Page 34 of The Logic of Loyalty

That light illuminates far more than I could ever have imagined. From my awkward, squashed vantage point against the windows, I take in the very familiar wrapper.

Square. Black and gold—something my husband and I haven’t used since before we were married. I blink to try to erase the image in front of me. Once. Twice. Still there.

I reach down again, flattening my hand as much as possible to pinch the edge of the packet between my pointer and middle fingers and slowly drag it up to where I can clearly see it. Where I can clearly see that it’s open. And empty.

My eyes close as my stomach rolls, and I slowly drop the hand holding the evidence of the decimation of my marriage.

Did my heart stop?

Am I supposed to know what I’m meant to do next? With this?

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my husband’s car. The one they took last night, while he was out until two o’clock in the morning … while I was at home. The night he came home, covered in her scent and reeking of guilt. For a moment, my mind convinces me we’re getting into another accident. The excruciating pain that rockets through my body is uncontainable. All of the details of the last month that I didn’t even consider as issues suddenly slam to the forefront of my thoughts, and I’m hit with an unexpected and uncontrollable bout of nausea.

I take in the profile of my husband, the cause of this agony. I lean toward him, not sure what I’m going to say, going to do, and then I lose my dinner directly on his lap.

Chapter Twelve

PAIGE

The next few minutes come to me in flashes. First, Trevor is panicking, pulling the car over to the side of the road when we aren’t far from our home. Next, he’s rushing over to me, where I sit in the passenger seat, frozen in shock, in betrayal, in agony. Then he pulls me from the car and palms my cheeks, looking at me, tilting my face in all different angles. He runs his hands down my arms to my hands, and finally, he spots the item in my palm. His eyes narrow, blink, then widen.

In recognition?

I stand, numb in my pain, and take in the scene around me with a strange dissonance. I see the fading light from the sun starting its descent. I hear the occasional car passing, likely heading home from their own family events. A dog down the road barks at some unknown object, person, or another, quieter dog. I feel a gentle breeze teasing my legs, drifting up my dress, making it flutter across the tops of my knees. I feel my lying, cheating husband holding my face between his palms. In the brief moment of clarity, I jerk out of his hold. The rage, pain, fear, agony, and decimation of everything I thought I knew is shredding me from the inside and making it nearly impossible to stand up straight. But I do it.

I look at the person who caused this. The one who caused me to feel this way. Who made choices that led to this moment being my reality. I clench my jaw against the rising tears because now is not the time to cry. Now is the time to rage. Now is the time to—to ask questions. To scream. To hit. And I have never wanted to hit another human being so much in my life. As the crinkle of the wrapper in my hand invades my heightened senses, I can’t think of anything that I want more in this moment, except … Except for this moment to not exist at all.

Trevor’s mouth is moving, but I don’t hear the words.

Do the words even matter at this point? I don’t think they do because I’m holding something so much more concrete than any words that he can say to me. He used his words to lie to me.

I turn around and go to his glove box, ripping it open with a small, fragile hope. A tender hope that maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. But then an open box falls to the seat. A box that seems to confirm every thought, every crushing nightmare that’s been whispering its venom since Krista invaded our marriage long before I even realized.

Not that I imagined it much, but if I had, I doubt I would’ve imagined laughter as my response to this image. But yet, I laugh. It isn’t unhinged laughter—I don’t think. It’s more like a quiet, painful, scraping sound. A sound of humor, yet I know nothing is actually funny. Maybe that’s what happens when your soul ruptures. Your body gets confused, and the normal reactions that you would feel or portray get crossed. If my soul hadn’t been torn, I would react the way a normal person reacts to pain, but since it’s been ripped, these loose wires that are hanging from my decimated body crossed and are creating this strong, humorless, chuckling heartbreak.

I’m standing here, laughing, chuckling, losing pieces of myself through the rupture, staring at the evidence of my husband’s intent on … on …

I blink again at the packets on the floor of the stupid fucking car. Fucking Car. Fucking in the car.

My laughter stops, but sound still doesn’t come to me in any clear or concise way. It’s disjointed, loud, quiet, humming, grating. First, it’s a burst of unrecognizable noise, but through it, a soft, relentless litany penetrates. A voice repeating the same thing over and over and over again enters my mind. A voice that used to bring me peace, comfort, and safety. The voice is now acting as a weapon—a dagger, a sword, a fucking bullet piercing, piercing, piercing my mind, my body, my heart, and my soul.

The words finally register but have no impact on the moment.

“Baby. Listen to me, please. This is not mine. Those are not mine. Please believe me. Paige. Paige. Paige. Believe me. Believe me. Believe me.”

It’s as if Trevor thinks the more he repeats these words, the more I will have to listen. Something in my heart and in my mind will click, and poof, “Okay, I believe you.” But it won’t.

“After what I heard at dinner today?” I whisper. “After what I heard and saw with my own eyes just the other day at lunch?” My voice grows stronger. “After what happened just. Last. Night. When you left me and went with her.”

I drop the wrapper and scrub my hand against the fabric of my dress. Trevor is still speaking. I’m not listening. “It was her, wasn’t it? Krista? That’s who was in here, right?” I watch his face closely, looking for some kind of indication of his thoughts or feelings. I see him hesitate. Damn.

“Paige, you don’t understand. Let me explain. It’s not what it looks like⁠—”

Laughter croaks out of me. It falls from my mouth with no control. “Of course. I am sure there just happens to be a used condom—you know what? I’m not even gonna make the argument because it is absolutely pointless.” I toe the wrapper. “Why would I make the argument when the evidence makes the argument for me?” I look at the car and shudder. “I was sitting where it happened, wasn’t I, Trevor? You let your wife sit where you fucked another woman?”

“No!” he shouts and shakes me by my shoulders. “Paige. You have it all wrong. I’ve never touched another woman.”

“What an outrageous and condescending thing to say.” I straighten my spine and look toward our house. Truly not far away. “Trevor. I’m going to walk home.” He moves like he’s going to contradict me, but I keep talking, not even bothering to tell him to shut up. “I am going to go home, and you are not going to follow me. I cannot look at you.” My eyes have already drifted past him, toward my home. “I cannot speak to you. I definitely cannot smell you, and there is no way on this Godforsaken Earth that I will ever enter that vehicle again.” I gesture vaguely behind me to help him understand which vehicle is no longer a part of my existence. “So, I am going to go home, and you are going to go somewhere else. I really do not care where. You simply do not talk to me. Do not look at me. Do not follow me.”