Chapter 16
Allison
In the bathroom that night, I twist my hair back, dampen a cotton pad with remover, and swipe it across my eyes. Black smears collect under my lashes. I watch myself in the mirror as the day erases itself from my face, one layer at a time. My mother’s voice again.
You’re not a little girl anymore, Ally. You have to worry about more than academics.
I mean your figure, sweetie. Your face is from your father’s side. You can’t do much about that. But your body? Your body, you can control. Your hair, you can control. Your clothes, you can control. Your manners, you can control.
I was eleven when she first said it, when she tried to force me off the Scholastic Bowl team and enroll me in an aerobics class, when she created meal plans and workout regimens for me, when she started my Saturday morning weigh-ins, stepping on the scale with dread, not because I cared what number would blink back at me but because she did.
An eleven-year-old girl should not be hitting triple digits on the scale.
And no, it didn’t matter that I was tall for my age. Look no further than my mother, the former homecoming queen of Grace Consolidated High, the college dance major, who was five foot six and never passed ninety-five pounds her entire life.
Her words never really left me, but they returned in spades after I discovered Fin’s infidelity. I hear them every time I catch my reflection too closely. I lean forward now, studying the faint lines around my mouth, the shadows under my eyes, the softness at my jaw.
The same rules don’t apply to girls and boys, Ally. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be.
I blink hard, rub moisturizer into my skin, and press my lips together. For a second, I don’t know if I’m seeing myself or only the things she trained me to watch for.
Men don’t like frumpy. And are you sure you want to keep with Scholastic Bowl and debate team? No man wants to marry a woman who’s smarter than him.
From my medicine cabinet, I remove my “paper razor.” When I was a kid, I kept this razor blade in a little envelope I made out of an index card, sealed on three sides with tidy strips of tape.
It slid into a pocket of my backpack like it belonged there, just another item.
By the time I was ten, bringing it to school felt as routine as packing my homework.
During homeroom, I’d take it out the way other kids took out their pencils.
No one noticed; they were busy trading erasers or whispering about some cartoon they watched the night before.
I’d set my notebook flat on the desk and run the blade along the frayed edge of a page, shaving it clean.
The sound was satisfying, a soft shhk. The mess was gone. Order restored.
When the morning bell rang, I would tuck the blade back in its envelope and slide it into my backpack. Everything inside was exactly how I wanted it. It was my space, my domain. This tiny kingdom of straight edges and clean lines, I ruled without permission.
I fold the razor back into its envelope and return it to the medicine cabinet. Sometimes even as a grown woman, nearing forty, I need a reminder that I am in control. That the only expectations for me that matter are my own.
I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, the faint illumination from the streetlight outside cutting a pale stripe across the bedroom.
Finley shifts beside me, the mattress dipping with his weight.
His hand slides across my stomach, tentative at first, then more insistent, fingertips brushing the hem of my nightshirt.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my neck. “It’s been a while.”
I close my eyes, my body tightening instead of softening. “Not tonight,” I whisper, catching his hand, stilling it. “I’m too tired.”
He pulls back, quiet for a beat. Then, softly, “Things were better for us…after my knee. When I was stuck at home, it felt like we were closer again.” His voice dips lower, wounded. “But these last couple weeks…it’s like you’ve just turned off.”
His words pierce me only because I’m surprised he even noticed.
I have turned off. Not suddenly, not without cause, but in the slow, deliberate way you back away from something you know will burn you if you touch it again.
Since the night I saw the two of them together through my binoculars across Lake Shore Drive, some three weeks ago, the retreat began.
I roll to face him. His eyes search mine, pleading without saying the words. “It’s not you,” I say, the lie smooth and practiced. “It’s the trial. All the prep, all the weight of it—I can’t shut it off. It’s taking everything out of me. And now Luke? It’s a lot. It’s…too much.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away. He nods slowly, though his hand slips back to his own side of the bed. The space between us feels wider than it is.
And in that silence, the irony claws at me.
The one thing I promised I’d never do is keep secrets in my marriage.
Fin did, and that, as much as anything, even as much as the adultery itself, caused our undoing.
But now I’m doing the same thing, holding close to my vest my decision to leave him.
The words sit heavy on my tongue, aching to be spoken, but not now.
“I just don’t want to lose you in all this,” he says quietly.
I wonder if that’s true. Am I still important to him?
Does he still want me? Is he able to compartmentalize the cheating from our life together, as if the one doesn’t affect the other?
Or is this just another version of so many couples who stay together not because they’re in love, not because they can’t live without each other, but because the alternative is too scary or too uncomfortable?
My throat burns as I force out, “You won’t.” Another lie.
I turn back onto my pillow, facing the dark, listening to his steady breathing, while mine stays shallow, restless.
Bad things happen when you lie.