Page 21 of A Song for Another Woman

She watched that man leave in real time.

The wife cam was brutal, but this is worse.

I don’t understand what this is yet. I understand only that the internet has that wild, gleeful energy it gets when a woman’s private life becomes public property. Everyone running toward the smoke, phones out, calling it concern.

Then one comment stops me:Melody’s a damn homewrecker for sure. At least they didn’t have kids.

The room tilts without moving. My hand drops before I can stop it. Not all the way, just a small movement toward my stomach, halted halfway like I can catch myself before the thought becomes real.

At least they didn’t have kids.

I pull my hand back and curl it into a fist. No. Not that door. Not tonight.

The phone buzzes again. A tagged video rises to the top of the pile:

@WildfireTruths posted:raw footage from tonight. cade + melody. no PR. no spin. no wife cam. just what he said.

My thumb hovers above the screen.

There are moments when the body knows more than the mind can bear. Mine knows. It goes quiet in a way that scares me. My heartbeat slows. My mouth dries. The kitchen light seems too sharp, every edge of the room cut clean.

Don’t, some decent surviving part of me says. But I’ve spent months being told not to look. Don’t look jealous. Don’t look hurt. Don’t look like the joke landed. Don’t look like you notice your own husband forgetting to choose you.

I tap the video.

The clip opens on a studio. Not a professional shot. The angle is low and crooked, as if someone propped a phone on a piano or a music stand and forgot the world can fit through a lens that small. The room is dim, cluttered with cables and instruments, with the red studio light faintly glowing above the door.

Cade stands near the center of the frame with his guitar still strapped across him. His hair is messy, his shoulders tired, and one hand rubs the back of his neck. I know that posture. I know the shape of him when the night has run too long and every nerve is worn thin.

Melody is close to him. Too close, but that isn’t new. The whole country has made a hobby of measuring the inches between them.

Her voice comes through first, sharp under the soft tone. “You know what’s funny? Everybody acts like I invented this. Like I broke into Cade Tyler’s happy little house and stole his attention.”

My chest tightens.

She moves nearer in the frame, blond hair falling over one shoulder, her face open in that way cameras love. Wounded but pretty. Innocent but available for interpretation.

“I’m not trying to be a homewrecker,” she says. “I can’t help what people see. I can’t help what he feels.”

The comments scroll so fast beside the video I can barely catch them.

OH MY GOD.

EMMY GET OUT.

He let her say that???

The clip skips. Edited. I see it and register it, but it doesn’t save me.

Now Cade is looking at Melody. Not smiling. Not performing. His face is drawn, his jaw tight, and his eyes are fixed on hers like the room has narrowed to a single point.

For one tiny, humiliating second, hope lifts in me.Say it, I think. Not to me, not yet. Just say enough. Say my name like it matters. Say wife like it means something more than an obstacle. Say anything that’ll let me put one hand on the wall of this marriage and feel a beam that hasn’t rotted through.

Cade opens his mouth. His voice is low and clear. “The only reason I’m not with Melody is because I’m married.”

The words enter me one at a time. Not because he says them slowly, he doesn’t. Because my body refuses to take them all at once.

The only reason.