Her eyes go wet. She is not crying. She isfurious.
“You think I have beenrunning a playbookagainst you.”
“Yeah, G. I do.”
“You think I have beendecidingyou would ruin my friendships.”
“Yeah.”
“I have beenprotecting myself,Benson. There is a difference.”
“From what?”
“From exactly this. From the situation I am sitting in right now. Where my best friend slept with my brother behind my back, and now I have to choose between the two of them.”
“Nobody is making you choose, G. You are choosing to make it a choice.”
“Don’t.”
“You are. You’re the one who drew the line. You’re the one who told hereither you stop seeing him or you move out.Lucy did not draw that line. I did not draw it. You did.”
“Because what you guys did was wrong.”
“What we did was sleep together. That is not wrong, G. That is two adults who like each other. It would be wrong if I lied to her. It would be wrong if she lied to me. We didn’t.”
“You lied tome.”
I pause and inhale. “Yes.” I let theyessit there. “Yes, G. That part is on me. I knew it would set you off, so I didn’t tell you. That was wrong. I should have told you the day after the first party. Probably before that. Definitely before the second one. I didn’t. That’s on me.”
“You think?”
“I just said you were right about that part, G. Take the win.”
“And Lucy lied to me, too.”
“Lucy was trying not to lose you. She kept it from you because she thought you would do exactly what you just did.”
“So she was right to lie to me?”
“She didn’t lie to be sneaky. She lied because she was scared. She’s terrified of you.”
She goes quiet at that one. She picks up the wineglass and takes a sip. She sets it back down. Her fingers stay on the stem.
“I really fucked this up, didn’t I?” she says.
“Both of us did.”
She looks at the table now where Mara is staring too. I watch her, hoping she comes to her senses. I don’t know if I got through to her, but this needs to stop.
Then she says quietly, “I shouldn’t have kicked her out.”
I let her come to that realization on her own.
“I was really mad,” she says. “I just wanted her to feel how I felt, and then she broke down and I felt like a real asshole.” She inhales. “I’m still mad about it, but––”
Mara says, “Just talk to her.”
She shakes her head. “I was ruthless, Mara. I don’t know how to take it back.”
