Maddie: Are you all right?

Julia: Is it true? It can’t be true.

Suzette: So you went through with it? Is there anything I can do?

Messages from my friends have been hitting my phone one by one, each of them making it vibrate on the table throughout the day.

It takes everything in me to face them, as if they were really here in person asking me all these questions. I don’t have answers to give them, none that I want to say out loud anyway. I’m not pushing away my husband because I want to. I’m doing it because I have to and I don’t have the resolve to speak that confession.

Even I’m disappointed in myself.

My friends want what’s best for me. They only want to help me and I know that’s the truth, but it doesn’t keep me from being angry at the phone as it goes off again.

Heaving in a deep breath, I wish I wasn’t in the big city. I wish I wasn’t well known. I wish I could hide under the guise of anonymity and just be no one. More importantly, I wish no one knew. I’d crawl back to him if that were the case. I’d beg him to hold me every time I cried, even if he’s the one who brought out this side of me.

I’d beg him to love me. He would, I know it. And then I’d hate myself.

You deserve better than this. Another message from Suzette comes through next and I can only run the pad of my thumb down the screen over her words. It’s an attempt to make myself believe it.

Just leave me alone. Everyone get out of my life, my marriage. It wasn’t for them to see. It’s not for them to judge like every fucking gossip column in New York City. It’s not the first time our marriage has been mentioned in the papers, but I pray it’ll be the last.

My knuckles turn white as I grip the phone with the intent of throwing it, letting it smack against the wall to silence it, but I don’t. It’s the sound of Evan’s boots rhythmically hitting each step as he walks down the stairs that forces me to compose myself. At the very least I pretend to; he’s always seen through it, though. He knows how much this kills me.

I hit the button to turn off my phone and ignore the texts and calls, squaring my shoulders as I attempt to pull myself together.