Page 78 of Stay Away from Him

“I haven’t seen him yet today,” Kelli said. “But he’s coming over to the house in a few minutes. He was going to give me an update on the case.”

Melissa’s heart sped up in her chest. “Are you in the house alone?”

“I am,” Kelli said. “My husband and the boys like to get out of town and go hunting most Saturdays in the fall. It’s deer season. They just left.”

Melissa glanced back at Rhiannon, who was watching her, listening to everything she said. She heard Melissa say Kelli’s name when she answered the phone, knew who she was talking to. The girl’s eyes sharpened, and she started the car, threw it into reverse. Melissa ran toward her, but it was too late—she’d backed down the street. Then she put the car in drive and turned around Melissa’s car, rocketed onto the two-lane road without even looking for oncoming traffic.

“What’s going on over there?” Kelli asked.

“It’s nothing,” Melissa said. “Look, you have to get out of the house.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s Derek. Kelli, you can’t trust him.”

“Derek? I’ve been working with him on this for years.”

“No,” Melissa said. “He’s been lying to you. This whole time. He’s been lying to everybody. From the beginning, he’s been trying to frame Thomas.”

Kelli sighed. “Melissa, I thought you were finally coming around on this. Thomas is guilty.”

“Kelli, you have to listen to me,” Melissa said. “Derek and Rose had an affair. They got caught. And when she broke it off, he didn’t like it. He kept following her.”

Kelli was silent on the other side of the line, slow to understand. “Rose hinted there might be someone. Once. But I don’t see—”

“It’s the stalker theory,” Melissa said. “Remember I said we should be taking it seriously? Derek didn’t get fired because he failed to find the stalker. Hewasthe stalker.”

Rose

What happened next was terrible. And it was my fault. I know that.

I cheated on Thomas. Before I even started writing in this journal, I betrayed him. Betrayed our marriage. Betrayed our family.

I should’ve started with that, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it, even to myself. Couldn’t bring myself to write it.

I feel terrible. I hate myself more than I’ve ever hated myself before.

But is it really all my fault? Cheating is always blamed on the cheater—but infidelity happens for a reason. If I shattered our marriage, brought it all crashing down, it’s because Thomas has been chipping away at its foundations for years. Neglecting me. Treating me with contempt. Turning our daughters against me. And refusing to listen to me when I tell him that something’s seriously wrong.

The world wouldn’t see it that way, I know. But I know the truth. Thomas shares some of the blame for this.

***

It all started the morning after our fight—the one where Thomas refused to go to a new therapist with me, accused me of endangering the family and his reputation, and then threatened me. After the fight, Thomas left and slept in the guest room, too angry to share a bed with me.

When I woke the next morning, I felt as though a heavy weight was pinning me to the bed, sitting on my chest,keeping me from breathing. My depression was a physical thing, a thick, rancid sludge spreading through my veins. I heard voices through the door—Thomas and the girls murmuring to each other as they got ready for work and school, whispering to each other to leave me alone, Mom’s having another one of her bad mornings.

As though my despair didn’t have a reason. As though it was something that just happened to me. As though it didn’t have a cause that Thomas refused to name, refused to admit.

When they left, doors closing and car engines droning away to nothing in the distance, I lay and listened to the sounds of the house. Sometime after ten I finally pulled myself out of bed and went downstairs. Maybe some coffee would help snap me out of this funk. But when I opened the cupboard and looked at the half-empty bag of grounds, I realized that it wasn’t coffee I needed.

I went to the other cupboard and found a bottle of white wine. Poured myself a glass, unchilled. The taste didn’t matter to me—I wanted the buzz, the feeling of floating and sinking at once, the light oblivion that came with being just a little drunk.

Soon I had finished the bottle, and I still wasn’t out of my pajamas. Shame washed over me as I tried to pour another glass and saw a few last drops trickle from the mouth of the bottle. I didn’t feel better. I felt worse, my head feeling loose and jangly, like an old failing house whose joists and floorboards creak with every footstep, every gust of wind.

I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling as the room spun around me. I closed my eyes but didn’t sleep. Somehow the day passed away, minute by excruciating minute tickingby on the digital clock that sat by my bedside, and suddenly it was two o’clock in the afternoon.

My phone buzzed, and I looked at it.

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