Page 109 of Most Likely to Fear Love

“Fine,” I said eventually, though the word felt hollow even as it left my lips.

She glanced at me over her shoulder with a look that suggested she wasn’t buying it. “Uh-huh.” Placing two mugs on the island, she slid one toward me. “You know, you don’t have to bullshit me. I get it.”

I wrapped my hands around the warmth of the mug, grateful for something to focus on while Michelle cradled her own coffee, studying me over the rim. The simplicity of her words hit harder than I expected, and I swallowed thickly.

“It’s, um, it’s been a lot,” I admitted quietly.

“Yeah.” Her voice was soft. “It has.”

It was easier to focus on the steam rising from the coffee than on the weight of Michelle’s gaze.

“How about you?” Such a banal question under any other circumstances, but it hung in the air now, heavy and uncomfortable.

“Good days and bad days,” she said with a shrug. “But mostly good lately.”

“How do you get to... mostly good?”

“A fuck ton of therapy,” she said wryly, taking a sip of her coffee. “And time. A lot of both, I guess.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to respond. Could I ever get to “mostly good” too?

“Please, Cassidy, have a seat.”

I did, pulling out a bar stool as my gaze drifted to the box again.

Michelle leaned against the counter, studying me for a moment, then let out a soft sigh. “This is going to be hard to say, but I think we’ll both feel better afterward, so here goes. When I first found out about you, I thought you were the woman who stole my life. Wrecked my family.”

I blinked, startled by her bluntness, suddenly feeling a little sick. But I didn’t say anything. Mainly because I had no clue where to even begin responding to that.

She smiled faintly, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I hated you. For a long time, actually. I mean, it was easier to blame you than to face what Brian had done. But therapy...” She gave asmall, self-deprecating laugh. “Therapy has a way of making you confront the truth, whether you like it or not.”

“What truth?” I managed.

“That you were just as much Brian’s victim as I was,” she said simply. “That he played you harder even than he played me. I’m sorry for that. Sorry that he did that to you.”

Her words hit like a tidal wave, sweeping away any attempt at composure I’d managed to cling to. I stared at her, unsure how to respond, unsure how to even begin processing what she’d just said. It was too much. Too raw, too real. The urge to flee was almost overwhelming.“It’s...it’s not your fault.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s not yours, either. No matter how much you ask yourself how you were so blind, so stupid. How you could have been so easily misled by him.”

Okay, so she was a mind reader, it seemed.

“He’s a fucking master at it, like all good raging narcissists. I mean, I was married to him for many more years than you and I didn’t suspect a thing. Expert level manipulation.”

“How did you find out?”

Michelle’s lips tightened, her fingers drumming lightly on her mug. “Social media.” Her tone laced with bitter amusement. “It’s funny, he always claimed he hated it, said it was a waste of time. And for years, I believed him. But then one night, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw him in a tagged photo.”

My stomach dropped. “A photo?”

“Someone posted a charity event photo from Esperance showing him beside you, smiling. Nothing overtly romantic, but enough that I clicked the tag. Your profile appeared, filled with photos of him. He was mostly avoiding the camera, turning his back or lurking at the edges. At first, I wondered if he’d hired a fake wife for business reasons. Then I found your wedding photo.”

I couldn’t breathe. My hands gripped the edge of the counter as if the ground beneath me had started to tilt. “I?—”

“You didn’t know,” Michelle cut in, her voice firm. “I know that now. Back then? I drove straight to Esperance and tore him apart. I lost it on him and on you. I can barely even remember what I said. I must have looked like a raving lunatic to you. It just seemed like so much more than your garden variety cheating. Cut so much deeper. A whole other wife. A wedding day.”

Her words were both a balm and a knife, soothing one wound even as they opened another. I didn’t know. But should I have? Shouldn’t I have seen something, felt something was off?

“I’ve wanted to reach out to you for a while, but I didn’t know how. Then I found that box in the attic, and, well, it felt like the perfect excuse.”

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