Page 113 of Plays Well With Others

But now?

My heart flips and flops in my chest. “The thing is, I don’t really know what I want,” I admit, stopping at a rack of sexy angel, nurse, and witch costumes.

“I don’t believe that,” Elodie says, calling bullshit. “You’ve always been pretty decisive. You knew what you wanted to study in college. You go shopping and you pick out clothes easily. You go to a restaurant and you know what to order right away. How do you not know what you want with Carter?”

She’s not wrong.

I do know what I want with Carter. The trouble is—I want the fantasy of these five dates to be real.

But I got married to a fantasy. “Because Carter’s not mushroom risotto on a menu,” I say.

Elodie gives a resigned smile. “Fair enough.”

I flick through some costumes, giving her a deeper answer as I find just the right one. “I do feel infatuated. I’m all fluttery when I’m with him, and when I think about him too. It all feels good. But…that’s dangerous. Everything felt good with Edward as well.”

She sighs, understanding me completely. “What does Elena say?”

I wince.

Actually, it’s a full-on cringe. Then comes my confession as we stand amidst the racy angels and the sexy devils. “I haven’t told her.” I bite off more of the truth. “I avoided it.”

“Why do you think you avoided it?”

I laugh. “Now you sound like Elena.”

Elodie sets a hand on the rack, leveling me with a piercing gaze. “Why do you think you avoided telling her?” she repeats, more forcefully this time.

My throat tightens. “I didn’t want to tell her,” I say in a soft voice.

Elodie’s soft, too, when she answers. “Because you don’t want it to end.”

I shake my head, admitting this truth too. “I don’t.”

I want to stay in Hawaii with him.

* * *

After I pick and buy the costumes, we head out on the street, walking past a café, where the door slaps open.

Three young children rush out, followed by a thirty-something couple. Laughter surrounds them. My heart aches, and I jerk my gaze away before the hurt tunnels deeper into me.

Once we pass them, Elodie rubs my shoulder. “It’s still hard, isn’t it?”

A sob rises in my throat. “It is,” I say meekly.

I wish it weren’t. Some days, I think I’m doing better. But then, there are times like now where I’m still living with this blackness inside me. This hardened sadness. This realization that what I had believed to be true for five years was all a lie. I only broke free of the lie a few months ago.

And yet the only way to heal from those lies is to live with the truth. I turn to Elodie and all that emotion rises higher in my throat, fighting to break free. “The month before I found out about his double life?” I say, quietly, needing to share this, even though it’s the most embarrassing part of the story.

She nods.

I forge ahead, past the pain and the shame. “He’d taken me out to dinner. We’d been talking about having kids, Els,” I say, admitting that terrible truth.

She frowns in sympathy.

“He’d wanted to for the last year. I told him I was finally ready. He took me out to dinner to celebrate,” I say, my voice stretched thin with tears that I don’t hold back anymore. “We were going to start trying the next month. I went off the pill and one month later, I discovered he already had two children and another on the way.”

She hauls me in close for a protective embrace, her arms shielding me from all of San Francisco, as the tears fall. “I’m so glad you got out just in time.”

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