It was a French restaurant, not an Italian one,” I corrected them and Troy rolled his eyes at my insistence on accuracy. He mocked my voice and told Kelsey that I was just being my usual intense self before suggesting I go upstairs to do some work.
I walked toward the stairs but stopped when I heard their voices drop into a private and intimate register that was not meant for me. I looked through the banister and saw Troy brushing his thumb against Kelsey’s cheek in a way he hadn’t touched me in years.
They were about to kiss in the house I owned when a floorboard creaked under my foot and they jerked apart with guilty expressions. Troy claimed they were just practicing affection for the reunion and I nodded as if I actually believed his pathetic lie.
I didn’t confront them then because I knew from years in the courtroom that you never cross-examine a witness until you have all the evidence. I waited until Kelsey left and then I blocked Troy from entering our bedroom with a firm hand on the doorframe.
“Why did you touch her like that,” I demanded and he told me I was being insane and obsessed with control. He looked me in the eye and denied sleeping with her but his gaze flickered away at the last second and confirmed my worst fears.
He told me that my interrogation was the reason our marriage was dead and I realized he was no longer even trying to protect the truth. I told him to sleep on the couch and he left with a pillow while muttering about how difficult I was to live with.
I drove to Kelsey’s apartment in the middle of the night and knocked on her door until she was forced to face me. The apartment smelled like the expensive candles I had bought her and the takeout food she could not afford on her own.
“How long have you been sleeping with him,” I asked and she tried to play the victim until I mentioned the specific birthmark on Troy’s hip. Her silence was the only confession I needed to confirm that my life had been a theater of lies for months.
She started crying and told me that Troy had said our marriage was already over and that I made him feel small. I laughed because she was actually trying to justify her betrayal by claiming she was the one who truly loved him.
“You can have him but you can no longer have my money,” I said before opening my banking app to cancel every single transfer. She screamed that she would lose her apartment and I told her that sounded like a problem for her new partner to solve.
I returned home and found Troy waiting in the kitchen with a look of pure fury on his face because I had dared to speak to Kelsey. He told me I was being humiliating and I asked him if his brother Preston knew about the double life he was leading.
The mention of Preston made him go quiet because he had spent his entire life failing to live up to his brother’s quiet success. Preston was a man of integrity who had built a real life while Troy had only ever built a series of elaborate fantasies.
I called Preston the next morning and met him at a quiet cafe downtown to tell him the entire sordid story. He listened without interrupting and told me that Troy had always needed an audience more than he had ever needed a partner.
