Page 22 of A Song for Another Woman

I’m not with Melody.

Because I’m married.

The clip keeps going. “If I wasn’t married, I’d be with Melody.”

Then it ends. A hard cut. Silence.

For a second, I think the sound has gone out. Then I hear the refrigerator hum, a car moving somewhere down the hill, and the soft click of the air kicking on. The world continues.

My thumb doesn’t move. The screen loops, but I don’t press play again. I don’t need to. His voice has already made a place for itself inside me.

The only reason I’m not with Melody is because I’m married.

If I wasn’t married, I’d be with Melody.

There it is. Not a rumor. Not a look. Not a stage move. Not a publicist’s hand on my shoulder telling me to smile for him.

His voice. His words. The marriage reduced to a technicality.

I wait for the scream. It doesn’t come. I wait for the sob, the shaking, the sharp animal need to call him and make him deny it while I still have enough mercy left to believe him.

Nothing.

I stand in the kitchen with my phone in my hand and become very, very still. It’s not numbness, exactly. Numbness is foggy. This is clear. It's the kind of clear you get when a fever breaks and the room is still ugly, but at least you can see the door.

I look around the kitchen: the cold tea, the expensive lights, the dead branches in their perfect vase, the phone with strangers crawling all over my life, and my wedding ring throwing a small, bright reflection onto the marble.

Months of public humiliation don’t collapse because of one sentence. That would almost be simpler. One sentence would make me dramatic. It would make me a woman who heard one bad thing and burned her life down.

But this sentence isn’t the beginning. It’s the last brick. The structure was already there: Cade arriving with Melody while I came through the side entrance with an assistant; Cade letting a camera turn my face into content; Cade thanking her like she gave him back his soul and me like I’d kept his calendar; Cade telling me I was imagining it; Cade calling the story a bit; Cade kissing my forehead when I asked him to see me; Cade not answering when I said,Please don’t disappear on me tonight.

The house doesn't fall. It has already fallen. I’m only hearing the dust settle.

My phone lights again. June this time.

June

Please tell me you’re not seeing this alone.

I stare at her text, and the first real ache moves through me. Not sharp, not theatrical, just a deep pressure under myribs where my sister’s love lands against all the places I’ve been trying to hold shut.

I type back before I can think too hard:

Emmy

I saw it.

The dots appear immediately:

June

Oh, Emmy.

Two words, and somehow they undo me more than the whole internet.

My eyes burn. I blink once, then again, but I don’t cry. Not because I’m strong, but because my body has moved on without waiting for permission from the rest of me. It’s made a decision. I can feel it in my feet on the floor, in the calm of my hands, and in the way I’m no longer listening for tires on the driveway.

June sends another message: