Nine
Harper
I am hiding. I know it. Luca knows it. Hell, I'm reasonably certain my editor knows it, and she's two thousand kilometres away.
Apparently, my hiding isn't nearly as subtle as I'd hoped.
Which is unfortunate, because I am putting in an Oscar-worthy performance.
I sit at my usual table in the back corner of Page & Grounds with my laptop open, fingers resting thoughtfully on the keyboard like I'm moments away from writing the next bestseller.
I have not written a single word in forty-three minutes. I know this because I've checked the clock fourteen times.
Instead, I've:
● rearranged the pens in my pencil case by colour.
● replied to three emails.
● deleted two replies because they sounded too cheerful.
● ordered a fresh coffee despite the first one still being half full.
● Googled whether basil can recover from emotional neglect.
The answer, for anyone wondering, is apparently yes.
Shame there isn't an article titled Can Women Recover After Their Husband Blows Up Their Entire Life?
I'd click that one. Probably twice.
My cursor blinks accusingly on the screen. Write something, it says. I flip it off.
"This is why people don't like writers," I mutter.
The cursor continues blinking. Smug little bastard.
This past week has been... well. Mind-fuck feels about right.
Leo has finally cottoned on to the fact that this isn't one of those grown-up arguments where Mum and Dad spend a few days pretending to be annoyed before everything quietly returns to normal.
There isn't going to be a normal. Not this time. He's started asking questions I don't have answers to. When is Dad coming home? Why doesn't he want to have dinner with us anymore? Did I do something wrong?
That last one nearly broke me. Because no child should ever wonder if they're responsible for the adults in the room making terrible decisions. Especially when the adult making terrible decisions is perfectly capable of taking responsibility himself.
Spoiler alert.
He isn't.
I sigh and rub at my eyes beneath my glasses.
The glasses are new and stronger than my previous ones.
Apparently I now require them full-time, which feels unnecessarily dramatic considering I should have made it into my thirties before my eyeballs decided they'd had enough of participating in society.
Maybe they're on strike. Honestly, same.
My phone buzzes. I don't even have to look.
Rachel. My editor. Again. I got to six emails the other day.
Six. Apparently ignoring the first five wasn't the universally recognised sign for "please leave me alone while I emotionally combust" that I thought it was.
Eventually I caved. Mostly because she threatened to call Luca.
Which, frankly, felt less like a concern for my wellbeing and more like a hostage negotiation and suspiciously like blackmail as I don’t even know how she got his contact information.
So, I told her. Everything. The affair. The divorce.
Ethan informing me that he'd never really wanted another baby.
The fact that my entire life had detonated somewhere between a load of dark colours and a pair of offensively red lace panties.
Her response?
"Maybe you should write about it."
People in the writing industry, apparently, we're all completely deranged. Supposedly the solution to experiencing trauma is to lovingly document it in twelve-point Times New Roman and hope someone gives it five stars on Amazon.
To be fair...
She also said writing might help me process everything. Annoyingly, she's probably right. I hate when she's right. My document sits open. Untitled. Blank. Waiting. Almost as patiently as the rest of my life.
Then there's… last week’s antics. Alexander. I drop my forehead gently onto the table.
"Oh good," I mumble into the wood. "Let's think about him now. Thanks brain."
Because obviously my brain looked at the divorce, the custody conversations, the legal paperwork and the emotional devastation and thought:
Know what this needs?
A handsome lawyer you accidentally slept with.
Excellent work, brain. No notes. The ridiculous part is that I don't actually regret that night. That's the bit I can't quite wrap my head around. I should feel guilty. Ashamed. Like I'd somehow betrayed thirteen years of marriage. Except... I don't.
Not really. Ethan and I hadn't slept together in over two months before he left. Longer, if we're being honest about the emotional distance that came before the physical one.
Still… For thirteen years, there had only ever been one man.
One first kiss. One body. One person I'd trusted enough to see every version of me.
Until Alexander. I don't know what's stranger.
That I slept with someone else. Or that, for the first time in years, I didn't spend the entire experience wondering if I was somehow getting it wrong.
I exhale slowly.
"Nope," I tell my blinking cursor. "We are absolutely not unpacking that today." The cursor, predictably, blinks back. Judgemental little bastard.
Progress is subjective OK? Stop blinking at me. The cursor blinks. I blink back. Neither of us wins. Someone stops beside my table and I wonder briefly if I am having a mental break.
"Harper?"
I look up to see a stunning woman that I definitely don’t know hovering awkwardly.
Not intimidatingly beautiful. Just... effortlessly put together.
Expensive highlights. Tailored navy dress.
The sort of woman who probably remembers to water her indoor plants.
Then my eyes drop to the lanyard hanging from her handbag. Ethan's company logo.
Well.
That's either one hell of a coincidence…
…or today's about to get substantially worse.
She notices where I am looking. Her fingers instinctively flip the badge over. Bit late for that though.
"I don't suppose you're here to discuss the coffee?" I ask. She blinks at me.
"What?"
"We are in a café."
I gesture vaguely around us. For a second she just stares at me. Then she lets out the tiniest, most confused laugh before remembering why she's here.
"No."
"Didn't think so."
Silence stretches between us. She glances at the empty chair.
"Could I…"
I sigh.
"Honestly, if you're selling solar panels, now's not the time."
"I'm not."
"No?"
She shakes her head.
"I'm Tessa."
OK? She says her name like it should mean something, which it definitely does not. I gesture to the chair.
"Might as well sit down. Standing there looking guilty is making everyone else uncomfortable."
She pauses at my comment before she sits carefully. Like she's afraid the chair might bite her.
Neither of us speaks. I take a sip of my cold coffee. Finally, she says,
"I'm so sorry."
I tilt my head to the side. Suspecting where this is going but hoping that the stone that’s taken residence in my stomach is wrong.
"For what."
"I don't expect you to forgive me."
"FOR WHAT." I ask more forcefully. Another pause.
"I just… I didn’t know about you."
"You are who Ethan slept with?" I ask harshly and almost wince as she closes her eyes briefly.
"Yea." She grips the strap of her handbag so tightly her knuckles lose colour. "I thought you should know the truth."
I bark out a laugh.
"Oh, thank God."
She frowns.
"I've only been surviving on lies and my own imagination lately. A bit of variety will be nice." She winces.
"I believed him."
"Congratulations."
My smile is razor thin, but I let her continue as my insides feel like they are shredding all over again. She looks down. "He said your marriage was basically over."
"That’s original."
"He said you stayed together for Leo."
"Less original."
"He said…"
She hesitates.
"…that you'd stopped loving him years ago."
I don't answer. Mostly because I'm wondering whether murder is still frowned upon if the victim is already emotionally dead inside. Probably. Something to ask Adrian later.
"He said you cared more about your books than your marriage." I snort.
"Considering my books pay our mortgage, I'd say they were pulling their weight."
She nods miserably.
"He said he felt lonely."
"Did he now?"
"He said you made him feel like nothing he did was ever enough."
The irony is so spectacular I nearly laugh. Instead, I wrap my hands around my mug. It keeps them from shaking. She swallows.
"He said… he never wanted another baby."
Everything inside me stills at the thought of telling someone else about the things that he never bothered to express to me.
"…What?"
"He said you'd been pushing for another child."
I don't move.
"He said he loved your son but…" she looks sick even repeating it, "…that he'd only agreed because he thought you'd leave if he didn't."
The café disappears. The conversations. The music. The hiss of the coffee machine. All of it. Gone. Because suddenly I'm back in our kitchen.
"I never wanted another child."
"I didn't really want the first one."
I thought those words had been born in our argument. Turns out they'd been living somewhere else long before they reached me.
"How long?" I ask quietly. She looks confused.
"...Sorry?"
"The affair." I meet her eyes. "How long were you sleeping with my husband?"
She doesn't answer.
"Tessa."
"Eight months."
Eight.
Months.
Christmas.
Leo's birthday.
Our anniversary.
Every late meeting.
Every business trip.
Every time he'd kissed me goodbye before going to work.
My stomach turns. I whisper, "So this wasn't…" I can't even finish the sentence.
"A mistake?" She nods to her own words. "No."
She wipes at her eyes.
"It wasn't, well, obviously it was. But for me, I thought we had something real. I thought he was open and honest with me."
I let out a slow breath as she wipes another stray tear. I just can’t bring myself to feel sorry for her. I know that she wasn’t aware but really? I am not that evolved to comfort my husband’s mistress.
"Well."
She looks up hopefully. I smile. It's probably the most frightening smile I've ever produced.
"That's inconvenient."
"I'm sorry?"