Chapter 9 My Side of the Story
Blake starts calling the next morning.
My phone lights up at seven-fifteen with his name. I decline the call. He calls again at seven-twenty. I decline again. Then a text: "Lara please just talk to me." Then another: "I know I messed up but we can fix this." Then another: "I love you. Please."
I read all three and I put my phone facedown on Raina's kitchen table.
"Already?" Raina says from the stove where she's scrambling eggs.
"Already."
"Are you going to respond?"
"Not yet. He doesn't get to have a conversation on his schedule. He had months to have a conversation with me about what was going on. He didn't. So now he can wait."
"Good."
I eat breakfast. I go to work. The drive to the salon takes fifteen minutes and I spend every one of those minutes aware that my phone is buzzing in my purse. Blake is still calling. I can feel the vibrations through the leather.
The salon is busy on Wednesdays. Mrs. Gallagher is my first appointment and she wants her usual trim and color and she wants to talk about her grandson's T-ball season, which she does for the entire forty-five minutes she's in my chair.
I nod and smile and apply color and my hands are steady and I'm grateful for the routine.
After Mrs. Gallagher comes a blowout for a woman I've never met who found us on a search and is visiting from two towns over.
Then a cut for a teenager whose mother sits in the waiting area scrolling through her phone. Then another color. Then another cut.
Cheryl is at the station next to mine and she glances over at me a few times during the morning but she doesn't ask questions.
Around ten she walks past my chair and sets a coffee on the edge of my station without saying a word.
I take a sip and it's exactly the way I drink it.
Cheryl has been paying attention for a long time.
By lunchtime Blake has called four more times and sent six more texts.
Each text is longer than the last. He's escalating from "please talk to me" to "you're not being fair by shutting me out" to "I deserve a chance to explain" to "you can't just disappear and not give me a chance.
" The tone is shifting from remorseful to frustrated to something that borders on entitled.
He doesn't like being ignored. Blake has never been good at not getting what he wants.
Around two o'clock I get a text from a number I don't recognize. I open it. It's from Hailey.
"Lara, can we talk? I know you're upset but I need you to hear my side."
I stare at the message. Her side. As if there's a version of this story where sleeping with your friend's fiancé for months has a defensible side. I close the text and I don't respond.
Then my phone buzzes again. This time it's Chase.
"Hey, Blake just called me. He says you guys broke up? He sounded pretty messed up. Everything okay?"
And there it is. The narrative management has begun.
Blake is already calling people. He's already shaping the story.
He's telling people we broke up, not that he cheated.
He's positioning himself as the hurt party, the blindsided boyfriend, the guy who came home to an empty closet and a ring on the dresser.
He's going to tell the version where our relationship had problems and I left without warning and he's devastated.
I text Chase back: "Can you meet me after work today? There's something I need to tell you in person."
Chase responds: "Sure. Want to grab food? I can meet at Franco's at 6."
"Perfect."
By four o'clock Blake has also called my mother. My mother calls me during my last appointment and I decline it because I'm in the middle of a color application and also because I'm not ready to talk to her yet. She texts: "Blake called. He's very upset. What happened?" I don't answer.
After work I drive to Franco's. It's a casual Italian place downtown with red vinyl booths and checkered tablecloths.
Chase is already there when I arrive. He's sitting at a booth with a soda, which means he's planning to drive somewhere after this, which means Blake probably asked him to come over tonight and Chase is being a good friend by stopping here first.
"Hey," he says when I slide in across from him. "What's going on?"
"Did Blake tell you why we broke up?"
Chase shifts in the booth. He's uncomfortable. Chase has known both of us since high school. He doesn't want to be in the middle of a breakup.
"He said you packed up and left yesterday. He said you weren't really talking to him about why. He seemed pretty broken up about it. He kept asking me if I knew anything or if you'd talked to me."
"That's what he told you."
"Yeah. Basically. He also said something about maybe you were stressed about work or the wedding planning was getting to you. He was trying to come up with reasons."
"Did any of his reasons involve him sleeping with someone else?"
Chase blinks.
"No."
"That's because he's lying. Chase, I left because Blake has been sleeping with Hailey Simpson for months."
The booth goes quiet. Chase was lifting his soda and he puts it back down without drinking.
"What?"
"Blake and Hailey have been having an affair. It started months ago. I found out about five weeks ago and I spent the last month documenting it and planning my exit."
"Documenting it?"
"I have receipts from restaurants where Blake told me he was somewhere else.
I have dates and times logged where his stories didn't match up.
I have social media posts from Hailey that match Blake's unexplained bar tabs.
And I read months of text messages on his phone.
They've been booking motel rooms, Chase.
They've been meeting up while Blake told me he was with you. "
Chase's face changes. The confusion gives way to something else. Recognition.
"With me?"
"Blake used your name as an alibi. Multiple times. He told me he was hanging out with you when he was with Hailey. He picked your name specifically because you're not the type to call me and check in. He knew you and I don't talk independently so there was no way I'd find out."
"O'Shea's," Chase says. His voice is flat. "He said he was at O'Shea's with me."
"Yes. That was one of the times. I ran into you at the grocery store that weekend and you told me you hadn't been out."
"Lara, I had no idea. I swear to God I had no idea."
"I know you didn't. That's why I'm telling you. Because Blake is out there right now calling people and telling them we broke up and I want you to know the real reason."
Chase sits back in the booth and rubs his face with both hands.
He looks genuinely sick. Not just upset.
Physically uncomfortable. Chase is a loyal person.
He and Blake have been friends since they were fourteen.
Learning that Blake used his name as cover for an affair is hitting him in a personal way.
"I'm going to show you something," I say.
I pull out my phone and open the receipt photos.
"These are receipts I found in Blake's pockets over a three-week period.
Two meals, two drinks, at restaurants Blake told me he went to alone or with coworkers.
I can show you the dates and match them to the nights he told me he was with you or at the gym or working late. "
Chase looks at the photos. He scrolls slowly, the same way Raina did. He reads the dates and the totals and I can see him cross-referencing them against his own memory.
"The night you said O'Shea's," he says. "That was a Friday. I was at home. I remember because I had a cold and I canceled plans."
"I know. Blake picked that night because you were unavailable and wouldn't show up at the bar to contradict his story."
"This is unbelievable."
"It's very believable once you see the pattern."
We talk for an hour. I tell Chase the full story.
Not every detail but enough. The lock screen messages.
The mismatched cover stories. The gym parking lot.
The texts I read. The motel rooms. Chase listens to all of it with the sick expression of a man who is realizing that his close friend has been lying to him as thoroughly as he lied to me.
When we finish Chase is quiet for a while. Then he says something I'm not expecting.
"He called me this morning. He told me you left and he didn't know why. He acted confused. He asked me to talk to you. To find out what was wrong."
"He already knows what's wrong."
"I know that now. But this morning I believed him. He sounded genuine, Lara. He sounded like a guy who was completely blindsided."
"That's what Blake does. He sounds genuine because he's practiced. He's been sounding genuine for months while lying to everyone."
Chase nods slowly. He picks up his soda and takes a long drink and puts it back down.
"Who else have you told?" he asks.
"Just you and Raina."
"What about Sierra? And Ronnie?"
"I'm going to tell them. I wanted to start with you because Blake used your name. You deserved to know that first."
"Thank you for that."
"Are you going to talk to Blake?"
Chase pauses. He thinks about it carefully, which I appreciate.
"Not yet," he says. "I need to sit with this. But Lara, he's going to know you told me. He'll figure it out."
"That's fine. I'm done keeping his secrets."
We leave Franco's. Chase hugs me in the parking lot. It's an awkward hug because Chase isn't a hugger and neither am I, but it's sincere.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm really sorry this happened."
"Thanks, Chase."
I sit in my car and I text Sierra: "Can we get coffee tomorrow morning before I go into the salon?"
She responds almost immediately: "Of course! Is everything okay?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow."
The next morning I meet Sierra at the coffee shop on Green Street at seven-thirty. It's a small place with mismatched chairs and exposed brick. Sierra is already there with two coffees, which means she ordered mine because she knows my order by heart. Vanilla latte. No foam. Extra hot.