The banner is still on the wall. There are juice boxes in the recycling and gift wrap in the trash, and my children turned four today, and my best friend just asked me if she ruined my marriage, and I told her the truth—part of it, anyway. The part I could get out before my throat closed up.
I turn off the kitchen light and go out to the patio. I collapse into a chair and look at the dark yard, trying to figure out how my life turned into such a fucking shit show.
She asked me if she was the reason, and the honest answer—the one I couldn’t say, the one that would have made everything worse—is that she wasn’t the reason my marriage failed. She was the reason it was never going to work.
Because Bree was right. Bree was right at the altar, and she was right in the hallway, and she was right every time she asked me about Sydney during those first two years, and I told her the truth every time because I believed it was the truth.
I just didn’t know I was lying to myself.
I sit outside until the cold gets into my hands, and then I go inside, lock the door, and walk upstairs. The light under the guest room door is still on. I slow down as I pass it—I don’t stop, but I slow down, and I hear her voice on the other side, low and muffled, talking to someone on the phone.
Lauren, probably. Telling her everything. Processing it the way Sydney processes things—out loud, with the one person she trusts to tell her the truth, even when the truth is ugly.
I go to my room, sit on the edge of the bed, and press my hands over my face.
Eventually, the guest room light clicks off, and the house goes dark. But I don’t sleep for a long time.
Chapter Nineteen
The Distance
Sydney
I call Lauren the second the guest room door closes behind me.
She picks up on the first ring, which tells me she sensed a disturbance in the force the way she always does when my life goes sideways.
“What happened?”
I sit on the edge of the bed and press my free hand against my forehead, trying to figure out where to start. “Bree happened.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bree told Archer—in his hallway, at their children’s birthday party—that she saw the way he looked at me at their wedding. At the altar, Lauren. While he was marrying her.”
Lauren is quiet for about three seconds, which is the longest she’s ever been quiet in her life. “She said that to him?”
“She said it to him, and I was standing ten feet away, and I heard every word.”
“Oh, Syd.”
“She said she spent their entire marriage wondering if she was imagining it. And she wasn’t.” My voice cracks on the last word and I draw a steadying breath. “She was right, Lauren. I can’t pretend anymore. I’ve always felt more than I should have.”
“What did Archer say?”
“He said his marriage ended because he married the wrong person. And that it was on him, not on me.”
“Okay. And do you believe him?”
“I believe that he believes it. But… his ex-wife saw something on his face at their own wedding, and he still married her. He still chose her. Whatever he felt—or didn’t feel—it wasn’t enough to change anything. So what does it matter?”
“It matters because you’re living in his house.”
“I know.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and help with the kids and pretend my heart isn’t broken. Same thing I’ve been doing, I guess.”
