33. Failure Point
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FAILURE POINT
Ethan
My hand reaches across the bed and finds only a cold sheet. Then I remember, girls’ night. Peter picked Ellie up after rehearsal, and she stayed at his house with the promise of Saturday morning pancakes.
I roll onto my back and glance at the clock. Later than I usually sleep on a weekend. The house is silent. I hadn’t realized how much noise Claire and Ellie filled it with until now.
I spend the morning accomplishing tasks, unloading the dishwasher, answering emails, and reorganizing a drawer. Productivity is a habit I can’t break. Claire jokes I don’t know how to relax. While alphabetizing takeout menus, I suspect she’s right.
Around ten, thoughts of Claire resurface, her half-finished lists scattered across the counter. A smile touches my lips, then fades. We haven’t spoken since yesterday afternoon, a few texts about Peter picking up Ellie.
I glance at my phone.
Nothing.
The silence shouldn’t bother me. Claire is with Lucy and Sloane. I assume they are still asleep. It’s logical. Even so, I check my phone again.
Still empty.
By eleven, I need fresh air. A run, I hope, will steady my thoughts and restless energy, it helps for a while. I focus on my feet, the rhythmic pounding on the pavement. For forty minutes, my mind is blank.
After showering, I make a sandwich, and settle on the couch to watch baseball. Three innings later and I realize I don’t know what the score is.
My feeling is irrational. Claire doesn’t need to check in constantly. If our positions were reversed, I wouldn’t think twice. Yet, something feels off so I send a text.
Hope you had fun last night. Tell Sloane I don’t want to know what she talked you into.
I stare at the message after sending it, then set the phone down.
As the afternoon wears on, a heaviness descends on the house.
I wander aimlessly from room to room. In the family room, a stack of Alice in Wonderland scripts lies abandoned on the coffee table.
The sight makes me think of rehearsal, and inevitably, Brooke.
I lean back against the couch, closing my eyes as memories of the previous evening drift through my mind.
By three o’clock, the sky outside is a uniform gray. Claire’s last text from yesterday sits as a lonely blue bubble. Peter confirms Ellie is fine.
I can’t wait for the phone to ring any longer. If Claire is with Lucy and Sloane, I’ll drive out to the ranch and see what they’re up to.
The property feels muted when I arrive. Lucy’s SUV isn’t parked beside the house, and the usual activity around the barn seems absent. As I step out of my truck and start toward the front porch, I stop short.
Sloane sits in one of Lucy’s rocking chairs, a glass of iced tea resting on the arm. Leaning casually beside her is a shotgun. The late afternoon sun glints off its barrel. I stare, processing the scene. What the hell?
She looks up and offers a small, almost imperceptible wave. “Afternoon.”
My eyes remain fixed on the shotgun, its dark metal is a stark contrast to the weathered wood of the porch. “Why do you have a gun on the porch?”
She follows my gaze. “Oh. That.”
“Yes. That.”
“It’s not mine.”
A bead of sweat traces a path down my temple. “That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It belongs to Lucy.”
“Why is it out here?”
She considers the question, as if it requires additional thought. The soft creak of the rocking chair is the only sound. “Because carrying it around seemed unnecessary.”
I wonder if this conversation makes perfect sense to her, or if she’s committed to confusing me.
“Where’s Claire?”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“I can’t tell you.”
The answer lands with a dull thud. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
She sets down her glass on the small table beside her, and my eyes drift back toward the shotgun. “Should I be worried?”
She follows my gaze and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
I fight the urge to take a step back at her words. She stands, the sudden movement jarring, and walks toward the door. The action feels oddly deliberate, almost as though she is positioning herself between me and whatever answers I’m looking for.
Before she can step inside, I try again, “Sloane, what’s going on?”
This time I think she might finally tell me.
“This is a small town, Ethan. People like to gossip. They compare notes.”
The blood drains from my face, leaving my skin feeling clammy. “What specifically are you referring to?”
“I’m no longer president of the Ethan Appreciation Society.”
My hand moves toward my pocket. I need to call Claire. Before I can pull out my phone I hear. “Don’t.”
“I’m calling my wife.”
“And she doesn’t want to talk right now.” Her voice reflects certainty.
“Did she tell you that?”
“She’ll contact you when she’s ready.”
I run a hand through my hair, now damp with sweat. Panic rising within me.
“When she’s ready?” I repeat, the words tasting like ash. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Check your phone.”
A second later, my phone vibrates against my palm and I jolt—a text, a video.
Dread washes over me as I click on it. The video starts fuzzy and dark, then focuses, the image resolving with sickening clarity.
I see the storage closet. I see myself from behind, my shoulders hunched, holding Brooke against a shelf. We’re both breathing heavily, the sound amplified and distorted, and then Brooke says my name, a soft, intimate murmur.
I turn it off, unable to watch further.
Oh God, what have I done?
For a few seconds, I can’t move. The phone remains in my hand, a dead weight, and even after the screen goes dark, I can’t seem to loosen my fingers around it.
My first instinct is to deny it, to grasp for an explanation that would make it smaller, less ugly, less real. But no explanation exists.
The porch tilts beneath me, and I have to grip the railing until the dizziness passes. My body comprehends the damage before my mind can form a complete thought. Claire’s image flashes through my head—her standing in the doorway of that room, the soft light illuminating her face.
Across from me, Sloane’s face is a portrait of shared misery. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this, at least not directed toward me. She tightly crosses her arms, one hand gripping her own elbow hard enough that her knuckles press white against her sleeve. The sarcasm is gone.
“That was girls’ night,” Sloane says, so quietly I almost don’t hear her over the ringing in my ears.
The air, thick with the promise of a thunderstorm, presses in on me.
Her jaw is tight, a muscle jumping beneath her skin.
“I’ve loved you like a brother, Ethan.” She clears her throat with too much force.
“You and Claire were the gold standard.”
I want to tell her to stop, to make the words unsaid. Mostly, I want to go back to this morning, to the cold sheet and the silent phone, and recognize the disaster before it finished forming around me.
“I told myself I would not cry over someone else’s marriage,” she says, with the faintest ghost of her usual bite, a tremor in her voice. “Terrible plan. Zero stars. Would not recommend.”
The joke should sound like Sloane. It almost does, but her eyes are shining, and this time she doesn’t look away fast enough. One solitary tear slides down her cheek.
“If you go looking for her right now, you’ll make this about your panic instead of her pain.” She swallows with visible effort. “And because somebody should care more about what happens to her than about making you feel better, I’m not letting you confront her right now.”
She steps back toward the door, then pauses with her hand on the metal frame. I think she is going to say something cruel. Instead, her voice comes out low and unsteady.
“People say love is supposed to survive everything. But sometimes love survives by leaving before there’s nothing left of it.”
Then she gives me one last look, and the sarcasm returns. “Congratulations, Ethan. You finally made me speechless. Historic day for the town.”
I’m pulled from my thoughts by the sharp slam of a screen door. I look up and watch her walk into the house without looking back.