I sat in the living room with the lights off, his tired face lit only by the streetlamp glow coming through the window.
"How was the sports day?"
He asked while he changed out of his shoes.
"It was fine."
"Did Aaron have fun?"
My voice was flat.
"He had fun."
He didn't seem to catch the edge in it. He just nodded and started toward the study.
"Brad."
I called him back.
He stopped and turned to look at me.
"Where were you yesterday, really?"
His expression didn't shift, but something flickered in his eyes.
"I already told you. A business trip."
"Where?"
"Chicago."
I wasn't letting it go.
"Which hotel?"
He finally looked at me, his brow creasing.
"You're checking up on me?"
"I'm asking you."
"Hope," his voice went cold, "what exactly are you trying to say?"
I let out a thin laugh, took the sealed bag out of the drawer, and set it on the coffee table.
Inside was that strand of chestnut hair.
"I found this in your car."
He glanced at it, and his face finally changed.
I saw it clearly. It wasn't guilt. It was irritation.
"You've been going through my car?"
I smiled instead.
Only someone caught dead-on reacts like that.
"It was wound around the seatbelt buckle. No going through anything. You could see it at a glance."
He was silent for a few seconds, then explained, "That belongs to a coworker. I gave her a ride."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Which coworker?"
Brad clammed up.
"You don't know her."
And I went straight ahead and tore open this sham of a marriage that had been impossible to hold together for a long time.
"Is it Agatha?"
He froze.
I watched his face and smiled.
It must have been an ugly smile, because he turned his head away.
"Brad, what's going on between you and Agatha?"
"We're friends," he said, certain of himself. "She's been going through some things lately, she's been down, so I keep her company and talk it through with her, help her get it off her chest. That's all."
"If that's all, then why lie to me? Why say you were on a business trip?"
"Because you'd read too much into it. You always do. You can turn anything into something complicated."
"I read too much into it?"
I stood up, and my voice finally slipped out of my control.
"Brad, you're on the phone with another woman every day, you send her flowers, you have dinner with her, you're parked outside her place in the middle of the night, and you're telling me I'm the one making it complicated?"
"I haven't done a single thing to wrong you!"
His voice rose too. "Agatha isn't like—"
He stopped halfway.
But the word "isn't" was already out.
"Agatha isn't like me?"
I finished it for him. "How am I not like her? Go on, say it!"
He stopped talking.
"Say it!"
I walked right up to him.
"You think she's lively and bright and doesn't put on airs, and I'm too serious, too dull, right?"
"You think being with her is easy, and being with me is exhausting, right?"
"You've wanted to say this for a long time. Today's as good a time as any. Say it. Don't keep it bottled up."
He looked into my eyes, his lips moved, and in the end he said nothing.
But his silence was the answer.
I took a step back, and all at once I felt so tired.
Five years.
I'd thought we were building a marriage.
It turned out that, in his eyes, I was only a relationship that wore him out.
And that woman was the one who made everything feel easy.
My voice had gone hoarse.
"Brad, think it through."
"You want to be with her, I won't stop you. You want to keep this marriage, then delete her and never contact her again. I'm giving you three days."
With that, I turned and went back to the bedroom and shut the door.
That night, he didn't come in.
I heard him on the phone in the study, his voice low, but I still caught a few words.
"Don't worry... it's fine... I'll handle it..."
His tone was gentle in a way that wasn't like him at all.
I closed my eyes, and the tears finally came.
Three days passed. Brad gave me no answer.
The days slipped by, one after another.
He went out the same as always, came home late the same as always, the corner of his mouth still tugging up the same as always whenever he looked at his phone.
As if those things I'd said had never existed at all.
I finally understood.
He didn't need time to think.
He simply didn't want to think.
He figured I'd carry on like before, make a fuss for a couple of days, then swallow it down on my own, compromise on my own, choke back every last grievance on my own.
He figured I wouldn't leave, because if I left I'd have nothing.
But what he didn't know was that over those three days, I'd made a decision.
I was going to leave him.
