Page 2 of After Everything
I stared at the screen. Okay. So they were both working late. That made sense, didn’t it? They were co-counsel on the same case. Of course they'd be messaging at the same time. Maybe they were in different conference rooms, coordinating strategy. Or maybe Sarah was at her own office and they were syncing up before tomorrow's depositions or whatever lawyers did at eleven PM on a Tuesday.
Perfectly reasonable.
I took a sip of wine. My hand was steadier than I expected.
They were colleagues. Friends, even. This was fine. The timestamp was just a coincidence, and I was being paranoid because I was exhausted and David had been distant and I'd had three glasses of wine on an empty stomach.
I should close the laptop. Go to bed. Forget I'd seen anything.
A notification banner dropped down from the top of the screen.
Sarah: I can still taste you
My stomach dropped so fast I thought I might throw up.
I stared at the words. Read them again. And again. Waiting for them to rearrange themselves into something that made sense, something innocent, some inside joke about food or a typo or literally anything other than what they obviously were.
They didn't change.
My hand moved without conscious thought, clicking into the conversation. The thread expanded, message after message filling the screen. I scrolled up. And up. Weeks of messages. Months, maybe.
Missing you already
Tonight was perfect
Can't wait to see you tomorrow
I kept scrolling, my breath coming shorter, faster. Then I found it. The message that made everything real.
Emma's working a double. Can I come over early? Miss you.
I'll leave the door unlocked. Don't make me wait too long.
On my way.
The timestamp said 7:42 AM. Last Saturday. The morning I'd kissed him goodbye before my shift, told him to have a good day catching up on work.
The wine glass slipped from my fingers. I didn't hear it shatter.
I couldn't breathe. My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a band around my ribs and was pulling it tighter, tighter, until something had to break. I pressed my palm against the counter, trying to ground myself, but my hand was shaking too hard.
This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.
But I kept scrolling, and it kept being real.
There were photos.
Sarah in a hotel bathroom mirror, black lingerie. The caption:Waiting for you.
Sarah in what looked like her bedroom, wearing one of David's dress shirts. Nothing else.
Looks better on me, don't you think?
Everything looks better on you.
Something inside me cracked. Breaking would've been cleaner, but this was a fracture, the kind that spreads slowly, spiderwebbing out until the whole structure is compromised but still somehow standing.
I thought about last Saturday. Coming home exhausted after sixteen hours of keeping people alive, finding David on the couch watching a game. He'd smiled at me, asked about my day, and kissed me like everything wasnormal.
