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There’s an edge to his tone. I study his face. “I’m really sorry, I know how stupid that was…”
“Laura! For Christ’s sake! Are you insane? Do you know how that makes me look?”
“Well, yes, I understand that now, I’m really sorry!”
“I kept trying to get away from her!”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I say wryly.
He groans into his hands. “I cannot believe you did that!”
“I know. I can’t either, trust me, but listen, Bronwyn saw how…close, Summer was with you. So she sent a text pretending to be from Summer, to your phone, while we were at the restaurant. I saw it when you were talking to your friends.”
“You’re not making any sense.” He grabs his phone from the bedside table. “Show me that text.”
“I deleted it,” I say, chewing on a fingernail.
He looks at me, his face clouded with confusion.
“I know how it sounds, but please, you just have to believe me!”
“Okay, so there’s a text from Summer sent by Bronwyn, but it doesn’t exist and you’re the only person who’s ever seen it. How am I doing?”
“Don’t do that. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Did it say it came from Summer? You saw her name?”
“Yes.”
“So her name will be in my contacts. Right?”
“Yes! You’re right!” I look over his shoulder as he scrolls through his contacts, up down, types Summer’s name in the search bar. No results.
He throws the phone on my lap.
“She’s not in my contacts.”
“She must have deleted it.”
“Do you hear yourself, Laura?”
“You don’t believe me.”
“No! I don’t! You know why? Because you’ve been acting crazy for weeks. Look at you! You’re a mess of nerves! You barely speak to me, youhateBron, you accuse her of all sorts of crimes I don’t even understand, then you’re friends again, you ramble on about some love circle, then you tell me she’s desecrated the painting you did, even though we can’t find it! You tell your colleague to flirt with me? Entrap me?”
“No! Jack, not entrap, I promise. It’s not like that! And I know how it sounds but you have to believe me!”
He sits next to me, runs his fingers through his hair. I put my hand on his back. “Bronwyn says—”
I pull my hand away. “Bronwyn says what?”
“That you’ve been acting real strange, Laura. She’s worried about you. And I have to agree with her.”
“Oh my God!” I stand up. “Don’t you see? That’s what she does! She sets up these situations to make me look bad!”
“Stop saying that! Nobody is trying to make you look bad!”
“Yes! She is! And you won’t believe me! You will believe her instead of me! Do you know how that makes me feel?” I’m shaking, my hands locked into fists by my sides, already half-drunk, or at least drunker than I’d wanted to be. It occurs to me that we’ve never had a fight, Jack and I. Not a big one, not a real bad one. And why would we? I’m amenable to everything. Where we live, where we go on vacations, whether he has a job or not, whether Bronwyn can come and stay in our house. I am allergic to confrontation. I am the quintessential pushover. I am a wet blanket. So here we are in our first ever big fight and I feel like a B-grade actor in a straight-to-TV movie as I pummel his chest with my fists, hissing rather than shouting into his face because while I may be boiling with rage, I’m also acutely aware of Charlie downstairs, as well as Bronwyn. We fight in hushed tones, he holds my wrists, repeating my name over and over but in a voice that is supposed to calm me, like I’m the nut job that broke out of her straitjacket and he’s the reasonable, long-suffering doctor.
