Chapter 5
Ellary
Iburst into tears the second I parked my car outside my parents' house.
I hadn’t gotten out of the car before their door swung open as tears rolled down my cheeks.
My mom opened my door and helped me into the house as my dad wrestled my suitcase from the trunk of the car.
They didn’t ask what was wrong. They knew. And they have spent every single minute since I pulled up outside their house, showering me with the love and comfort I desperately needed.
Every time I close my eyes, I relive the memory of my husband having his dick sucked by his assistant.
Everything hurts.
Lila, thank God, had called our parents and let them know what Jackson had done. With tears and snot running down my face, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe, I couldn’t get a word out.
My mom hugged me, brushed the hair from my face and kissed my forehead. It was as if I were a little girl again, and she had this special ability to make me think nothing bad would ever happen to me because she would never let it.
They’ve told me I can stay for as long as I want. As much as I’d love to move in, that just isn’t practical.
Their house is not my childhood home, where there was a room for my sister and me.
They downsized from a four-bedroom home to a two-bedroom house several years ago.
The second bedroom is small, and my dad turned it into his study and workroom, so it’s nearly overflowing with his hobbies.
It would take too long to move everything to the garage and turn it into a bedroom.
I don’t know what comes next, or even where I will live next. It just won’t be with Jackson. My world is broken, but I have to be strong for my unborn child, and I have no idea if I can do that.
The sound of an engine slowing as it approaches my parents' house prompts me to lift my face from my mom’s shoulder.
My dad, sitting in his armchair in a living room taken up by an air mattress that my parents had ready for me, glances at the window that looks out onto the street.
“Do you want me to go, sweetheart?” he asks me.
I scrub tears from my wet face with the sleeve of my hoodie. “No. I should go talk to him.” My voice is husky from my tears, and I don’t even want to imagine what I look like, but this conversation needs to happen.
My mom squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Forcing a smile to my lips, I shake my head. “No, Mom. This is something that I have to do alone.”
My marriage is over, and I need to know how long my husband has been cheating on me and why. To move on with my life, I need to know why he would betray me like that.
I push myself to my feet, not bothering with my sneakers. “I’ll go talk to him in the backyard.”
I don’t want him invading my new sanctuary, and with the way my dad is scowling out the window, one glance at Jackson, and my dad would drive his fist into his face.
My dad is seventy years old, while Jackson is twenty-nine, but that won’t stop him from starting a fight he can’t hope to win.
He’s always been fiercely protective of Lila and me.
I don’t bother with a coat. This won’t be a long conversation. The sweatpants and hoodie I changed into when I got to my parent’s house will have to do.
Jackson is climbing out of the car when I step out of the front door, pushing it closed behind me. For one heart-stopping moment, our gazes clash.
His fingers grip the edge of the driver’s door, and he doesn’t so much as blink.
He’s in the same navy blue pants and white dress shirt he was wearing at work.
I don’t know where his tie is, but the top two buttons are undone, and there’s a desperate hesitance to his expression.
As if he wants to rush over to me, but is afraid of what I’ll do if he gets too close.
I don’t say a word to him as I tear my eyes from his.
I just walk around the side of my parents' house to get to the backyard. There are no gates separating the homes here. It’s a small mercy.
We can have this conversation outside, in relative privacy, since it’s early evening and my parents’ neighbors must still be at work.
After Jackson leaves, I can start living the rest of my life without the man I thought I would grow old with.
When my eyes prick with tears, I order myself not to cry.
Not yet. Now, you have to be brave.
I walk around the side of the house to the swing set in the backyard.
It belonged to the previous owner's kid. Dad had planned to take it down so Mom would have more space to set down another flower bed for all her plants. Then I learned I was pregnant, and they left it up so their grandchild could use it. But that pregnancy didn’t last. Dad said he’d keep it up, ready for when the baby I would eventually have came along.
He always had so much faith that I’d have a baby, never losing his belief even after all the fertility tests couldn’t find anything wrong, but I still couldn’t get pregnant.
I’m taking a seat on the swing when Jackson rounds the house, walking slowly, his eyes searching my face.
He’s wearing his wedding ring, while mine is on the carpet in his office where I dropped it.
I left my engagement ring, a beautiful blue topaz on a thin silver band, in my jewelry box at home.
Jackson knew I loved topaz because it’s my birthstone.
My birthday is in November, just before Thanksgiving, and he had my sister help him pick a stone and setting that I would adore.
I loved that ring. Still do. But I cannot have that thing on my finger or anywhere near me ever again.
I note his gold band dispassionately. And then I make myself look away from the ring I slid onto his finger nine years ago in his parents’ backyard.
We vowed to be faithful to each other. To love, honor, and instead of obey—an old-fashioned word neither of us had liked—to cherish one another. To laugh with each other every day.
Those vows were a lie.
I look down into my lap, my fingers cool against the metal swing as I slowly push myself back and forth. Just enough motion so my bare feet won’t freeze from the colder-than-I-expected grass.
And so that I’m not constantly breathing in the smell of my husband’s cologne when he sinks into the swing beside me.
I squeeze my eyes shut at how much it hurts to have him close.
He’s silent.
There’s no jingle of the chain. He’s not swinging. Just sitting still and quiet beside me.
“I worried something had happened to you when you weren’t at home,” he says in a voice so hesitant that it’s not like him at all.
He’s always been an extrovert to my introverted ways, and I love that about him.
Loved.
Maybe that’s what Jackson has in common with Rachel, I think to myself bitterly. Both are extroverted. Confident, gorgeous, and love being the center of attention. Maybe that’s why they did this cruel thing to me.
My fingers curl around the cold chain, and I force myself to stop swinging. I’m too much in my own head that I’ll fly right off this swing and break my tailbone if I keep pushing myself to swing faster and faster.
“I couldn’t be in that house anymore,” I say, not looking at him. “I came to my parents.”
“With a suitcase.”
“Yes,” I say, my voice hollow. Numb.
“You should have told me you wanted to stay with your parents for a couple of days, Ellie.”
I look him in the face for the first time since he followed me to the swing set and I laugh, the sound hard and humorless, devoid of all amusement. “I should have told you, should I?”
There are lines of strain around his mouth. He looks exhausted, and the moment my gaze hooks his, he looks away.
As if ashamed.
His fingers grip the metal chain of his swing, his tanned skin turning white from the force. “What happened was a mistake, Ellie. I can explain.”
“You can explain how it came to be that you had your dick in your assistant’s mouth, can you?” My voice is harder now. Bitter. “Did she trip and fall on it? Was that the mistake?”
I have always been the peacemaker. The one who forgives all and everything. Hardness and bitterness never had a place in my heart. Until now.
He stands up, pacing in front of me. “You don’t understand.”
I push myself to my feet, unable to sit still a moment longer. “What’s there to understand?”
“It was a mistake. That’s all.”
I cross my arms and lift my chin. “So it was the first time you cheated on me?”
His silence stretches between us.
My bark of laughter is harsh and loud. “It wasn’t the first time. Did you sleep with her?”
He shakes his head, a desperate motion that sends the strands of his dark-blond hair flying around his face. “No. I would never do that to you, Ellie.”
“How many times? Three? Four? Was it a weekly thing? A nice mid-afternoon send-off to make the rest of the week a little more bearable?”
God. I barely recognize my own voice. I sound hard and bitter and vengeful.
Behind Jackson, a figure briefly comes into view in the kitchen window. My dad, hovering after hearing our raised voices and wanting to be close in case I need him to punch my cheating husband in the face.
But I don’t need him to commit violence. There’s something so damn satisfying about taking this pain from my heart, twisting it into rage, and spearing Jackson with it. I hope I hurt him with it. I hope I leave scars as agonizing as the ones he left inside me.
Jackson stuffs his hands into his pockets. “It wasn’t like that,” he says, voice low.
“Then how was it?”
He stares down at the ground, breathing hard. Jaw clenched. He swallows. “The first time was a month ago. She’d broken up with her boyfriend. We were in the break room, and I was comforting her. We kissed.”
I wrap my arms tighter around myself, trying to hold in my tears, struggling to contain my violent need to throw up.
“And then?” I force myself to ask, dreading the answer.
He darts a glance at me. “I told her it was a mistake, and I meant it.”
I try to remember if he’d been different a month ago. One day sticks in my mind.