Betrayed on April Fool's Day, I abandoned my husband

"Oh fuck, Jason, right there."

The voice belonged to Zoe Thorne. Overly loud. Unmistakable.

I pushed our bedroom door open.

Jason Mercer, my husband of three years, was buried deep inside Zoe on our mattress. His hips slammed violently against hers, driving her back into the mahogany headboard.

"I'm fucking close," Jason grunted, his hands gripping her bare hips.

"Give it to me," Zoe moaned, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist. "Fuck my pussy, Jason. Harder."

"You like my dick, Zoe?" he asked, his voice rough.

"I love it. I want you to fill me up. Don't pull out."

"I'm going to ruin you." He thrust faster.

I stood frozen in the doorway, fixing my eyes on the sweat glistening on his back. The rhythmic slapping of their bodies hit my ears like physical blows.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

They stopped. Jason pulled his cock out of her. Fluid dripped onto the white silk sheet. Zoe grabbed the fabric, yanking it up over her chest, a faint smirk playing on her lips.

Jason didn't scramble. He didn't cover himself. He calmly picked up his boxers from the rug.

"Clara." Jason pulled the fabric up his thighs. "It's not what it looks like."

"You are naked." My voice came out eerily calm. "In our bed. Fucking another woman."

"It's April Fool's Day." He reached for his jeans. "It's a prank. We were just messing with you."

I let out a harsh, echoing laugh. The sound startled even me.

"A prank?" I asked.

Jason zipped his jeans, the metallic sound grating against the silence of the room. "Yeah. It's April first. You actually fell for it."

Zoe giggled from the bed. She pushed her blonde hair over her bare shoulder, the white silk sheet still clutched to her chest. "God, Clara, you should see your face."

I met Jason's gaze. Three years ago, we stood on a white sand beach in Maui. The sun beat down on my bright floral sundress, the ocean wind catching the fabric. He dropped to one knee, holding a diamond ring.

��I'll love you forever, Clara,�� he had said, his eyes shining with tears. ��I swear my loyalty to you. Only you.��

Behind him, Zoe was already composed, sitting on the edge of the bed wrapping a silk robe around herself, her dark hair falling perfectly over one shoulder. She looked like a woman in a magazine. She always looked like a woman in a magazine.

"Clara, don't overreact," Zoe said, with a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "It was just for fun."

I looked at the woman who had been circling my marriage like a tide for three years. I thought about every conversation I'd had with Jason �� ��she's just a friend, she's like a sister, you're imagining things, you're being paranoid, why do you always do this�� �� and I felt something in her chest go very, very still.

I turned and walked downstairs.

Jason found me an hour later, showered and dressed, as though nothing had happened.

"We should still go tonight," he said, adjusting his cufflinks. "The party's at the club. Everyone's expecting us."

I looked up from the couch where I had been sitting without moving for an hour. "You want to go to the party."

"It'll be good for us. Get out of the house. Clear the air." He glanced at my outfit �� jeans, a plain blouse, her hair pulled back without thought. Something flickered across his face, too fast to name. "Maybe change first?"

Jason's circle was already in the club. And Zoe, of course.

"Clara, darling, you look so ��" Christelle paused, tilting her head. "Natural."

"She always looks natural," Marcus said, refilling his glass. "That's her thing."

"There's nothing wrong with natural," Priya said, in the tone people used when they wanted to be diplomatic without being kind.

Jason was on the other side of the table, his hand resting easily on the back of Zoe's chair.

"It's April Fool's Day," Tom announced, clapping his hands together. "We need to commit to the spirit. Who's got something good?"

The table erupted into stories, each one louder than the last. I had become quite skilled at that over the years �� the correctly-timed smile, the small agreeable laugh, the art of being present enough not to be noticed as absent.

"Clara never loosens up," Marcus said at some point, seemingly to no one in particular. "No offense."

"None taken," she said pleasantly.

"I mean it as a compliment," he said, in a way that made clear he didn't. "You're very... steady. Very low-key."

"Zoe would've had five pranks planned by now," Tom said, grinning across the table at Zoe, who smiled back with the practiced ease of someone who had always known exactly how to be looked at.

"She doesn't overthink things," Jason had said once, talking about Zoe. "She just knows how to have fun."

I thought now about the girl I had been three years ago.