Especially my dumb heart.
Because if I’d been able to delude myself until now, seeing him with her—his wife? Mistress? Another blind idiot like me?—has proven with sickening clarity just how much I actually care for him.
Though I tried not to, though I resisted with all my might, I fell for him.
I fell for him hard.
A sob breaks from my chest. I slap a hand over my mouth to smother it. I drive too fast through the city streets, blind and shaking, with no idea where I am or where I’m going, until I screech to a stop in front of a liquor store.
I run inside, panting and wild-eyed, knowing I look like a lunatic but not caring.
“I’ll ask your father for permission to marry you.”
“You idiot,” I whisper, stumbling down an aisle. “You knew he was bad. A liar. You knew it. And look at you now.”
I grab a big bottle of tequila off a shelf and turn around, heading for the exit.
“You let him seduce you. You let him fuck you. You let him in.”
I shove open the glass door and stumble outside, the bottle of tequila clutched against my chest like a lifejacket. I can’t think of anything else I want to do more than get shitfaced. I need to block it all out, all this pain and shame, this horrible rage.
This jealousy.
I’ve never felt anything like this jealousy. It feels like I’m being stabbed in the heart, over and over, from the inside.
His hand gently cradling her swollen belly…I’ll never forget that image for the rest of my life.
I yank open my car door. I’m about to jump in, but someone pulls me away, shouting.
“What?” I spin around, disoriented.
A man is shouting at me. In Korean, so I have no idea what he’s saying. But he’s shouting angrily at me and pulling at my arm, jerking at it, and like a slap on the face I realize what’s happening.
I left the store without paying for the tequila.
“Oh. Sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—wait, my purse—I’ll get money—”
Then I realize I must have left my purse at the restaurant, because it isn’t inside the car.
The Korean shop owner is still screaming at me. A small crowd has gathered on the sidewalk, looking at me with various expressions ranging from curiosity to disdain. I try to back away, to explain that it’s all a mistake and I’ll pay for the bottle, of course I’ll pay for it, but now the Korean guy is shouting, “Thief! Thief!” and things are starting to get ugly.
A few spectators have their cell phones out. They’re videoing.
A big guy says loudly, “Call the cops.”
Another guy says, “She’s trying to get away!”
“No! I’m not! This is all a misunderstanding!” But I’m backing away, trying to yank my arm out of the shopkeeper’s hard grip, and I know exactly how it looks.
Then someone grabs me from behind, the crowd starts hollering, and everything goes to shit.
28
Jules
The cop who books me smells like soup.
Not a good kind of soup, but something with a funky, sour note, like feet. I get fingerprinted, have my mug shot taken, am frisked and asked about gang affiliations and communicable diseases, then I’m brought to a holding cell and told to stay put.
“When can I make my phone call?” I ask the cop.
“Soon as I work up the energy to give a shit.” He ambles off.
I’m alone in the cell. I sit on the hard metal bench against the cement wall and try to ignore the dark yellow stain on the floor in the corner.
An hour goes by. Then two. By the third hour, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a police strike happening, because no one has come to see me. For a small crime like petty theft, I should be able to post bail and get out right away. They don’t have reason to keep me indefinitely.
But hour after hour goes by and no one comes.
Finally, about four o’clock in the morning, a new cop unlocks my cell. He’s big, with a shaved head and scary eyes. I decide not to take him to task for the delay and quietly follow him out of the cell and down the hallway.
He turns to an unmarked door and ushers me into a small room. The only furniture in the room is two metal chairs and a dented metal desk with nothing on it. He points at one of the chairs.
“Sit.”
I look around, baffled. The room looks exactly like one of those interrogation rooms from the movies. It’s stark white with bare cement walls, except for the one with dark reflective glass that people are definitely lurking behind.
“What’s going on?”
He says, “Sit.” It sounds like, “Ask me one more question and I’ll rip off your eyebrows.”
I sit.
He leaves, slamming the door behind him. A camera up in the corner near the ceiling stares at me with a red, unblinking eye.
After a few minutes, I turn to the dark glass wall. “Seriously? It was a bottle of tequila. Off brand. Are you guys having a slow night or what?”
Nothing happens. More time passes. No one comes.
Just as I’m about to start pounding on the glass and screaming about my rights as an American citizen, the door to the room opens. A woman walks in.
A pregnant woman.
That woman.
She’s dressed in a chic black suit that manages to make her belly look less like there’s a baby inside it and more like she ate a big dinner. She’s carrying a briefcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She smiles warmly at me.
“Hi, Juliet. I’m Truvy. You can call me Tru. It’s so nice to meet y’all.”
Her Texas twang is soft and lovely, and I am going to tear her eyes right out of her skull.
Blood throbbing in my cheeks, I say stiffly, “What. The. Fuck.”
“I can see we’ll get along just fine.” She laughs. It’s a charming laugh. Soft, feminine, and charming. The witch.
She sits in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, sets her briefcase on the floor, pushes the cup of coffee toward me, folds her hands together in her lap, and takes me in.
I mean she really looks at me.
And I look at her enormous ruby and diamond ring.
My voice choked, I say, “You’re married.”
“I am.”
I close my eyes, draw in a deep breath, and curse the day I decided to raid that fucking diaper warehouse.
She says, “I’m also your attorney, in case you’re wondering.”
My eyelids fly open. I stare at her. I never truly understood the word “flabbergasted” until right now.
She knits her brows together. Her eyes are a stunning shade of pale green, like sea glass. She says, “Don’t look so surprised. Just because I’m from a tiny shithole town in Texas doesn’t mean I can’t argue the law. I’ll have you know I passed the bar on my first try.”
I want to burst out laughing. I also want a flamethrower. “How long have you been married?”
She beams, twisting her wedding ring with her thumb. “Seven months now. We went to the Civil Registry Office the same day we found out we were pregnant.”
“So we’re not pregnant.” I remember Killian’s disappointed tone that night he broke into my bedroom and want to retch.