Chapter Three
Harrison
The room at the Highway Inn smelled of lemon industrial cleaner and stale cigarette smoke that had seeped into the drywall decades ago. It was a stark, fluorescent-lit purgatory compared to the warm, cedar-and-vanilla scent of the home Harrison had just been exiled from.
He paced the narrow strip of carpet between the two double beds, his phone clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
Message Not Delivered.
He stared at the red exclamation mark next to his plea for forgiveness. She had blocked his number. She had probably blocked his email, his Instagram, his LinkedIn. She was erasing him.
"God damn it," he whispered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.
Behind him, the bathroom door creaked open. Emily stepped out. She had washed her face, scrubbing off the smeared makeup, but she was still wearing the clothes she had hastily thrown on—a wrinkled skirt and a blouse buttoned wrong.
She looked at the room, curling her lip. "This place is disgusting, Harrison. The sheets feel like sandpaper."
"It’s for one night, Emily," he snapped, not stopping his pacing. "We aren't vacationing."
She sighed, dramatic and heavy, and sat on the edge of the bed nearest to him. She patted the mattress beside her.
"Come here," she said, her voice dropping to that husky register she used whenever she wanted something. "You're spinning out. You need to calm down."
Harrison stopped pacing. He looked at her.
An hour ago, that voice would have triggered a Pavlovian response. An hour ago, the sight of her legs crossed on a bed would have been an invitation to forget his stress, his deadlines, and his conscience.
Now? Now, under the harsh hum of the motel lights, with the image of Sarah’s shattered face burned into his retinas, looking at Emily felt like looking at a pile of dirty laundry. She was just... mess. She was the evidence of his crime.
"I’m not sitting down," he said coldly.
Emily frowned, tilting her head. "Baby, stop punishing yourself. It’s done. The band-aid is ripped off. Now we don't have to hide. Isn't that what we talked about? How hard it was to pretend?"
"We didn't talk about this," Harrison said, gesturing vaguely at the bleak room. "We talked about sex. We talked about how 'exciting' it was. We never talked about blowing up my life."
Emily stood up and walked toward him. She reached out, her fingers grazing his bicep, trailing down to his forearm. It was a familiar touch, one that usually led to him pushing her up against a wall.
"But we have this," she purred, stepping into his space, pressing her body against his. "You said you couldn't get enough of me. You said I was the only thing that made you feel alive."
Harrison recoiled as if she were radioactive.
He physically shoved her back—not hard enough to hurt her, but with enough force to put three feet of distance between them.
"Don't," he barked.
Emily stumbled back, catching herself on the nightstand. Her expression shifted from seduction to shock, and then to anger. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Don't touch me," Harrison said, his voice shaking with revulsion. "Do not touch me."
"You were inside me forty minutes ago!" Emily screamed, the reality of the rejection hitting her. "You were begging for it!"
"That was before!" Harrison shouted back.
"Before what? Before we got caught?"
"Yes!" Harrison raked his hands through his hair. "Yes! Before it was real! It was a fantasy, Emily. It was... it was a vice. Like drinking too much or—or gambling. It wasn't real life."
He looked at her, desperate for her to understand the distinction that was so clear in his own fractured mind.
"I love Sarah," he said, the words tasting like ash because he had lost the right to say them.
"I love my wife. I love my house. I love my life.
" He pointed a trembling finger at Emily.
"You... you were the escape. You were just the thing I did to blow off steam because I was too weak to talk to her about my stress. That's it."
Emily stared at him, her mouth slightly open. The cruelty of his words seemed to finally penetrate her narcissism. "I'm just... a thing you did?"
"We aren't a couple, Emily," Harrison said, his voice dropping to a brutal, flat tone. "We aren't star-crossed lovers. We are two people who did something dirty in the dark. And now the lights are on."
He walked over to the second bed—the one furthest from the door, furthest from her. He grabbed the scratchy polyester duvet and yanked it back, not bothering to undress. He felt dirty in his own skin, but the idea of being naked in the same room as her made his skin crawl.
"I'm going to sleep," he said, turning his back to her. "Tomorrow, I’m dropping you off at a friend’s, and I’m going to beg Sarah to talk to me."
"She won't take you back," Emily spat, her voice trembling with humiliation. "You broke the wedding picture, Harrison. It's over."
Harrison squeezed his eyes shut, the image of the shattered glass flashing behind his eyelids.
"It meant nothing," he whispered into the flat, stale pillow, clinging to the lie that he hoped would save him. "It meant absolutely nothing."
He lay there in the dark, listening to Emily cry softly on the other bed. He felt no urge to comfort her. He only felt a hollow, aching void in his chest where his wife used to be.