Page 77 of The Tenant
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
I open up their text conversation. Most of it is benign office stuff, but the last text from Stacie was sent at one thirty in the morning, which is a very suspicious time to be sending a message. And what is even worse is the contents of the message:
I had a great time tonight. If you ever change your mind about doing it again, you know where to find me.
Well, that’s that.
Of course, I can’t stop myself from scrolling through the rest of their text messages, although I’m sorry after I’ve done it. Some of it is business, but much of it is flirting. Granted, she’s flirting with him more than he reciprocates, but he’s plenty guilty too. I scroll through the messages leading up to tonight.
Are you still here, Porter?
Ugh, yeah. Late night. What are you still doing here?
Forgot my purse. Just came to grab it, then I’m out of here.
Lucky you.
You should take a little break. Want some company?
Sure.
That’s the last communication they had before her message about having fun and how they should do it again. And then he stumbles home at one in the morning wearing her perfume, his shirt buttoned incorrectly. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that one.
That bastard. He told me helovedme. He told me he wanted to marry me. He gave me a ring. He pretended to be a good guy. And all along, he’s been cheating on me.Lyingto me.
I replace Blake’s phone on the nightstand. He is still sound asleep, blowing air from between his lips. He has that dark shadow on his jaw that he always has until he shaves in the morning. He’s sexy. I know exactly what she sees in him.
I imagine what would happen if I went downstairs to the kitchen and boiled some water, then brought it up here and threw it in his face. That would change his life forever. The burns he would sustain would be permanent—his face would be scarred for the rest of his life. He might lose his vision.
He’d never cheat on me again, that’s for sure.
I consider it. Istronglyconsider it. But ultimately, I decide against it. First of all, the consequences of deliberately burning someone would be considerable. I might go to jail. And if I got arrested, the police would surely figure out that I am Whitney Cross, and then I would really be in trouble.
I thought Blake was the one. I loved him.
Why did he have to be a cheating bastard like all the others?
49
I tossand turn for much of the night after discovering those messages on Blake’s phone.
When I discovered Jordan was cheating on me, I was still in high school, living with my parents. I can’t say I had the best relationship with my parents—that’s an understatement. They always blamed me for some stupid accident that happened when I was a kid. Who holds a grudge against achild? My father called me a sociopath, even though I was only seven years old and had no idea what that meant. Anyway, Joey was fine. It was just a broken arm. It’s not like he had brain damage. It didn’t keep their golden boy from getting that fancy schmancy investment banker job.
My relationship with my father was never the same after that incident, but I never cared what he thought. And now he’s dead anyway.
Is it such an awful thing to want retribution against people who have wronged you? When I was in middle school and my best friend Ashley Cerutti decided I was no longer cool enough to hang out in our friend group, should I have just shrugged and said “no problem”? Stood by as she took all my friends away from me? Anyway, if she didn’t want her hair to catch fire, she shouldn’t have worn so much hair spray.
After the whole school found out that Jordan was cheating on me, I ran home to my mother to tell her what had happened. She was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for dinner, when I came into the room sobbing.
Her brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong, Whitney?”
“Jordan cheated on me!” I wailed.
She could have taken me in her arms and held me, which was what I’d been hoping she’d do. I wanted to cry my guts out while she stroked my hair and told me that Jordan was a dirtbag and that I’d find someone a million times better. Then we’d eat cookie dough together—my favorite thing.
But instead, she looked at me and said, “Maybe if you didn’t act so crazy, he wouldn’t have done it.”
