I took the stairs slowly, pausing on the landings between flights to catch my breath and compose myself before walking through our front door. In part I was relieved. I’d told Daniel the truth and nothing terrible had happened. We said goodbye and all was fine, or at least mostly fine. I was embarrassed and wished I could take it all back—hit the rewind button to when his message arrived and stayed at home instead—but it was done. I survived, like Dr. Kay said I would.
But I was also deeply disappointed. I’m not sure what I hoped might happen, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit to having fantasized about the moment all was revealed. How by some strange mechanism Daniel believed my memory of us being married, or it shook things loose in my brain so everything could return to how it was supposed to be. The memories of Daniel would disappear, and the ones with Matt would take their place and life would make sense again.
I climbed the last flight of stairs, stumbling on the second to last riser and taking an epic fall, banging my chin on the smooth concrete floor when my hands missed their mark and my face took the brunt. My teeth slammed together when my chin hit, and pain reverberated through my skull. Shit. The last thing I needed was to give myself another concussion. I should have much, much less to drink going forward. I pressed a gloved hand to my chin and was glad to see there was no blood.
Getting up with some difficulty, all the layers bundling me from the cold also making it difficult to recover gracefully, I finally found my house keys deep inside my coat pocket. Holding my breath as I slid in the key, I turned it slowly to avoid the noise of the lock disengaging. Opening the door gently, I stepped inside and tiptoed into the living room.
I shouldn’t have bothered being so quiet, and I’m not sure how I didn’t notice the lights on, but there sat Matt, on the couch, arms crossed over his chest. He did not look happy. He also held my phone in his hand. Oh, no. I had forgotten to take my phone with me.
“Why are you up?” was the first thing I thought to say. And based on his expression, the deepening of his frown, it was not the right thing.
“Where were you?” he asked, anger seeping into his words. I knew he had probably been more worried than angry, but now that I was home and he could see I was fine, anger trumped concern.
“I left you a note,” I replied, hearing how lame it sounded as it came out. I pointed to the table and saw the note was still there. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He stood and came toward me, taking stock of my face. “What happened to your chin?”
My hand fluttered to my face, and my fingers—now gloveless—felt a growing lump on my chin. “I slipped on the stairs.”
“Have you been out drinking?”
I took a step back, busied myself with wrestling off my coat and hanging it on the hook by the door. But all the rum had messed with my balance, and I missed the hook, stumbled and slammed into the brick wall to prevent myself from falling over completely. Matt tried to grab my arm to keep me from falling, but he wasn’t quite fast enough and so the wall caught me instead. “I had a drink.” It was true, I had had a drink. And then a few more.
“Where? By yourself?”
I finally managed to get my coat on the hook and pushed past Matt into the living room, then to the kitchen, where I ran the tap until the water was cold before filling a glass. He followed me. “Why the third degree?” I said, knowing I was only inflaming the situation by not answering his questions directly. I gulped down the cold water, then filled the glass again. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out for a walk and stopped for a drink.”
Matt didn’t say anything but followed me again as I took my water back to the living room, finally settling on the couch. I was drunk, but I was hoping I could hide exactly how drunk. But that was naive because while I didn’t remember my life with Matt, he knew me inside and out. Hiding things from him wouldn’t work.
“Why are you lying to me?” His eyes narrowed and his tone was harsh. It shook me, how he was looking at me, like he was disgusted by what he saw. So far Matt had mostly been treating me with kid gloves—everyone had—but tonight was going to be different, I could tell. I had pushed the bounds of his patience and understanding too far.
“I’m not lying!” I said. “I went out for a drink.”
“Alone?” Matt asked.
A moment of silence, then, “No.”
“Who did you have a drink with, Lucy?” And in that moment I understood he knew I had been with Daniel. Because even rum-soaked, I had enough mental acuity to realize if I had been with Jenny, or Alex, or even with my parents, I would have already admitted it. The only reason I would be hedging was if the person I had a drink with was someone Matt wouldn’t be happy to hear about.
“Daniel.”
The effect of speaking his name was significant in our living room, where it hung like a heavy curtain blocking out all light and sound. We stared at one another, and I tried to keep my face as neutral as possible, but all I could think about was how I had kissed Daniel. Sickening guilt hit me and I thought I might throw up all those unfortunate Dark and Stormy drinks onto our living room rug.
“I see,” Matt said. I braced myself for the onslaught of questions. The inevitable “What? How? Why?” I expected to follow. But he asked nothing. Only said, “I’m going back to bed,” and then promptly dropped my phone onto the couch beside me, where it landed with a soft plop, before walking into our bedroom and shutting the door.
My heart hammered, and I finally took in a breath. Then I looked down at my phone, which had landed faceup, and on a hunch pressed the button to wake up the dark screen. There was a text message, from Daniel.
Hope you got upstairs okay. It was nice to see you. And like I said, already forgotten.
He’d closed the message with a winky-faced emoticon, and I felt another rush of nausea when I glanced at the time stamp. It had come in only moments after we’d said goodbye; he had probably sent it while he walked down the street to catch a cab, and without question Matt had my phone in his hand when the message lit up my screen. Which meant he saw it, probably as I sat on the landing after my stair tumble, trying to reconcile what I had done.
I glanced at the closed bedroom door. Should I go in there and apologize? Tell Matt the whole story about how we’d run into each other at Jake’s party and had a (very innocent) coffee? How tonight sort of happened and nothing about it was premeditated? But I decided if Matt wanted to know why my ex was texting me, why I’d gone out with Daniel without telling him, he would have asked. He wouldn’t have shut the conversation down by walking away.
Regardless, I should have gone in there and pulled back the covers and lain down beside him and unloaded everything in gentle whispers in the dark. With kindness and honesty, admitting my imperfections and letting him know I wanted to do better for both of us. To tell him the truth about how conflicted I felt and how I was trying my best. That I was sorry I kept hurting him, because he didn’t deserve it.
But instead I retreated to the guest room and flopped down on top of the bedding, pulling the quilt over me like a burrito wrapper before sinking into a dreamless, alcohol-heavy slumber.