I’m the one who kept pushing.
I told him all the time how much he deserved a family, how wonderful a father he’d be, how unfair it was that he was being denied that.
I—I made it my mission to convince him I was what he needed. To wear him down.”
The air felt tight in my lungs. I tried to piece together the man I thought I knew, the man I’d loved, with the story Lacey was telling me.
“Why?” I asked, finally.
Lacey dropped her gaze. “Because I was desperate. Because I was already pregnant. And the man who—” She stopped, composed herself.
“The man who got me pregnant left the moment he found out. I didn’t know what to do.
I knew Cam wanted a child more than anything, and I knew he was vulnerable.
I convinced myself he’d be better off with me, with my baby, than with you or with nothing at all. ”
I stared at her, stunned into silence.
She continued, the words coming faster now, like she needed to empty herself out before she lost the nerve.
“I started inviting him out for coffee, for drinks after work. I’d corner him in the elevator, make jokes about baby names, about what color eyes our kid would have.
At first he laughed it off, said it would never happen.
But I kept going. I made it—inevitable.”
I wanted to hate her, but the truth was, I recognized something of myself in that relentless drive to make things turn out the way you thought you deserved.
“So when did he—” I started, but Lacey shook her head.
“It was when we went to Vegas,” she said.
“He was in a bad place. I could see it. I took advantage of it. He slept with me, and I let him believe it was the first time I’d been with anyone in a long time.
I told him I was on birth control before we hooked up, the condom conveniently broke, and then after I claimed he was the father, I said must have forgotten a day or two of pills.
I just wanted him to believe he could be the father. ”
I stared down at the table, fingers digging into the fake wood. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
“He never loved me,” Lacey went on, voice almost a whisper.
“He never stopped talking about you. Even when he was with me, he’d go on about how much he missed you, how he just wanted you to be happy.
I thought if I could give him a family, he’d eventually come around.
But he didn’t. He tried to end it—us—so many times, but I always found a way to get back in. ”
I let that sit, feeling the heat build behind my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, not here, not with her. But the urge was there, raw and suffocating.
“So what changed?” I asked, voice barely audible.
Lacey wiped at her eyes, careful not to smudge the mascara she’d barely bothered to apply.
“He found out the truth,” she said. “The real father showed up at my office one day, demanding a paternity test. I couldn’t say no.
The test was positive, obviously, and Cam was—he was so angry, but not at me.
At himself. For believing it could ever work out. For what he’d put you through.”
She leaned in, urgency in her face. “He was devastated, Olivia. Absolutely shattered. He kept saying, over and over, that he’d lost everything. That he’d ruined the only real thing he’d ever had.”
I looked up, finally meeting her eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
Lacey looked surprised by the question. “Because I wanted you to know the truth. He wasn’t the villain. Not completely. I was, though. I did everything wrong. I hurt you both, and I’m sorry. I’m not a bad person. I just made some bad mistakes.”
She hesitated, glanced around the empty café, then back at me. “I know you probably hate me, and you have every right to. But I want you to know that Cam—he never stopped loving you. He talked about you every day. Even after you left him.”
I nodded, numb. I felt stripped bare, every defense burned away by the steady flame of Lacey’s confession. I couldn’t decide if I was angry, or relieved, or just tired.
“Thank you,” I said, the words mechanical but sincere. “I’m glad you told me.”
Lacey blinked, surprised. “You don’t want to yell at me? Or throw your coffee in my face?”
I considered it. “I thought about it. But I’m too tired.”
She laughed, just once, then picked up her sunglasses and slipped them back on.
“I’ll leave you alone now,” she said, pushing herself up from the table. “I wish you the best, Olivia. I really do. The baby’s father and I are moving soon, so you won’t have to worry about seeing me again, no matter what you choose to do.”
I watched her go, the weight of everything settling on my shoulders like an old, familiar coat.