My hands trembled.
My chest hurt.
Not heart-attack hurt.
Grief hurt.
I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and stayed that way until the wave passed.
At six-thirty, I turned on my phone.
Twenty-three messages.
Four missed calls from Lauren.
One text from my brother, Matt.
Call me.
That meant Lauren had contacted him.
I called.
Matt answered immediately.
"What happened?"
"She told you?"
"She said you left the resort after a fight."
I laughed once.
"A fight."
"What happened?"
I told him.
Not every detail.
Enough.
Matt went silent.
Then:
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah."
"You coming home?"
"Tomorrow."
"Want me there?"
"No."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
A pause.
Then he said:
"Don't make decisions tonight."
I looked around the motel room.
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
"Also don't let her convince you that because she didn't sleep with him nothing happened."
That surprised me.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
Matt had gone through a divorce four years earlier.
Different situation.
Same vocabulary.
He continued:
"People negotiate definitions when consequences show up."
I remembered that sentence.
Around eight, someone knocked on the motel door.
I froze.
I had not told Lauren where I was.
I looked through the curtain.
Cole Brennan stood outside.
For one second, I thought I was hallucinating.
I opened the door but kept the chain engaged.
"What are you doing here?"
He looked uncomfortable.
"Your wife didn't send me."
"Then how did you find me?"
"I saw your car when I drove past."
I stared.
"That's reassuring."
"Yeah, that sounded bad."
"What do you want?"
He held up his hands.
"Five minutes."
"No."
"There's something you should know."
I almost shut the door.
Then stopped.
"What?"
He looked down the hallway.
"Can we not do this through a chain?"
"Yes, we can."
Cole exhaled.
"Fair."
He leaned against the railing.
"I didn't know she was actually trying to fix the marriage."
"She told you we were separated."
"Basically."
"What does that mean?"
"She said you hadn't been intimate in months."
I did not react.
That was private.
Also untrue.
Not frequent.
But not months.
"She said you slept in different rooms."
Also false.
"She said the trip was something you booked before deciding to separate."
I stared at him.
"Anything else?"
"She said you were controlling."
That one almost made me laugh.
"How?"
"Checking her phone."
"Deciding who she could talk to."
"Getting jealous."
I shook my head.
Cole looked ashamed now.
"I believed her."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Exactly."
He paused.
"I came because there was another thing."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"Yesterday wasn't the first time she talked to me."
Everything inside me stopped.
"What?"
Cole pulled out his phone.
"She messaged me before the trip."
I stared at him.
"How long before?"