Thirty-Eight
Aspen
Need to see you. Please get here as soon as you can.
As much as I try to push it aside, the message I caught sight of on Kaiden’s phone screen continues to haunt me.
So does the person who sent it.
Kitty.
The name has come to symbolize all my unspoken fears.
I stare at my phone for the hundredth time tonight, willing it to light up with his name. Nothing.
The clock on the nightstand reads 3:47 AM. He left eighteen hours ago, jaw tight, eyes avoiding mine as he grabbed his keys. I didn’t ask where he was going. Some masochistic part of me wanted to see if he’d lie.
He didn’t say anything at all.
Now I’m here, tangled in sheets that smell like him, my mind conjuring images I can’t stop.
The faceless Kitty’s hands on his chest. Her lips on his neck.
A breathy voice whispering things that make him forget I exist. I have no idea what this woman looks or sounds like, but it doesn’t matter; my mind fills in the blanks.
I call again. It rings once, twice, then goes to voicemail like he’s actively declining. My stomach twists.
Stop, I tell myself. You’re being crazy.
But am I? The message was calm but urgent. Please get here as soon as you can. But what kind of work issue requires Kaiden to be gone for so long and continues into the middle of the night? Why can’t he come home and return in the morning?
Or maybe it’s not an emergency at all. Maybe it’s an invitation. Need to see you.
I throw the covers off and pace to the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. Outside, the Newark suburbs sprawl in lazy nighttime calm, indifferent to my spiral. Beyond that lies the insistent, constant buzz of Manhattan. And somewhere out there, he’s with her.
I grab my phone again, opening our text thread. My messages sit there, unread; sent hours ago.
11.07 pm
When will you be home?
12.38 am
Is everything okay?
1.43 am
Please get back to me so I don’t worry
My fingers hover over the keyboard. I could text again. I could beg. Or I could pretend everything’s fine and ask casually where he is.
Except it’s almost 4 am, and I don’t want to look that desperate.
Argh! The growl that rips through me does little to ease my frustration. The fear that sits on the edge of my psyche.
I spent weeks pushing him away, and during all that time, he pursued me like I was the only woman on earth.
Now I’ve given in to him, and he’s vanished into the night at the behest of another woman.
The irony isn’t lost on me. It tastes bitter on my tongue.
I dial again, hating myself for it. This time it doesn’t even ring. Straight to voicemail; he’s turned his phone off.
My chest constricts. That’s worse somehow. At least before I could imagine he was busy, occupied, unable to answer. Now it’s deliberate. He doesn’t want to hear from me.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, my phone clutched in both hands like it might spontaneously deliver the answers I’m desperate for.
The rational part of my brain, the part that kept me going after he left the first time, kept me creating so I launched a successful career, allowed me to be a strong single mother - eventually - whispers that I should wait. Be calm. Don’t jump to conclusions.
There were reasons my husband left the last time.
But the woman in me, the one who finally let her walls down, who let Kaiden in despite every instinct screaming not to, she’s drowning in worst-case scenarios.
What if he’s touching her right now? What if all those promises he made about choosing me, about us being his endgame, were just words to ensure he had access to his son?
I stand abruptly, my vision blurring at the edges. I need to move, to do something other than sit here and slowly lose my mind.
The house feels too small suddenly, suffocating.
He’s barely been here a few weeks; hasn’t actually moved in.
But already every corner holds a memory of him.
His jacket draped over the chair. The coffee mug he used yesterday morning, still sitting in the sink because I couldn’t bring myself to wash it.
The indent in the pillow next to mine, where his head lay just twenty-four hours ago.
I storm into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, gripping the marble countertop until my knuckles turn white. The woman staring back at me in the mirror looks wrecked. Dark circles under her eyes, hair a mess, lips raw from biting them.
This is what I looked like ten years ago.
This is what loving Kaiden Brooks does to me.
I should’ve known better. It’s not like I didn’t have all the information. He walked out six months after we married and never looked back. He told me there had only been one other woman in his life.
One.
In ten years.
He told me her name.
Kitty.
What the hell am I supposed to think?