16

Olive

When we go out to lunch…

I don’t tell Sydney about Pink Eye or much about what I have been doing to find out the truth about Nicholas. I want to, of course, but the timing has to be right.

Right now is no different. I invited her out on a celebratory lunch to commemorate her buying her wedding dress. This is the time to talk about wedding plans, their future and their hopes and dreams, not my boyfriend’s murder charges.

But I can’t seem to shake what I just found out. When she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, I grab my phone and start to look up every Robert Bortham in the area.

The name isn’t that unusual but it’s also not that common. Most of the people that come up are the wrong age and a few live abroad. I thought that he would still be located in Massachusetts but there are no Robert Borthams in the state that even come close to being the right age.

Outside of the ones who are British expats living in Australia and Portugal, there is one profile that I keep coming back to. His age fits but I can’t believe that this would actually be him.

I stare at the picture of a psychologist with a boyish grin in front of a wooden cabin. According to his profile, he is married with three kids, all under the age of five. Not sure as to what to do next, I take a screenshot of a closeup of his face and send it to my mom.

Could this be Pink Eye? I text her.

Before I can make up my mind about whether or not I should contact him directly, Sydney comes back and I toss my phone back into my purse. We finish the first round of drinks and quickly move on to the next. Our conversation drifts without any particular purpose even though there is something that I have been wanting to speak to her about.

The last time we spoke, she admitted some things to me about James and we just left it at that, but maybe that was wrong.

Maybe I should’ve pushed her further.

“So, how are things with James?” I ask, not wanting to come right out and ask if she’s really going to marry him.

Sydney shakes her head.

“What about him cheating?” I ask.

“What about it?”

“Did you guys talk about it?”

“Yes, of course. He apologized,” she says with a shrug.

I take a deep breath and look at her.

She runs her finger around the edge of her glass and avoids eye contact with me.

Then she takes a big gulp.

“If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“I don’t,” she cuts me off.