“Mike, can we not do this?” I interrupted, holding up my hand. “We don’t even know where our son is. I can’t deal with a spreadsheet of action items right now.”
I should have just let him do it, should have understood that he was working through his emotions in the best way that he knew how—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t dissect and analyze all the ways that my actions were going to affect my family. I couldn’t listen to the fallout before it came.
I didn’t wait for a response. Just as he had done earlier, I stood up and walked out.
CHAPTER 35
MIKE
I had two issues in front of me, and an internet video of my wife whoring it up wasn’t my biggest concern. That would get taken down. Jacob would man up and get over it. Lillian would behave, thanks to this punishment.
David Laurent, on the other hand, needed to be handled. Delicately handled, without Lillian’s awareness or any red flags.
Did he have to die? That was the first question on my list, and still had a blank beside it.
I hoped not. The aftermath of death was always a bitch of loose ends.
CHAPTER 36
LILLIAN
I woke up with a sense of doom. Kicking off my covers, I stared up at the ceiling fan of the guest room, which needed to be replaced. There was a sticker of a heart on one fan blade, a carryover from when the room had been a young girl’s bedroom.
I hadn’t slept in the guest room in years, not since I had the flu and quarantined myself in an attempt to keep the others from getting sick. Now I’d quarantined myself due to the scorn. Mike and Jacob might be silent, but I could still feel their disdain, thickening the air and clogging my chest to a point where it felt impossible to breathe.
At two o’clock, Mike and I had an appointment with Amy Kluckman, an attorney who specialized in internet defamation. Legal representation was an item on Mike’s list, and I was dreading the event and all the questions the lawyer would have for me.
At least Jacob had come home last night. At almost one in the morning, his car had pulled into the drive and he had slunk from the Volkswagen into the house, his sweatshirt hood up, hands in the pockets, a clear sign that he didn’t want to talk. I’d watched him from the living room window, and when he entered the side door, I stayed in the corner as he practically sprinted up the stairs and to his bedroom.
I could have slept in our room. After I had confronted him about his affair, Mike continued to sleep in our bed, his back to me, a wall of pillows between us. I could have taken my normal place and stared at my bedside table, with the chip in the corner of the wood and the tissue box that blocks the glare of the clock. I had considered it and hesitated at the bedroom door, my hand on the knob. I’d jerked away, hating the thought of lying in bed and feeling the weight of his judgment.
All night long, I had struggled for sleep, the hours stretching by slowly as my mind had tried to sort through the complicated layers of guilt and the mystery of who, why, and how this had happened.
I kept getting stuck on how we would move forward, past this. Mike and I were both guilty in this marriage. Maybe he had been the initial unfaithful one, but I dove into the sinful waters with him, and now Jacob was being punished for my crime.
I crushed the pillow to my face and screamed, a long howl of frustration, because while I could confess my sins to Jacob and apologize, I couldn’t—shouldn’t—tell him what his father had done. While it might make me feel better for Jacob to hate us both, it wasn’t about my feelings or justifications for my actions. It was about our son and trying to make this easier for him, and that sort of self-sacrifice . . . tasted like rotten cheese in my mouth.
I groaned and tossed the pillow to one side. Unplugging my phone from the charger, I refreshed the TikTok link that Mike had texted me last night.
The video was still up and now had 239 likes and almost 300 comments. I was staring at the screen, my heart sinking past the cramp in my stomach, when I heard Sam call out a hello from downstairs.
I bolted from the bed and toward the stairs. Scrambling down the flight, I rounded the final step and flung myself into his arms. Gripping him tightly, I started to cry.
“Hey, hey,” he shushed as he carried me into the living room and lowered me onto the love seat. I sank into the leather and clung to his side.
“Did Mike call you?” I sniffed.
“A friend of mine sent me the link.” He winced. “Lill—”
“I know. It’s bad.”
Sam carefully untangled himself from my grip. “Stay,” he commanded, as if I were a dog. “I’m going to get you a Xanax.”
I didn’t argue, grateful for a friend with pharmaceutical connections. From the kitchen, I heard the ice maker, then the crinkle of a water bottle. He returned, with a glass and a small yellow pill. “Here. Take this and take a deep breath. You’re shaking.”
I needed something stronger than water. Vodka or, better yet, tequila. He nudged the glass toward me, and I took it. “Jacob’ll never forgive me.” I placed the pill on my tongue, then drank half the glass.
Sam was still standing there, and my gratitude to him dipped slightly at the judgmental look on his face. “This is where you tell me that I’m wrong, and he’ll get over this within a week.”
“He’s a teenager. He doesn’t—and won’t—understand adult relationships, not for a while. He’s going to be pissed, Lill. That’s just how this is going to go. He’s going to be mad and embarrassed, and it’s going to last awhile.”
He was right, which only made me more despondent. I moved to the couch and collapsed on the dark leather.
“Any words of wisdom?” I asked as I waited for the antianxiety medication to kick in. I should have called him and gotten one of these last night. I had stared up at the guest room ceiling for hours, my mind racing through how big a disaster this was.
There was, after all, the giant bomb that it had delivered to my marriage. But there was also, pathetically, the side effect to my secret life. It wouldn’t survive this. There was no way that I could return to the docks, to David, after this. I would be spitting on my family every single time I made that choice, instead of staying home and focusing on my marriage and our son.
And the horrible, horrible thing of it was that loss of David, of my life as Taylor—that hurt as much as my guilt over Jacob’s pain. The level of my selfishness, of my self-absorbed focus, was disgusting. I hated myself, even as I continued to mourn the loss.
“How’s Mike handling this? Has he threatened to leave?”
I waved away the thought. “You know Mike. He’s making a list. Attacking the problem.”
The Xanax was starting to work, and I let out a soft, contented sigh.
Sam eyed me with concern and held out a tissue. “Have you been taking your medication?”
“Yes,” I snapped—even though I hadn’t taken my antidepressant or my mood stabilizer yet this morning, or yesterday. In the last few weeks, I’d taken it less frequently, my time with David bringing me a happy high that I hadn’t experienced in years. The buzz of a new relationship was a drug in itself, and probably helped out by the vitamin D and endorphins of my new job.
Right now, what I needed was a drink. Something to distract me from all this. I used the tissue and then let it fall to the floor. Sam’s eyes followed the drop. He tried to stay in his seat, but his neat-freak habits couldn’t resist—and he dipped to pick it up. He was so much like Mike. Why, in my past, had I gravitated toward such precise men? Was that why I liked David? Was it his charming ease and disarray?