Page 74 of Homewrecker

“I’m serious.”

I nodded and tilted my face toward his. He kissed me and when he pulled away, his forehead rested against mine.

“I love you.”

Everything stopped and my eyes opened. “What?”

“I love you.”

There it was. The thing I’d been waiting months to hear. It wasn’t over dinner or during one of our late-night conversations. It was in the bathroom while his wife waited somewhere for him. The timing should’ve ruined it, but it didn’t.

My heart opened so quickly to him that it embarrassed me. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

My eyes started burning for an entirely different reason.

He kissed my forehead. “I should’ve told you before now.”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

He smiled. “I love you, Blair.”

The anger didn’t disappear, but it was clouded because he loved me. At that point in my life, I had become very good at turning love into evidence. Evidence that the divorce really was coming. Evidence that all this waiting meant something.

I wrapped my arms around him. “I love you too.”

Caleb held me tighter. “I won’t be long.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

I believed him, so I cleaned the kitchen while I waited. I put dinner away and straightened the entire apartment.

I checked my phone.

11:43.

Then 12:16.

Then 12:51.

I texted.

Blair: Everything okay?

I showered, used the products I’d permanently moved into his bathroom, put on one of his T-shirts, and got into his bed.

I turned on the television.

12:58.

1:24.

My phone stayed silent. I told myself Ravenna was upset. Maybe she was having a panic attack. Maybe Caleb was talking her down. Maybe his mother was there. Maybe an ambulance. My imagination kept offering increasingly terrible possibilities because terrible possibilities were easier to tolerate than the simplest one. He was with his wife.

At 2:07, I called.