I stared at the person in the mirror for a long time.
Who was that?
Not me.
I had never been this person.
I splashed water on my face, changed into clean clothes, and headed out to buy fever medicine from the pharmacy.
Passing the mall, I saw Eustace through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
He wasn't working overtime.
He was sitting in the ground-floor café, a woman across from him.
White dress, long hair, a sweet smile.
She placed her hand on his, and he didn't pull away.
He was smiling at her. A kind of smile I hadn't seen from him in a long time.
Easy. Happy. Unburdened.
A smile that had nothing to do with me.
I stood outside the glass, separated from them by a world I wasn't part of, watching.
The woman rose, walked over to him, bent down, and kissed his cheek.
Eustace put his arm around her waist.
They looked like a couple.
A real couple. One not crushed under five million in loan shark debt. One that didn't need a wife selling her apartment and grinding herself to death to pay it off.
I didn't charge in.
Didn't cry.
Didn't call to confront him.
I turned around and walked away.
Into an alley beside the mall. I crouched down.
My stomach turned itself inside out. I retched and retched, brought up nothing—then blood.
Blood again.
Apparently my blood wasn't worth much. So much of it spilled, and nobody cared.
I wiped the corner of my mouth with a tissue and stood up.
A street sweeper at the mouth of the alley was watching me. He held out a bottle of water.
“Miss, are you feeling all right? Want me to call an ambulance?”
“No, thank you.”
I took the bottle and drank.
Cold. Cold all the way from my throat down to my stomach, like a sign——nothing warm could reach you anymore.
Eustace came home a little after eight that night.
I was sitting in the living room. The lights were off.
He flipped the switch and flinched.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me for what?”
“Where did you go today?”
His hands stalled for a beat as he changed his shoes. Then, casual as anything, he set them in the rack.
“Working late, like I told you.”
“In a café?”
His hand stopped on the shoe rack.
“You followed me?”
“No. I walked past and saw you.”
Eustace was silent for a few seconds. He walked over, sat down beside me, and sighed.
“Gayle, she's my client's assistant. Project stuff. You're reading too much into it.”
“She kissed you.”
“Foreign etiquette. She just got back from abroad.”
He didn't even bother making his lies sound plausible.
“Right. So what's her name?”
“……Margaret.”
I couldn't help but laugh.
Not because it was funny. Because it was absurd. He couldn't even be bothered to make up a convincing fake name.
“Eustace. I'm going to ask you one question. Answer me honestly.”
He looked at me.
“The five million you owe. Is it real?”
His expression shifted.
Just for an instant. But in that instant, I saw it.
Guilt.
Panic.
Everything he'd been hiding behind that innocent face.
“Of course it's real. You don't believe me?”
“Then tell me. Who's the creditor? Which company? Where's the loan agreement?”
“I……lost it.”
“You lost a promissory note for five million?”
“It wasn't a promissory note, it was a contract. It probably got mixed in with some old books when we moved and thrown out.”
The longer he talked, the smoother it got. Every loose thread in the lie tucked itself neatly away, like he'd done this a hundred times.
“Gayle, did someone say something to you? Don't let people get in your head. There are so many people out there who can't stand to see us doing well.”
So many people who can't stand to see us doing well.
Who couldn't stand it?
I'd nearly killed myself paying off his debt, and apparently someone out there couldn't stand this kind of “doing well”?
I didn't ask anything else.
He thought he'd smoothed it over.
How did he do it so naturally?
How long had he been lying to me?
Three months? Six months? Or was it a scam from the very beginning?
I went back to the bedroom, lay down, and my mind went blank.
Not because I didn't want to think.
Because I couldn't anymore.
I was too tired.
