Page 68 of The Affair
Who was she? Why wasn’t he inside under a warm blanket, running a fever, like he was supposed to be?
Questions flooded my mind, making me blind with jealousy as I closed the distance from his place to mine.
Pulling up to the house, I grabbed all the groceries and stormed into inside, mad at myself for buying all of it and mad at myself for falling down this rabbit hole of possibilities.
“What was I thinking?” I said out loud, suddenly wishing I hadn’t listened to him and adopted that cat I’d wanted. At least then, I’d have someone to talk to.
Yeah, a dead cat, my inner self reminded me as I looked over at the very brown plants in the window. The fact that he had been right about my ability to care for another living thing angered me as well.
Maybe that was why he’d faked his illness?
Because he knew I couldn’t possibly be bothered to stop by and take care of him.
Did he find me shallow and disheartening?
I knew my mind was spiraling, and the fact that I’d chosen not to go back and grab that bottle of wine at the grocery store was really pissing me off.
“Well, at least I have a million cans of soup,” I joked before a tear fell down my cheek. I tried to hold them back—I really did—but when my eyes leveled with the Tupperware container still filled with the cookies we’d made the night before, nothing could be done.
The dam broke, and I lost it.
And that was how he found me—sobbing in the middle of kitchen while clutching a plastic bag filled with soup.
“Elle?” His voice barely broke through. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
Blinking away tears, I looked up, his blurry silhouette forming in the doorway of my parents’ kitchen.
The same kitchen he’d kissed me in the night before.
“What happened?” He rushed to my side, kneeling in front of me. He pulled the bag of groceries from my lap and set it aside, his eyes full of worry.
“I bought you soup.” It was all I could think to say.
“What?” Confusion melded with concern.
“I went to the store, and I bought soup and bread and doughnuts. I wanted to take care of you. But then I went by your house, and you were outside with a woman. And so, instead of taking care of you, I drove here. And cried.”
His face fell, and my stomach fell with it.
“Elle,” he said my name with such compassion. “That was a family friend. She came by to ask me to build a piece of furniture for her husband for their anniversary. I swear, that was all it was.”
I felt bile in my throat. This was all too familiar.
The fear, the paranoia. The loss of control.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Sawyer,” I finally admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. I felt like I was confessing something. Perhaps I was.
“Do what?”
I looked at him, my expression vacant, my emotions raw. The car ride past his house. The feeling of betrayal I’d just experienced.
It was all… too much.
“Us. You and me. Anyone. I don’t know if I can trust again.”
“Do you not believe me? About the family friend?” he asked.
I let out a breath. “I do,” I replied before amending, “I want to. But there will always be this part of me that wonders, that distrusts everything you say and do.”
