“Hi,” he says, standing from the table. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He reaches toward me, but I step out of his grasp. “I need to get my things and go. I have plans tonight,” I lie, bee lining for the bedroom. If I can just get my clothes and a few documents from the safe, everything else can be sorted out later—during what I’m hoping to be a quick, easy divorce.
“I made you something to eat.” I hear his shoes squeak on the hardwoods behind me, but I don’t let it slow my pace.
“I told you not to.” After pulling my suitcase from the closet, I start stuffing it full of my workout clothes, jeans, and T-shirts. I feel him standing behind me but don’t let it deter me. Once everything I need is inside, I push down on the lid and tug the zipper. It takes some effort, but it closes.
“You’ve got your things. Now come eat.” He lowers his hand in front of me as if to offer some assistance getting up. “I’m not asking you to crawl into bed with me.”
Fuck. Maybe I’ll get out of here faster if I just agree to eat a quick meal with him.
“I grilled steak,” he adds.
“I became a vegetarian.”
“Come on, no you didn’t.”
I sigh, using my own strength to stand. “Just dinner.”
He flashes the cocky smile I haven’t seen in a while. “If I remember correctly, that’s what I called it.”
“I just have a few minutes, but I really need to get going.”
As I follow him into the dining room, I contemplate what he could possibly want to talk about over dinner. This isn’t like the dinners we used to have where we’d discuss our future—places we wanted to travel, kids, home remodeling projects.
We’re not us. We’re just two people who used to be us. The only thing that ties us now is a piece of paper and eleven years of memories.
I take a seat, but as I stare at my plate of filet and asparagus, my appetite is non-existent. It has been for days. “What do you want, Cole?”
“What makes you think I want something?”
Motioning around the table, I say, “You never did this when we were married. What are you trying to accomplish?”
“We’re still married,” he reminds me, sipping from his wine glass.
“Legally, yes.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time to give us another chance and think long and hard before you answer.” The way his eyes sear into mine, I feel as if he’s threatening me. But I’ve been held against hotter fires.
“That’s not going to happen. It would take us a lifetime to build our trust again. I want a better life than that.” What he doesn’t realize is I’ve had a week to sit alone in my hotel room thinking. I had no work to read over. No one to occupy that time. The solitude led me to clarity. Clarity led to a calm that I haven’t felt in a long time. I realized that I’m better off alone than I am with him.
“You might want to rethink that.”
“Are you threatening me?” I stand from the table, my palms resting on its edges. “We’ve both done enough. The hurt—everything—it stops here.” I turn and start walking back to the bedroom, pissed.
For a minute or two, I pull clothing from my closet, unbothered. Then, he’s there again holding a stack of papers in his hand. “I didn’t want to do this,” he says, passing them to me.
Divorce papers. As if I didn’t expect them.
“I’m asking for everything on the grounds of infidelity. The house, the car, and every last penny; I’m asking for it all. And, good luck landing a job at the DA’s office. Last time I checked, they preferred lawyers with good moral standing. I’ll make sure that they see every last word of this.”
My mouth hangs open, every ounce of blood boiling in my veins. “But you paid for it. Do you think it would be that difficult for me to get a copy of the cleared check? I’m sure a judge wouldn’t feel very sympathetic toward you.”
It’s not the money or the car or the firm that bothers me, but he’s trying to destroy me. He’s trying to take everything, including my dreams.
“The check never cleared, and River Holtz doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body. If you think he’s going to do anything to help you out of this, you’re wrong.”
My cheeks burn red. I can’t decide between crying and throwing shit off the table. He doesn’t deserve either because, to him, that would be a victory. My pain is his trophy. “Why would you do this to me?”
“You wanted a divorce, didn’t you?” he asks matter-of-factly.
“I thought it would at least be amicable!” I seethe, no longer able to swallow all my anger. “I didn’t think you were going to try to ruin my whole fucking life, Cole.”
He shrugs. “I don’t like when I don’t get what I want. And I want you. That’s the only reason I entertained the idea of having River test you when I met him in that bar. Frankly, if I can’t have what I want, you shouldn’t either.”
“You paid someone to see if I would cheat because you want me? That makes no sense at all. None!”
He shrugs again. I’m seriously starting to hate when he does that. “We’d had a rough few days, and I’d been drinking. I started to think about what would happen if we separated … if I had to give you half of the shit I kissed my dad’s ass for. Having photos of you and River together was my insurance plan. It didn’t mean I actually intended to use them. I guess I’m about to cash in, though.”
“So, let me get this straight: you lent your own wife out as an insurance plan just so you didn’t have to share some stupid money?” I’m seething inside, wondering if this would justify the insanity defense.
“I guess I did.”
“You sound like a spoiled child! When did you become this person? What the fuck happened to you?”
“I guess I turned into my old man.” He smiles.
I pick up a pile of clothes and start toward my car. I need to get out of here. The only problem is, he still follows me around. “So you’re going to play dirty?” I ask as I step around him to go back in for another handful.
“From what I gather, you played pretty dirty with Mr. Holtz. I’d say it’s only fair if I got a chance.”
I know this is a losing battle. I know once Cole gets something stuck in his head it’s impossible to pry it out. He wasn’t always like this, but I’ve seen it progress over the years. The handsome, kind man I married now needs to benefit from everything. If I leave, he loses. If he takes everything from me, he wins. He wants to win.
I grab two more armfuls of clothes from the closet then wheel my suitcase out. After grabbing my birth certificate and a few other documents from the safe, I start back out the door for the final time.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” he calls from behind.
“You burnt my reason to stay a long time ago.” Wit has always come easily.
Before I get a chance, he closes the back hatch of my SUV. “Don’t get too attached to driving this thing.” He grins. “I’ll see you in court, Marley.”
I want to kill him. I want to run my car over his manipulative, calculating ass. Instead, I don’t give him another second of my time. Climbing in the driver’s seat, I speed off into the sunset, still shaking from everything that transpired.
You think you know someone, then you find out you really don’t. Not only did you not know them, but you hate who they are and who they’ve become. And then you just hate yourself for being caught up in their spell for so long.
As soon as I pull into the parking garage of my new apartment complex, I grab my phone from my bag and send a quick text.
Marley: I need to talk to you. Please call me.
THERE’S A LOT OF THINGS THAT don’t make sense, but I’ve asked myself over and over why River would accept money from Cole to catch me cheating. I haven’t seen River’s bank statements, but from the life he lives, I doubt he needs the money.
My thoughts kept me up all night. So many questions with no answers. If he just met River in a bar, how d
id the subject of trying to catch me with another man even come up?
The whole damn thing makes me sick to my stomach. It’s literally all I think about. The pieces don’t fit together, and in my experience, there’s a good reason for that. Something is definitely wrong here.
Needing to escape my small, barren apartment, I lace up my tennis shoes and do something I haven’t done in a long time. I use my Saturday morning to run along Miami streets until my legs hurt more than my chest. Until I’ve had enough time to think through the last few weeks. Until I’m so exhausted and confused that my mind is in a fog. Until, at least internally, I feel nothing at all. Until I’m so numb I feel as if nothing else can break me.
Then, just when I think I’ve put everything behind me for today, his name appears on my phone. I stop in my tracks, taking a couple seconds to catch my breath.
“Hello,” I answer, still gasping for breath.
“Is this a good time?” His voice is hushed—a far cry from the usual River.
I breathe in through my nose slowly a couple times to help steady my voice. “Yes. I mean, I was just out for a run.” I pause, watching a few cars speed by. “I have some questions, and I think you have the answers.”
I’m met with silence. “Hello?” I ask, not sure he’s even still on the other end.
“Fine. Is there somewhere I can pick you up?” he finally asks.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not if you want answers before I change my mind.”
I have nothing left to lose, and everything to gain. “I live a few blocks from the courthouse. How long will it take you to get there?”
He sighs loud enough that I hear it through the phone. He has no reason to help me, and something tells me he hasn’t convinced himself he should. “About forty-five minutes.”
“Okay,” I say, biting down on my lower lip. “Let me give you my address.”
There’s an awkward pause between us. That in itself puts a small seed of doubt in my mind, but I have to try. I recite the address twice to insure he has it right. “I’ll wait out front,” I add, not wanting him inside my apartment. Just having to ask this much of him is killing me.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Marley?” he asks quietly, just as I’m about to hang up.
“I have to. You’re the only one who can help me.”
I hate having to rely on a man who helped destroy what was left of my trusting soul. My heart opened itself to River slowly during the time we spent together, and the minute after he crawled in, he jumped out, leaving a small hole in the tiny part that Cole hadn’t already damaged.
“Forty-five minutes,” he repeats before the line goes dead.
I run the few blocks I had left to get me back to my apartment and turn on the shower before digging some clothes from my unpacked suitcase. Cutoff shorts and a T-shirt is the best I can do. Stepping in the shower, I wash the sweat from my body and let the hot water sooth my muscles. My mind wanders as beads of water hit my face, but I do my best to switch it off as I step out. It’s exhausting because it’s leading me in a hundred different directions, none of which makes sense.
I dress and comb through my hair before slipping on my flip-flops and heading downstairs to meet River outside. I thought the night I found him in the club after Cole told me he’d hired him would be the last time I’d see him. This time, I can all but guarantee it.
His Aston Martin waits in front of my building. Before I change my mind, I open the passenger door and climb inside, quickly buckling myself in. My attempt to not look over at him fails the second I breathe in his cologne. It’s magnetizing. It pulls my eyes to his disheveled appearance. His eyes are blood shot, hair going every which way. Either he just woke up or he never went to sleep.
“Where are we going?” I ask, as he speeds down the city street.
He glances over at me then back to the wheel. “You wanted answers, didn’t you?”
“You could give them to me anywhere.”
“That’s right, Marley. I can give them to you. The only other person who can isn’t going to.” His voice bites, and it fucking hurts.
Tears fill my eyes as I stare out my window. I always told myself I’d never let a man control me, but here I am, letting two of them decide my future.
He speeds along a road with a perfect ocean view, passing a few cars along the way. I glance over to tell him to slow down only to notice the way his jaw ticks in a constant rhythm. I think back to the look he had on his face when I left him in the club a little over a week ago. Time hasn’t changed him much.
“What did I ever do to you?” The words slip before I contemplate them.
He shakes his head, shifting the car as it weaves around a curve. “Everything.”
“No, River. Tell me what I did to you. Tell me what the fuck I did to deserve this. Cut the bullshit because, frankly, I’ve had enough, and if you assholes think I’m going out without a fight, you’re wrong. You don’t know me.” My chest heaves, the anger uncontrollable.
Without a word, he parks alongside the road and climbs out of the car, heading straight toward the quiet beach. It takes a few seconds for my thought processes to catch up, but once they do, I jog after him.
“River!”
He stops in halfway between the road and the water with his hands on his hips. He looks to the sky much like I do the ocean—like it might hold the answers to all his problems.
“Give me something. Anything,” I beg as I come to stand next to him. If everything he did to me was to fulfill a deal he had with Cole—if he feels absolutely nothing for me—I don’t understand his struggle.
He gives me nothing. We stand with an invisible wall between us while a few seagulls move around us making choking calls. There’s no warning for the words that are about to slip.
“I’ve known Cole longer than you have.”
“What?”
“I met him down here one summer when I was in high school. His parents had a house along the ocean, not far from the condo where my father and I stayed. One night I was walking along the beach and ran into him and his bunch of friends. It wasn’t hard to get sucked in, because I didn’t know anyone else my age down here.”
I’m shocked. Cole made it sound like they met randomly not long ago. The pile of lies grows higher. “He said you met in a bar.” My voice is meek.
He laughs sarcastically as he picks up a stick and tosses it across the beach. “We did bump into each other at a bar, a couple months ago. I hadn’t seen him in roughly fifteen years.”
“Why didn’t you keep in touch?” I ask, feeling as if I missed something along the way.
“Are you sure you want to know, Marley? Once you do, there’s no going back.” He finally looks at me. I can tell by the look in his eyes that I’m not going to like what he has to say, but I need to hear it anyway.
I nod.
His long fingers drag through his thick hair. “We were all at his house for a party one night the third summer I hung out with him down here. I’d say there were at least fifty people there. His parents were out of town for a few days and decided to leave him alone. That was their first mistake.”
I sit down in the sand. He sits only a few inches away from me, his fingers curled into the sand.
“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he admits, staring ahead.
“Please.”
He swallows visibly. “There was this girl named Abbi. She was quiet—didn’t hang out with our group much—but she came with a friend that night. Cole had his eyes set on her the minute she walked through the door. She wasn’t having it. I don’t know exactly what happened because I was on the deck with a couple other guys, but he came outside with his arm wrapped around her. She could barely walk, and I thought it was a little weird because she wouldn’t touch her beer when I was around, but I was young and dumb. We all were.” He glances back in my direction. “He disappeared back into the house with her, and not even ten minutes later we heard her friend screaming and ran
back in the house.”
He shakes visibly. I teeter between wrapping my arm around him and leaving him untouched. My feelings toward River are unbalanced, as always.
I wrap my fingers around his, our joined hands resting on the sand. “What happened?”
“He’d gotten her naked from the waist down while she was passed out on his bed. The friend walked in just as he’d began raping her. She screamed to make him stop, and by the time a couple of the other guys got up there, she was covered with a sheet. He insisted it was consensual, but the other girl kept saying she would never do that. Of course, a lot of people took Cole’s side, but deep down I knew better. He slipped her something.”
My stomach is in knots thinking about the version of my husband he’s describing. I breathe in the clean ocean air, but I can’t fill my lungs. “What happened to Abbi?”
His fingers spread, letting mine fall between them. He squeezes my hand. “Me and another guy helped her into the passenger seat of her friend’s car after she got her dressed. I thought Cole was screwed as they drove away. They should’ve gone straight to the hospital, but she waited two days, and by then, it was too late to get anything to conclusively prove he’d raped her. She was ready to pursue charges anyway, but Cole’s dad paid her off while insuring not a word of the whole ordeal wound up in the news. I haven’t been able to look at the fucker the same since—especially not after what she did a few months after the settlement.”
“What do you mean?”
“She killed herself. Left her car running in the garage when no one else was home.” He chokes on every word. Every thought I had about River being heartless quickly dissipates. “Maybe if I had done something differently like driving her to the hospital myself or speaking up when no one else would, she’d still be here. That’s been a really hard pill to swallow.” He pauses once again, shaking his head. “Remember when you asked me about CASA?”