Page 23 of Cruel Lies

Honestly, I figured it would be the fun part. The sweet, vengeful dessert after three weeks of choking down the main course of betrayal.

But it turns out that deciding how to blow up your husband's life is harder than gathering the dynamite.

I spend all of Saturday ruminating on it. The kids are doing crafts at the kitchen table. Todd is on the couch watching golf with his feet up on my ottoman, shoes on inside the house, the bane of my existence.

And I sit there with my afternoon coffee going cold.

I could serve him papers. Cold and clinical. Have a process server show up at his office and hand him the divorce filing in front of his coworkers.

I could wait until Santorini, let him board the plane with Paula, then have his accounts frozen while he's somewhere over the Atlantic with no Wi-Fi and no way to fix it.

I could call Paula's family and rat her out.

I could call the school board and rat her out.

I could print every text message and wallpaper the city with them, one on every telephone pole and blank brick wall like I'm advertising Shakespeare in the Park.

Each option is satisfying in its own way. But none of them feel right. They aren'tenough.

Because I don't just want Todd to lose. I want him to lose in a way he never saw coming. I want him to feel the way I felt standing in that hotel bathroom in Phoenix, staring at a number that made no sense and feeling the abyss ofCould This Really Be Happeningopening up beneath him. I want him tohurt.

And I don't have that yet. I have the evidence, but I don't have the grand reveal.

So I sit there, percolating, while my coffee turns to sludge and Todd's dirty sneakers desecrate the ottoman my grandmother left me.

Maybe that's the issue. I just can't think in this house.

Not with him on my couch. He's all tied up in this place, ingrained into every fiber, and what I want is to imagine what my life will be likewithouthim. I need to breathe some air that doesn't reek of Todd.

I stand up so fast my chair scrapes against the tile. Then I grab my keys off the counter, walk into the living room, and announce, "I'm going out."

Todd doesn't even bother to look up from the TV. "Out where? It's, like, five o'clock."

"I'm aware of what time it is."

He frowns, and for the first time all afternoon, takes his eyes off the game. "But… but what about dinner?" he asks.

"Figure it out," I say. "There's leftover marsala in the fridge. Or order something. You're a grown man."

"But what about?—"

"I'll be back later."

As I loop my purse over my shoulder, I hear him say my name again, but I don't turn around. I just walk out and let the door close behind me.

It. Feels. Incredible.

I don't owe him an explanation. For ten years, I've narrated my every movement to that man. Not anymore. Tonight, I'm just walking out the door.

Figure it out, Todd.

I stand on the sidewalk for a second, breathing in the air, and I realize I have no idea where I'm going.

So I decide to spend his money.

Down in Chelsea, there's a boutique I've walked past a hundred times and never gone into. It's one of those places with a single dress in the window and no prices on anything, which does not bode well for Todd's wallet.

I always told myself that places like this were for other women. Thinner women. Women who didn't have stretch marks and a husband who called them curvy like it was a slur.