I was almost laughing again, almost feeling like myself, when Maren went quiet mid-sentence, eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. “Is that… Brett?”
I didn’t even need to finish turning around to know. Some instinct older than thought already knew what I was about to see: my husband at a corner table, a young woman draped across his shoulders, his face turned toward her ear.
Before I’d decided to move, my body had already crossed the room.
He looked up at me — not startled, not even close to it. Just relieved, like he’d been waiting for this exact moment to arrive.
“Well, finally. I’m in love with someone else. We’re done. It’s over.”
— Brett, at the table
No hesitation. No apology. Just a man putting down something he’d apparently been carrying for a long time and feeling lighter for it. The woman beside him — Paige — looked up at me like she’d won something.
✦ ✦ ✦
I went home the next morning to confront him properly. Maybe, I told myself, he’d come to his senses overnight.
