Chapter 8 I Left the Ring #2
He stares at me. I can see him recalculating. The privacy defense isn't going to work. He knows it. He's shifting strategies.
"Okay," he says. "Look. It's not what you think."
"Tell me what it is then."
"It was a mistake. It happened once. I was drunk and it was stupid and I felt horrible about it and I ended it immediately."
"Once."
"Yes. One time. One terrible mistake."
"Blake, I read messages that span months. You booked motel rooms together. You coordinated alibis. You used Chase's name specifically because you knew he wouldn't check in with me. That's not one drunk mistake. That's an organized, ongoing affair."
His jaw tightens. The calm, reasonable demeanor is cracking. He picks up his beer and takes a long drink and puts it back down.
"How long were you watching me?" he asks. His voice is different now. Harder.
"Long enough. I have receipts from restaurants and bars where you told me you were somewhere else.
I have documented dates and times when your stories didn't match reality.
I drove past the gym when you said you were working out and your truck wasn't there.
I know about the nights you came home clean from construction jobs.
I know about the money you took from the house fund and spent on dinners and drinks and motel rooms."
He sits very still. The denials have collapsed. He can see that I'm not guessing. I'm not speculating. I'm not working from suspicion. I have specific facts with specific dates and specific receipts and I've been building this for weeks.
"Lara," he says. His voice is quieter now. "I screwed up. I know I screwed up. But I love you. I've always loved you. Hailey doesn't mean anything to me. She was a distraction. I was stressed about money and work and the house and I made a terrible decision and I'm sorry. I am so sorry."
"Which part are you sorry about? The affair or the fact that I found out?"
"That's not fair."
"Fair." I repeat the word and I let it hang in the air between us.
"You want to talk about fair. You've been sleeping with my friend.
In motel rooms that you paid for with money from our house fund.
While living with me and sleeping next to me and talking about our wedding and our future.
And Hailey has been hugging me at parties and asking about my dress and recommending TV shows and sitting across from me and smiling while knowing that she's sleeping with my fiancé. And you want to talk to me about fair."
Blake puts his head in his hands. He stays that way for a long time. When he looks up his eyes are red.
"What do you want me to do?" he asks.
"Nothing. I've already done everything."
He looks confused.
"My stuff is gone, Blake. I packed it this morning while you were at work. My clothes. My documents. My things. Everything that belongs to me is at Raina's. I'm staying with her."
He looks around the apartment. I watch him notice the gaps for the first time.
The empty places on the wall where my prints hung.
The bare spots on the bookshelf. The missing coffee mugs.
He gets up and walks to the bedroom and I hear the closet door open and I know he's looking at my empty side.
Then I hear him open the dresser. Then I hear silence.
He comes back into the living room. His face is white.
"The ring," he says.
"It's on the dresser."
"Lara, please. Please don't do this."
"I'm not doing anything. You did this. You and Hailey. I'm just responding to what you did."
He sits back down. He's crying now. Real tears, not performance tears. I've known Blake long enough to tell the difference. These are real and they don't change anything.
"Can we at least talk about this? Can we go to counseling or something? I'll do whatever it takes. I'll cut Hailey off completely. I'll change my number. I'll switch jobs if you want. I'll delete every app on my phone. Whatever you need, Lara. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."
The offers come out rapid and desperate.
He's throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Counseling. Changed numbers. New jobs. He's offering to rebuild his entire life around keeping me, which would be moving if he'd shown any interest in protecting our relationship before he got caught.
He didn't try to save us when saving us meant not sleeping with Hailey.
He's only trying now because the alternative is losing everything.
"I need you to stop lying to me," I say.
But I don't trust you to do that. Because you've been lying to me every single day for months and you never stopped on your own.
You didn't confess. You didn't come to me and say something went wrong.
You kept doing it. Every day. You chose to keep doing it. "
He doesn't have an answer for that. There isn't one.
I stand up. I pick up my purse and my keys.
I look at Blake sitting in the armchair with his beer getting warm on the side table and his eyes red and his face drained of color and I feel something complicated.
Not satisfaction. Not relief. Something closer to grief, but grief for the version of him I thought existed, not for the person sitting in front of me.
"Don't call me tonight," I say. "I need space."
"Lara."
"Don't."
I walk out of the apartment and I close the door behind me.
I can hear him say my name one more time through the door but I keep walking.
Down the stairs. Through the lobby. Into the parking lot.
The evening air is warm and the sun is low and the world outside this apartment building is going about its business with no idea that a six-year relationship just ended on a beige couch in unit 2B.
I sit behind the wheel for about two minutes.
My hands are shaking. Not from fear or sadness.
From the adrenaline of finally saying everything I've been holding for over a month.
The rehearsals in my head were always calm and controlled.
The real thing was messier. Louder inside my chest. But I said what I needed to say and I didn't let him redirect and I didn't let him charm his way through it. That's enough.
I start the engine and I drive to Raina's.
She's waiting for me on the couch. She takes one look at my face and gets up and hugs me and I let her hold me for a long time without saying anything.
When I pull back my eyes are dry. I've done my crying.
I did it weeks ago in a bathroom at two in the morning while Blake slept in the next room. I don't have tears left for him.
"How did he take it?" she asks.
"He tried denial. Then he tried the one-time mistake excuse. Then he tried crying. Then he tried promises."
"In that order?"
"Almost exactly."
She shakes her head. "Predictable."
"Very."
We sit on the couch. Raina pours wine. I tell her the whole conversation detail by detail and she listens and asks questions and nods in the right places.
"He asked me what I wanted him to do," I say. "He asked like there was an answer I could give him that would undo everything."
"There isn't one."
"No. There isn't. And the crazy part is that I think he believed there would be.
I think he genuinely thought that if he offered enough things and cried hard enough and said the right words I would sit back down on the couch and tell him we could work through it.
That's how it's always gone between us. He does something wrong, he charms his way out, I forgive him, and we move on. He thought this would be the same."
"But it's not."
"It's not."
We stay up late. I sleep in Raina's guest room surrounded by boxes of my own belongings. The bed is comfortable and the room is quiet and I lie there in the dark and I think about Blake sitting alone in the apartment with an empty closet and a ring on the dresser and I don't feel guilty about it.
I feel free.
Not happy. Not healed. Not anywhere close to whole. But free. For the first time in months, the weight of carrying his secret is gone. He knows that I know. The pretending is over.
Tomorrow the hard part begins. Tomorrow I decide who else gets to hear the truth.
But tonight I sleep better than I have in weeks.