Page 64 of The Better Sister

“I have to testify again. The lawyer told me not to talk to anyone about it. I’m sorry. That’s why I didn’t call.”

“Are you home? Can I at least see you, so I know you’re okay?”

“You’re in the city.”

“Well, I’m about to not be in the city. Olivia Randall called me. I assumed you knew.”

I swallowed, hating that I was doing this to him. I had never lied to him. All this time, even when Adam was alive, I had never once been dishonest with Jake. “She asked me for names of people who’d seen how loving Ethan and Adam could be together. You spent so much time with us—”

“Sure, I’m happy to help. She said she wants me at the courthouse in the morning, but I can come out east tonight and sleep there.”

Olivia had called Nunzio while we were still at the hotel. To avoid a spat with her about a slew of discovery complaints she threatened to level in court, he had agreed to allow Olivia to add Jake as a rebuttal witness.

“It’s not a good idea, Jake. If the prosecution finds out I met with a witness right before you testified.... We shouldn’t even be on the phone.”

“Yeah, you’re right. This will be over soon, though, Chloe. It’s going to be okay. Don’t give up.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“You, too.”

When I hung up, Nicky blasted the ’80s station so we could both pretend she didn’t hear me cry all the way home.

33

I was forty-one years old and had managed to avoid even a single incident of public humiliation. Now I was under oath, before a packed courtroom, about to testify to the darkest moments in my marriage.

I had made the mistake of reading social media last night before going to sleep. The trolls were having a field day with yesterday’s dual bombshells that my husband had been abusing me physically and that my son had been one of my most active online critics.

So Chloe Taylor shames men for telling ladies they look nice at work but has no problem with dudes who beat up their wives. What a bitch.

Imagine what a cunt you have to be for your own son to call you out like that.

Why hasn’t she killed herself yet?

Worst person in the world.

Really? Well, it’s about to get worse.

Olivia began by establishing that I had been in the courtroom previously and had seen both Ethan’s testimony and the video he had made of his argument with Adam.

“So you heard Ethan testify that your husband, Adam, was—quote—‘beating the shit out of’ you?”

“Yes.”

“Was he wrong?”

“Well, it’s not how I would word it necessarily.” There were a few nervous laughs. “But, yes, he was correct that we were having problems recently. And we had ferocious arguments—along the lines of how Adam appeared in that video, but outside Ethan’s presence. And there was physical violence involved.”

Olivia had prepped me for this. She had forced me yesterday in her suite to practice the lines—brutal and blunt—over and over again. But now that I was here, I couldn’t say them. I looked at Ethan. He called me weak, a coward, a hypocrite, caring more what people thought about me than my actual reality. He needed me to be different now.

“Ethan spoke a truth that I never wanted known: my husband, Adam, was beating me.”

“And why didn’t you want this known?” Olivia asked.

Nunzio objected that the question was irrelevant.

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