Page 3 of Cruel Lies

But my hands are cold and my heart's going fast and the part of me that's kept quiet for a long time is starting to whisper.

This isn't my first rodeo. I've wondered before.

Todd's been different the last few months. He works late more than he used to. He always turns his phone away from me whenever I happen to peek over his shoulder, which he never did before. He volunteered to do school pickup for Hayden a few weeks back, which sounds nice, except Todd never volunteersfor anything to do with the school. He says PTA meetings make him want to drive into a lake.

I noticed all of it. I just didn't let myself add it up. I was busy. I was tired. I had the business and the kids and the diet, and going all Inspector Gadget on the situation just seemed way too over-the-top.

There's a really easy solution to all this: Just call Todd.

It's so straightforward that I laugh out loud. I pick up the phone and I almost do it. My thumb's over his name in my contacts.

But then I hesitate.

What would I say?Hey, could you check the master bathroom? I think there's the ghost of a murdered woman standing on my scale?

He'd grumble that I was being crazy, then bring up yet again how I really need to start seeing a therapist, maybe getting on some anxiety meds, because I'm starting to lose it lately. He's been dropping those hints more and more lately. As if I have time for therapy. If I'm in therapy, who's picking up the kids from soccer practice, huh? If I'm lying on a couch confessing my deepest, heartfelt desires, who's going to remember to only peel Isabella's banana halfway down so she can do the rest herself?

Nobody. That's who.

I put the phone down and take a breath. In and out, whoosah, just like Cody Rigsby always tells me on my Peloton rides.

There. Better.

I'm being ridiculous. I'm a grown woman with a PhD in data science who builds predictive algorithms for a living, and hereI am, spiraling over a glitchy bathroom scale like it's a Ouija board spelling out my doom. The thing probably just hiccupped. Software does that. Lord knows my own app crashes every time someone so much as looks at it sideways during a demo.

It's nothing. It's a bug. Tomorrow, I'll laugh about this. I'll email the BioInfo people to let them know their precious gadget needs a patch, and they'll send me a coupon for fifteen percent off my next purchase, and the universe will go back to making sense.

I fluff the hotel pillow and close my eyes. Santorini is gonna be so beautiful. White buildings, blue water, Todd's arm around my tight, twenty-eight-inch waist. Ten years of love and partnership. We made it. We made two whole kids, a mortgage, a life.

That doesn't just evaporate.

Merciful sleep starts creeping in at the edges, soft and sweet. I have one more thought before it takes me all the way down.

There's no way my husband of ten years is cheating on me… Right?

2

CALI

Eight has always been my lucky number.

My first date with Todd was at a bowling alley called Crazy Eights. When he told me his birthday was 8/8/88, I basically married him on the spot. It was just so perfect, wasn't it? This man was clearly heaven-sent to make my life whole and complete!

From there, the eights just kept coming. Hayden came into this world screaming and pink at eight pounds, eight ounces. The address of the first house we bought in Montclair was 188 Afterglow Way. When Isabella was sick with jaundice after we brought her home from the hospital, we spent eight days lying on the couch with my yellow-tinged baby on my chest, worried sick, until the fever broke at 8:08 A.M. Todd was at work, of course, but I sent him a picture of our precious little angel along with a GIF of a baby doing a backflip, which, in retrospect, set unrealistic athletic expectations for the poor child.

For more than a decade, it's been all eights, all the time. You can understand why I'm a teensy bit superstitious about the number.It's been my four-leaf clover, my horseshoe, my lucky rabbit's foot. Eight has always shown up to deliver good news.

Always.

So when the United app coughs up a single available seat on this morning's red-eye flight to Newark (UA 818), I take it as a sign, and I book it right away.

Then I proceed to have a brief and vicious panic attack.

What am I doing? This is crazy. I'm losing my mind. Stress hormones are turning my brain into Swiss cheese. Or maybe I picked up a playground parasite from when I finished Isabella's leftover Frosty last week and it's devouring my body from the inside out.

But that notification. That stupid, lilac-colored notification.

~Congratulations on reaching your goal weight—You've lost 40 lbs!~