Chapter 8 Olivia #2
"No," Ben said. "He wouldn't have told me.
He knew how I'd react." He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink, his hand steady.
"I was dropping off prints at the Sliding Hill site. Remember? The big timber-frame job he was consulting on. I got there early, thinking I’d beat the traffic. "
He took a sip, grimacing.
"I saw his truck in the drive. I didn't think anything of it. I walked around back to the deck to check the footings." He stopped, his throat working. "They were there, on the deck. They didn't see me."
He didn't have to describe it. The image blossomed in my mind with horrifying clarity. Ryan with someone else.
"I left," Ben continued. "Didn’t know what to do. Just got back in my truck and drove away. I called him that night, told him what I saw."
"And that's why you stopped coming around," I said.
"I told him to end it," Ben said, his voice hardening. "I told him he was an idiot. I told him he had the best thing in the world at home and he was throwing it away for... for a thrill." He shook his head. "We got into it. He got defensive. Said it wasn't that simple. Said I didn't understand."
"What didn't you understand?"
"I don't know," Ben admitted, frustration leaking into his voice. "I asked him why, Liv. I asked him what the hell was missing. If you guys were fighting, if something happened."
He shook his head, looking down at the whiskey.
"He couldn't give me a straight answer. He just kept talking in circles. About feeling... pressure. About wanting to do more. None of it made sense. I told him he was crazy. I told him he had a perfect life."
"And what did he say?"
Ben looked up at me, his expression helpless. "He said, 'I know.'"
I grit my teeth so hard pain shot up my jaw.
That was worse than unhappiness. Unhappiness was a reason. Unhappiness was a diagnosis. This? This was just greed. He knew he had a perfect life, and he decided he wanted more anyway.
"And then?" I insisted.
"I… I couldn’t be a part of it. That’s why I haven’t been around." Ben rubbed the back of his neck. "I couldn't look you in the eye, Olivia. Not knowing what I knew."
"And Friday?" I asked. "The text?"
"He reached out," Ben said. "Begged me to meet him for lunch. We met at the diner by the old mill. He looked terrible, Liv. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He was shaking."
"What did he say?"
"He said he couldn't do it anymore. The guilt, the lying… He said he was drowning." Ben looked at me. "I told him he had to choose. Today. Right now. I told him to go to her and end it, or go home and pack a bag."
This ends tonight.
The pieces slammed into place.
"He was going to her," I said. "Route 9. That's why he was on that road. He was going to… end it?"
"I think so," Ben said. “I can’t say for sure, not now, but… Yes, I think he was going to end it.”
"But I don't understand," I said, my mind racing. "If he was seeing her for eight months... I went through his phone, Ben. I went through everything. There wasn't a single text from her. Not one call. Until tonight."
Ben looked at me with a pity that made my skin crawl. "He would have had a second phone, Olivia."
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
A burner phone.
Of course.
Ryan was an architect. He would keep his life with me in one pristine, well-lit room, and he would keep Lucia in another, locked tight.
The text to Ben—this ends tonight—was on his main phone because Ben was part of the main structure. Ben was part of the real life. Lucia was the anomaly.
I felt a laugh bubbling up in my chest, manic and sharp.
"I always thought I knew everything," I said, the words spilling out. "I knew his coffee order, his favorite shirt. I knew exactly how he liked his eggs." The laugh escaped, sounding like a sob. "I knew Ryan."
"Olivia—"
"He bought a second phone," I said, my voice rising. "He hid it, charged it, deleted messages. Looked me in the face every single day for eight months and lied, and he was so good at it that I didn't even suspect." I slammed my hand onto the counter. "How could I not know?"
"Because he didn't want you to know," Ben said firmly. "He was careful. He was protecting this."
"Protecting what?" I demanded. "Me? Or himself?"
Ben didn't answer.
I looked at him, standing there in his dirty work clothes, the only person left who could tell me the truth. There was one question left. The question that mattered more than the where or the when or the how.
"Ben," I said.
He met my eyes. He looked terrified of what I was about to ask.
"Do you think he loved her?"
The kitchen went silent. The hum of the fridge seemed to stop. The only sound was the blood rushing in my ears.
Ben opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked down at his mug, at the dust on his boots. He looked anywhere but at me.
"Ben," I said again.
He looked up.
"I don't know," he whispered.
If he had said no, I would have known he was lying. If he had said yes, it would have killed me instantly.
But I don't know what was worse.
"I think..." Ben started, then stopped, searching for the words. "I think it was complicated. I think he was lost. I think… God, Liv."
Maybe.
Maybe he loved her. Maybe he loved her more than he loved me. And the last eight years? Maybe just a placeholder until he found her.
The dam broke.
My knees gave way, and I didn't try to catch myself. I slid down the front of the cabinets, hitting the floor hard, the cold tile biting into my legs.
The grief I had been holding back—the clean, noble grief of a widow—shattered, and something jagged and ugly took its place.
I pressed my palms into my eyes until stars exploded behind my lids, gasping for air that wouldn't come. I heard Ben move, his heavy boots on the floor.
He crouched down beside me but didn't touch me. He didn't try to hug me or shush me. He just sat there in the dust and the dark, bearing witness to the ruin his best friend had left behind.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the dark. "I'm so sorry, Liv."