Don’t you want to know what she told me, Rainy? About her and your guy?

Cold dread blew through her chest and gusted out of her mouth in an exhale. Three years. You’ve only known Grant for three years. Had he been lying to her all this time? No. Why would he ask her to move out to Washington if there was someone else? Was it because Braithe was married?

She pressed all ten of her fingers onto her forehead; she would have known if something was wrong between her and Grant. If he was in love with someone else, he would have been...off. There would have been tells...or had there been, and she’d been too distracted to notice? No. Paul was just baiting her.

There is nothing between them.

The dots appeared immediately; he’d been waiting for this, waiting to drop the next bomb.

She was waiting for rebuttal text, but what came through was a voice recording. Rainy clicked on it and was immediately met with the sound of Braithe’s voice.

“We went away together. It was before her. My husband was away for work, and so we just drove through the border and went to Canada for the weekend, you know? It was really romantic, and I thought...I thought that that was it, he wanted to be with me, and I’d leave Stephen.”

Rainy’s breath hitched; the sandwich she’d eaten for lunch felt heavy in her belly. She didn’t want to hear more, but she couldn’t not hear it; the weight of Braithe’s words clutched her throat and squeezed.

Braithe’s voice broke off, and for a second, Rainy thought that the recording was over, and then Braithe’s voice came back, weaker this time—she was crying. “But then when we came back, he pretended like it didn’t happen. He... I don’t know...” Her voice was so wet with emotion Rainy found herself holding her breath, waiting for what she would say next.

But then another voice spoke, and it was male. “Made you think you were going to be together and then abandoned you?”

“Yes,” Braithe said.

“Why do you think he did it?”

Rainy could hear the tinkling of glasses and the sound of other voices in the background. Was this the bar where Braithe had gone after they parted ways that night?

When Braithe spoke again, her voice sounded hard, cold. Could the woman who had always been so kind to her, so inclusive, have secretly hated her? It was too much to process. Rainy would have to sit down and unpack every memory she had with the woman. Myriad emotions bloomed in her chest. She was obviously trying to get close to you for other reasons, those reasons being Grant, like Tara said, Rainy thought, squeezing her eyes closed.