22. Elise
— ? —
Elise
Three weeks alone teaches you a lot about yourself.
I learn that I like my coffee stronger than Simon ever made it. That I prefer to sleep on the left side of the bed, not the right where I always slept with him. That I enjoy reality television and crossword puzzles and walking aimlessly through neighborhoods I’ve never explored.
Small things. Trivial things. But they feel like revelations after years of shaping myself around someone else’s preferences.
The hotel is comfortable but impersonal, which suits me fine. I don’t want comfort right now. I want neutral ground, a blank space where I can figure out who I am without anyone else’s expectations pressing in on me.
I think about Rowan constantly. Every night, I pull up his contact and hover over the call button, then put the phone away. Not yet. I’m not ready yet.
What I’m ready for, it turns out, is anger.
It comes on gradually, like a tide rolling in.
At first, I’m just sad. Grieving the marriage I thought I had, the friendship I thought was real, the life I thought I was building. I cry a lot. Sleep too much. Eat too little.
But underneath the grief, something else is growing.
Rage.
Not the hot, explosive anger I felt in the cabin. This is something colder. More sustained. A slow-burning fury at everyone who lied to me, manipulated me, made me feel small and crazy and wrong.
At Simon, for obvious reasons. For the affair, the planning, the systematic dismantling of my self-trust.
At Lilia, for pretending to be my friend while stabbing me in the back. For listening to my fears and insecurities and using them against me. For being there, always there, with her sympathetic smiles and comforting words, while she was sleeping with my husband.
At Patricia, for the years of subtle condescension. For making me feel like I was never quite good enough for her precious son. For calling after the affair broke and telling me that men make mistakes, like I should just accept betrayal as part of the marriage package.
At myself, for not seeing it. For trusting people who didn’t deserve my trust. For spending too much time trying to be perfect for a man who was already checked out.
The anger feels good. Cleaner than grief. More energizing than despair.
I let it burn.
By the end of week two, I’ve let the old rental go, clanking radiator and all, and found an apartment.
It’s small, a one-bedroom in a neighborhood I’ve never lived in, but it’s mine. Not Simon’s. Not ours. Mine.
I sign the lease with a hand that only shakes a little.
“First apartment on your own?” the landlord asks.
“First place I’ve actually chosen for myself in a long time.”
“Good for you.” She hands me the keys. “Fresh starts are important.”
Fresh start. That’s what this is.
I spend the third week unpacking boxes and buying furniture and slowly transforming four walls into something that feels like home.
The bed is queen-sized, smaller than the king Simon and I shared, but I don’t need that much space anymore.
The couch is deep and comfortable, perfect for curling up with a book.
The kitchen is tiny but functional, and I discover that I actually like cooking when I’m not trying to meet someone else’s standards.
I don’t call Rowan.
I think about it. Every day. Every night. His face appears in my mind at unexpected moments: when I’m choosing throw pillows, when I’m testing mattresses, when I’m making coffee that’s finally the right strength.
But I’m not ready. Not yet.
I need to know I can stand on my own before I let myself lean on someone else.
I see Simon three weeks after the cabin.
It’s at Dev and Priya’s engagement party, something I almost didn’t go to because showing up alone to a room full of couples felt like more than I could manage.
But Priya begged, and I’m trying to say yes to things again, so I put on a dress I bought for exactly no reason the week before, dark red, nothing I’d have worn when I was married, and went.
He’s standing near the drinks table when I spot him, and my whole body goes still.
He shouldn’t be here. He and Dev were never close; he’s here the way he’s always here, on the strength of a name and a face that used to open doors.
Except the doors aren’t opening tonight.
I watch it happen from across the room, the thing I never thought I’d see.
People I’ve known for years, people who used to laugh at his jokes and refill his glass and hang on whatever he said, giving him a wide, polite berth.
A hand on his shoulder, a few words, and then they drift, the way you drift from someone whose bad luck you’re afraid might be catching.
He’s nursing one drink. Simon, who used to close down every party, who treated last call like a personal insult. One drink, held in both hands like something to do with them, and nobody coming to stand beside him.
He’s lost weight. His jaw is rough, days past a clean shave. And there’s something worse than the physical, something in the way he’s holding himself, a stillness, an emptiness, like the fight’s gone out of him entirely. Just a man in a nice shirt, standing alone in a room that used to be his.
Then he sees me.
I watch him straighten out of pure reflex, the old charm rising up his spine like muscle memory, the smile starting to form. The performance he’s given a thousand times. Come over. Make it a moment. Turn the whole room’s attention into a spotlight he stands in.
And then it just… collapses. Because there’s no audience for it anymore. Because I’m looking at him and he can see, he can actually see, that the spell is broken. That I’m not the girl who bent herself into knots for that smile. That whatever he’s performing, I’m not buying a ticket.
He lifts his glass an inch, a small, defeated gesture. Hello. Goodbye. I don’t know what.
I don’t go over.
I hold his gaze for exactly as long as it takes to feel nothing, and then I turn back to Priya, who’s mid-story about the caterer, and I laugh at the right moment, and I mean it. And when I glance back a few minutes later, he’s gone.
That’s the part that stays with me on the drive home. Not seeing him. The nothing. I braced for the old ache, the grief, even the anger, and what came instead was just… quiet. Like looking at a photograph of a house you used to live in and feeling nothing but glad you moved.
He was the center of my whole world once. And tonight he was a man alone at a party, holding a drink no one would help him finish.
I turn up the radio and drive home to my own apartment, where the herbs are growing on the windowsill and nobody’s disappointed in me.
The confrontation I’ve been avoiding finds me at the grocery store.
I’m in the produce section, squeezing avocados, when I hear a familiar voice behind me.
“Elise.”
I turn.
Lilia looks terrible. Her usually immaculate hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her face is bare of makeup, revealing dark circles under her eyes. She’s wearing yoga pants and an oversized sweater, a far cry from the designer outfits she used to flaunt.
“Lilia.” My voice comes out flat. Emotionless.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.” She takes a step closer. “I’ve left messages. Texts. Emails. You haven’t responded to any of them.”
“I know.”
“Please. I just want to explain…”
“There’s nothing to explain.” I set down the avocado I was holding. “You fucked my husband for over a year while pretending to be my friend. What part of that requires explanation?”
“It wasn’t like that…”
“It was exactly like that.” My voice is rising, and I don’t care. “I confided in you. I told you about my marriage problems, my fears, my insecurities. And you sat there nodding sympathetically while you were causing half of them.”
“I never meant to hurt you…”
“Then what did you mean to do?” I step toward her, and she actually backs up. “Did you think I’d never find out? Did you think we’d all just live happily ever after, you with my husband, me with… what? The scraps you left behind?”
“Simon said…”
“I don’t care what Simon said.” My hands are shaking now. “Simon is a liar. He lied to me, he lied to you, he’d lie to God if he thought it would get him what he wanted. But you…” My voice cracks. “You were supposed to be my friend, Lilia. You were supposed to be on my side.”
“I was on your side…”
“You were on your side. Your side and Simon’s side and the side of anyone who made you feel special.
” The words are pouring out now, months of suppressed rage finally finding an outlet.
“You know what the worst part is? I would have done anything for you. Anything. If you’d told me you were in love with someone inappropriate, I would have supported you.
I would have been there for you. Because that’s what friends do. ”
“I know…”
“But you didn’t give me that chance. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.
Instead, you snuck around behind my back and let me feel crazy for noticing that something was wrong.
” Tears are streaming down my face now, but I don’t wipe them away.
“Do you have any idea what that did to me? Doubting my own perceptions? Thinking I was paranoid and suspicious and unfair for questioning my husband?”
“I’m sorry.” Lilia’s crying too now. “I’m so sorry, Elise. I never wanted…”
“It doesn’t matter what you wanted. It matters what you did.” My voice holds, barely. “And what you did was unforgivable.”
We stand there in the produce section, two women crying over betrayals that can never be undone, while shoppers steer their carts around us and pretend not to look.
“I know you hate me,” Lilia says finally. “I deserve it. But I need you to understand, I wasn’t trying to take him from you. I just… I fell in love. And I didn’t know how to stop.”
“You could have stopped by not starting. By saying no the first time he made a move. By being honest with me instead of sneaking around like a coward.”
“You’re right. I could have. I should have.
” She wipes her eyes. “But I was jealous, Elise. I’ve always been jealous of you.
You had everything: the perfect husband, the perfect life, the perfect everything.
And when Simon started paying attention to me, it felt like finally getting something that was mine. ”
“Jealous?” I stare at her. “You were jealous of me?”
“You have no idea what it’s like. Being the friend who’s always second best. The one who never gets chosen first.” Her voice is bitter.
“Simon chose you. Married you. Built a life with you. And I got to watch from the sidelines, pretending to be happy for you while I wondered what was wrong with me.”
“So you decided to take what I had.”
“I decided to take what was offered.” She meets my eyes. “And I’m not proud of it. But I’m not going to pretend I was some helpless victim either. I wanted him, Elise. I wanted him, and I took him, and I’m sorry.”
The honesty is jarring. I expected deflection, excuses, more attempts to minimize what she’d done. This raw admission of jealousy and want is almost worse.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m never going to forgive you.”
“I know that too.”
We stand there, the wreckage of our friendship scattered between us like broken glass.
“I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for,” I say finally. “Whatever made you think stealing someone’s husband would fill that hole inside you. I hope you figure it out, because this…” I gesture between us. “This isn’t going to be it.”
I turn and walk away.
I don’t look back.
That night, I sit in my new apartment and think about what Lilia said.
I’ve always been jealous of you. You had everything.
Everything. Is that what it looked like from the outside? The perfect husband, the perfect life, the perfect everything?
I think about all the times I felt invisible in my marriage. All the nights I fell asleep wondering why Simon seemed so distant. All the energy I spent trying to be perfect enough to hold his attention.
That was what she was jealous of?
The thought is so absurd I almost laugh.
But it also shifts something in my perspective. All this time, I’ve been thinking of myself as a victim: the betrayed wife, the naive fool who didn’t see the signs. And I was those things. But I was also someone Lilia envied. Someone she saw as having everything.
Maybe I’m not as broken as I thought.
Maybe the pieces I’m putting back together are stronger than the ones that were shattered.
I call Rowan that night.
He answers on the second ring.
“Elise.” His voice is warm, relieved, tinged with something that sounds like hope. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I curl up on my new couch, phone pressed to my ear. “I’m sorry I took so long.”
“Don’t apologize. You needed time.”
“I did.” I take a breath. “I ran into Lilia today. At the grocery store.”
“What happened?”
So I tell him. All of it: the confrontation, the anger, Lilia’s confession of jealousy, the strange peace I found in walking away.
He listens without interrupting. When I finish, he’s quiet for a moment.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Tired. Relieved. Like I finally said all the things I needed to say.” I pause. “I think I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To stop hiding. To start living again.” I close my eyes. “To see you.”
I can hear him smile through the phone.
“When?”
“Saturday. I’ll text you the address of my new place.”
“You have a new place?”
“I have a lot of new things.” I smile too, for the first time in weeks. “I want to show you.”
“I’d like that.”
We talk for another hour, about nothing, about everything, about the small details of each other’s lives that we’ve missed over the past three weeks. When we finally hang up, I feel lighter than I have since this whole nightmare began.
Saturday. Four days away.
I can wait that long.