Chapter 72
Piper
I drive with my heart lodged somewhere in my throat.
I know where he is. I asked Isaak, and he gave me an address.
I didn’t have time to explain. Not that I could have explained even if I’d tried.
What would I have said?
That the man I’ve been sleeping with, the man to whom I gave my virginity all those months ago, the man I snuck around with and somehow started to fall for, found out I’m married?
That he asked if I’d been fu—
I swallow back the tears.
Fucking my husband and him...
He asked who I was cheating on.
I grip the steering wheel tighter.
I know I’m the absolute worst. I know I have no right to cry right now.
I’ve known from the very beginning that this moment would come, that sooner or later he would find out, and once he did, he would hate me.
Did I do that on purpose?
Subconsciously.
Is that why I said it in the game?
Had it all become too much?
Had we grown too close? Had it all become too real, and I sabotaged everything before it could go any further?
Instinctively, I think I did.
But this is for the best.
I am married, after all.
We don’t have a future.
It needed to end, and I was incapable of ending it myself. Now he knows the truth. He’ll hate me, and this time we’ll be truly over.
Yet that doesn’t stop the tears, nor does it stop me from going after him, desperate to know whether he’s okay.
Perhaps he’s with another woman already, taking his frustration out between her…
The thought makes my heart clench as nausea hits me.
You have no right.
No claim.
He can do as he pleases.
He is a free man.
You, on the other hand, are not.
The cruel voice in my head whispers.
And that voice isn’t wrong.
But it still hurts like hell.
It physically hurts.
It hurts that I hurt him. It hurts that this is my reality. It hurts that he found out this way. It hurts that I allowed things to go this far in the first place.
Most of all, it hurts because I have no right to be the one in pain.
So why am I still going to him?
It’s ridiculous. I have no right to check on him, and he left for a reason. The last person he probably wants to see right now is me.
The nausea turns violent.
I pull onto the side of the road and barely manage to wrench the door open before the contents of my stomach come back up.
My body convulses with each heave until there’s nothing left, yet still I remain bent over, waiting for the next wave to hit.
Only when I’m finally able to breathe without the threat of vomiting again do I sink onto the cold ground.
It’s so cold that I think I might end up with hypothermia.
Not that I care much right now.
If anything, the cold helps. It gives me a break from the ache in my chest.
I lean back against the door of the still running car and stare straight ahead into the darkness, where the woods disappear into the night.
Not my brightest moment.
Might be dangerous.
But I...
I close my eyes and let the tears fall.
And they do.
I don’t make a sound.
But I suppose the sound of my heart breaking is loud enough.
Why did I have to find him now?
Now, when I...
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my palms against them, yet it does nothing to stop the sob that escapes.
I’ve lost him.
I’m almost certain I’ve lost him.
And it hurts more than I ever thought possible because I lost him before he was ever mine.
Why does it hurt so much?
All I had was a glimpse. An illusion of what my life could have been, and now even that is gone.
Gone, and forever out of reach.
I swallow hard.
Because the truth is that I’ll spend the rest of my life trapped in a loveless marriage, serving as someone’s punching bag.