Otis had his arm around Vivian's waist. He tilted her chin up and kissed her.
Vivian yanked the curtain open, her eyes locking onto mine with a look of pure provocation.
She'd spotted me.
And I watched them, like a masochist, tangled together right before my eyes. I watched until they were done.
My phone buzzed shortly after. A message from Otis, his tone almost weary with concern.
"Elaine, fighting is one thing, but you just had a miscarriage and your body hasn't recovered. Take your medicine. I already had someone deliver it. Drink all of it."
"Be good. Don't take risks with your health."
He'd noticed how pale I'd gone tonight from the post-miscarriage pain. Before he left, he'd even brewed the medicine himself.
I almost laughed.
Lying in another woman's arms and still finding time to worry about me. How thoughtful of him.
Otis pulled Vivian back down onto the bed, clearly not finished with her.
I twisted the diamond ring on my finger, my gaze hollow.
When Otis and I first got engaged, he'd been broke. He'd drained every cent he had and could only afford a ring with a cheap, flawed stone.
But I'd treasured it like it was priceless. Even after he made his fortune and bought me countless expensive rings, I only ever wore that one.
Once, I lost it. I cried for a full day and night, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.
Then one day, while I was cooking dinner for him, I found an identical ring inside the belly of a fish.
I thought it was a miracle. That fate itself had returned my ring.
I found out later that Otis hadn't wanted me to be upset. He'd had someone craft an exact replica and slipped it into the fish himself.
In that moment, the ring became his get-out-of-jail-free card. His golden shield against anything.
But a ring that had been replaced, no matter how identical it looked on the outside, was never the same one.
Just like Otis.
The man who had only had eyes for me, who had loved no one but me, had ceased to exist a long time ago.
I'd been fooling myself. All I'd earned was more heartbreak.
So I pulled the ring off my finger and tossed it into the filthy gutter beside me.
Along with the wreckage of this marriage.
Over the next few days, Otis didn't come home.
Vivian, however, made sure to send me regular updates on their happy little life together.
"I heard you always wanted to go horseback riding. Otis took me."
"He also took me to the stretch of coast where you two had your first date. I chopped down that coconut palm you planted together as a love token. He just laughed and called me a brat."
"I mentioned once that I wanted to try his cooking, and he learned how to cook for me. You were with him for so long—I bet he never did that for you, did he?"
Light, breezy little messages. Each one landed like a sledgehammer on my already shattered heart.
On the sixth day, Otis finally came home.
He reeked of alcohol. He'd been drinking heavily.
The moment he saw me, he snapped.
"Elaine, I've been gone for days. Why didn't you come looking for me?"
"You used to come find me if I disappeared for even a minute. Why didn't you look for me this time..."
But as he kept talking, his voice cracked with something that sounded like hurt. He was like an abandoned kitten that had finally found its way back home.
Just hours ago, he'd been in bed with Vivian.
I pushed his hand away, my expression betraying nothing.
"You're drunk. I'll have someone make you something to sober up."
I stood to leave.
A crash. Otis knocked the glass fruit bowl off the table. It shattered across the floor, shards scattering everywhere.
He held up his hand, sliced open by the glass, and said quietly, "Honey, I'm hurt."
I ignored the wounded look in his eyes.
"Wait here. I'll send someone to bandage that."
His face darkened instantly.
"I don't want someone else. I want you to do it."
"You never used to be like this. When I got hurt, you'd ask me if it stung. You're so cold now. You're not my Elaine."
