My entire relationship with him, I’d believed every word he’d said — perhaps blindly, it would seem. I believed him when he cried the day he asked me to marry him, and when he told me over breakfast one morning that no one in this world made me happier than him. There was never any reason to suspect him. There was never any reason to not feel safe.

And yet…

The last little box on the list I made when I first suspected my husband was cheating on me was visual proof. I had the clues, the emails and texts, and late nights with no alibi. But it wasn’t until I followed him, until I saw with my own eyes that his hands could hold another woman the way he held me, that his mouth could kiss hers, that his smile could beam for someone other than me.

And when that box was checked, I still didn’t cry. Or scream. Or throw anything, though I did debate shoving my heel down on the gas pedal of my car and leaving it there as I drove toward where they stood, kissing and laughing, pulling luggage out of my husband’s car.

No, instead of letting emotion rule me, I did what I do best. Just like with the rest of my life, I made a plan.

I focused on what I could control.

I could control me, what I would say, what I would do. I could control who I told, how our families would find out, how we would go about the divorce. I could control who got what, how assets were split, and where we each would stay as the signatures were scrawled against cold, lifeless pieces of paper that would end our young marriage.

I could control how I would tell him that I knew, and could temper my emotions as I told him.

Perhaps all of this was why, sitting across the table from my husband, my heart was beating rapidly, loud and thunderous in my ears as it threatened to bang right out of my ribcage. It could have been why my breath was shallow, my eyes dry from not blinking, my mouth clamped shut without a single word to offer, though I had so many planned in my head.

I had a plan. I knew how this conversation would go. I had everything in control.

I know about her. I know what you’ve done. I’m leaving. We’re done.

But my uncanny sense of control and my ability to make a checklist didn’t matter once I actually sat down at our kitchen table across from the man who’d lied to me for years.

Because he spoke first.

And everything changed.

“Gem,” he rasped, his voice broken under the weight of his words. “Gemma, did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” I managed.