Chapter 3

So I waited. When no one showed up to sign the consent forms, I signed them myself. I endured the surgery and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, James's phone still wouldn't connect, and he was still nowhere to be found.

I gave my statement to the police, and once I was discharged, I went home.

I sat in the apartment, staring at the cold walls and the empty space where James should have been, and for the first time, I let myself wonder whether he and I were right for each other after all.

But later, he explained that his phone had died and the client had been on his back all day.

To make it up to me, he actually took two days off just to be with me.

To make it up to me, he took two rare days off to stay by my side and keep my spirits up. He even went with me to the church to light a candle for our baby.

"Come find us again," he said softly. "Be our child next time."

So I forgave him, and I let us go back to the way we were.

It was all a lie. The work, the client, all of it. The truth was simpler. I just wasn't the important one anymore.

To James, I was the least important thing in his life, and his scales had already tipped toward Sophie a long time ago.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The car pulled up in front of a restaurant, and Sophie turned to me.

"Emily," she said, "want to eat with us? This place is impossible to book. James reserved it two weeks ago, just for tonight."

She leaned in with a grin.

"Actually, I have a little secret," she said, and her voice landed like a hammer on my chest. "I'm pregnant. James wanted to celebrate."

The shock hit me like lightning. She kept going. "It was the 29th of last month. I thought it was just cramps, but the hospital said it was a false alarm. Turns out I'm pregnant."

She giggled, sweet and soft, and the sound wrapped around my chest like a vine, tightening, taking my air away.

I looked at James in disbelief. Something unnatural flickered across his face, and he tugged on Sophie's arm.

"Why are you telling outsiders all this?" he said. "We still have dinner to get to."

He was already dismissing me.

"The rain stopped," James said, rolling down the window and pointing at a subway station down the street. "You can take the train home."

He spelled it out, one clean word at a time.

"My girlfriend doesn't owe you her time after work hours."

He didn't hesitate for a second. He planted himself squarely on Sophie's side and made me the enemy.

I could barely breathe, but he tossed it off like nothing. When Sophie playfully scolded him with, "How can you talk to my supervisor like that?" his voice went indulgent again.

"I only told the truth," he said. He looked at me. "Isn't that right?"

That look told me everything. Get out of the car, pretend nothing had happened, and today could still be forgotten. All I had to do was pretend.

"Sophie," I said anyway. "How long have you two been together?"

Sophie blinked.

I smiled. "Or is that not something you can say?"

"Emily!" James's voice jumped.

Sophie was already laughing at her answer. "A year and a half. Why?"

A year and a half.

Right, James suddenly got busy. The man who used to commute strictly between home and work began traveling constantly to expand markets. He became unreachable for days, returned home exhausted, and our intimacy steadily declined.

So the signs had been there the whole time. He had already betrayed our marriage back then.

Something rose up in my stomach as nausea climbed up my throat. I lost control, threw open the door, stumbled out, and vomited onto the curb. Sophie was calling after me, worried.

"Emily!"

James caught up to me, holding out a tissue. His plain wedding band was gone from his ring finger, leaving only the pale circle where it used to sit. He lowered his voice and leaned in close.

"Emily, don't make a scene," James murmured. "Be good. Okay?"

It was the same way he brushed off my emotions every single time. Be good. Don't make a scene.

Just hearing him say it made me feel ice-cold all over. He turned back and called to Sophie with a smile. "She's okay. Don't worry."

He kept coaxing her. "Let's go eat. Your supervisor said she has other things to do. She won't be joining us."

Sophie kept looking back at me as she walked.

"Emily, call me if anything comes up, okay?"

James opened the car door for her, and before she could climb in, I stopped him.

"James," I called out, stopping him in his tracks.

I wiped the tears leaking from the corners of my eyes and glanced at Sophie.

"Does she know," I said, "that you have a wife?"

The air went still.

I walked over to Sophie, and before James could get a word out, I pulled out our marriage certificate.

"Did you know," I said, "that your perfect boyfriend is my husband?"