Tell Me Everything

by Amy Hatvany

  “No,” I said, vehemently. “Absolutely not. It was purely physical.”

  “Then why do this? Why did you lie?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t like I sat down and rubbed my hands together, concocting ways to get away with it. I made a mistake by not telling you at the beginning. A fucking huge one. And then I didn’t know how to fix it. I would do anything—anything—to take it back.”

  “You obviously must have felt something if you went to his office and fucked him without telling me about it. You kept that from me.” I could taste the bitterness in his voice from across the room.

  “I didn’t go there for that. I was going to end it. And then it just...happened.” I started to cry then, in earnest, putting my face in my hands. “I’m so sorry, baby. I feel like such a piece of shit.”

  He was silent for a long moment, and then said, quietly, “You’re not a piece of shit.”

  I felt a surge of hope, and looked up at him. His eyes were still on me, and his expression had softened the tiniest bit. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I kept talking. “What I did was shit. I really messed up. I made stupid decisions. And I swear to God, I had zero romantic feelings toward him. It was physical chemistry. That’s it. That was the only thing I felt.”

  “So the whole you fucking-someone-I-didn’t-meet was a bad idea.”

  I sniffed and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. “My not telling you right away that I used to work with him was a bad idea. My agreeing to see him without you meeting him was a bad idea. None of this is about you. I’m the one who fucked up.” I paused. “And now everyone in Queens Ridge thinks I’m a whore.” A wave of revulsion washed over me as I thought about the two posts still up on the Neighbors app. My friends and coworkers seeing the words I’d written. The pictures I’d sent. I wrapped my arms tightly across the front of my body. I felt like if I released my grip, I might fall apart. “What did Tuck say?” I asked.

  “He didn’t answer his phone. I called Peter and made sure that he held on to it for the time being. At least until we can talk with him.”

  I cringed at the thought of my ex seeing the posts. “Did you tell Peter what’s going on?”

  “I told him that your Neighbors account had been hacked and someone had posted something offensive that Tuck shouldn’t see.”

  “Okay,” I said. But I knew that it was only a matter of time before one of Tuck’s friends showed him the pictures and screen shots of the texts between Andrew and me. Now that the posts had been up for a couple of hours, they were part of the internet ether—even if Tiffany took them down and closed my account, someone could have easily taken screen shots of them, or saved the pictures. There was no way to make them disappear altogether. They were out in the world, and linked to my name. The thought made me want to find a hole to crawl into and hide. An ancient shame burned inside my chest. Despite how “strong” I was, I’d still adhered to the generally accepted belief that “nice” girls didn’t have voracious sexual appetites. Nice girls didn’t fuck men other than their husbands. And now that I had, everyone in my immediate world knew about it. I didn’t know how to cope.

  “How was Ella?” Jake asked.

  “Not good.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” I started to cry again, my shoulders shaking, and this time, Jake made his way over to me and took me into his arms. I sobbed into his chest, experiencing a level of remorse and embarrassment I never had before. It felt like I’d been poisoned. “I’m so sorry,” I kept saying, my words muffled against my husband’s chest. He cupped my head with one hand and rubbed a soothing circle on my back with the other.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said, and I was equally overwhelmed with gratitude for his embrace and disgust at myself, for knowingly putting our marriage in danger.

  “You don’t hate me?” I asked him, my voice trembling.

  “I’m upset,” he said, “but I could never hate you. I do hate the fucker who put up those posts.” He pulled away, his blue eyes flashing with intent. “You know where he lives, right?”

  I nodded, feeling a growing sense of trepidation. I didn’t like the threatening edge I heard in his voice.

  “Take me there,” he said.

  And even though I didn’t want to, even though I was terrified of what would happen when Jake and Andrew came face-to-face, I grabbed my purse and followed my husband, knowing that after everything I’d done, I didn’t have the right to tell him no.

  Twenty-Five

  It was rush hour, so it took us almost an hour to get to Andrew’s house in Kirkland. While we sat in traffic, I kept trying to get through to Tiffany, but every time I called, it went straight to voicemail and all of my texts to her went unanswered. When we were a few blocks away from Andrew’s, a text came in from Nancy, my boss: “I need to see you in my office tomorrow morning. First thing.”

  “Shit,” I muttered, knowing exactly what she was going to want to talk with me about.

  “What is it?” Jake asked as he turned the corner onto Andrew’s street.

  “Nancy wants to talk to me.”

  “She’s on the app?”

  “Everyone at the office is.” I tried to swallow the sharp knot that had formed in my throat, but to no avail. I wondered if Andrew was even home—it was a little past six-thirty, so I assumed that he would be. I hadn’t wanted to text or call to warn him that we were coming. Better to catch him off guard, and hope that we would be able to talk some sense into him and he’d take the posts down.

  Jake parked on the street, and then we made our way up the walkway to Andrew’s front door. Jake pounded on it. I crossed my arms in front of my chest; my shoulders were hunched forward.

  It only took a few seconds for Andrew to open the door, and he had the audacity to look smug when he saw us. He held out his hand. “You must be Jake,” he said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  Jake batted his hand away. He seemed taller than usual, somehow, more imposing, as though his anger had increased his stature. “You need to take the posts down,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Now.”

  Andrew raised his thick brows. “Posts? What posts?”

  My fingers curled into fists at my side. I wanted to hit him. “Don’t pretend it wasn’t you.”

  “Wasn’t me that...what?” He let his voice trail off, his expression bemused.

  Jake took a step toward him and Andrew held up his hands, palms facing us. “Careful, now, Jake. I haven’t invited you in. You don’t want me to call the police and have you arrested for unlawful entry.”

  “They’re going to have to arrest me for assault if you don’t get on your fucking laptop and take down those posts,” Jake growled. “I don’t know how you did it, but it’s illegal. Plan on getting a visit from the police, yourself.”

  Andrew laughed. “Oh, that’s funny. The police don’t have time for petty little shit like this.”

  “So you admit it was you?” I said. Looking at him now, all I felt was disgust. I couldn’t believe that I’d let him affect me the way that he did. I couldn’t believe I was attracted to him at all.

  His dark brown eyes landed on me. “I’m not admitting anything. I’m simply assuming, from what you’re saying, that someone posted something about you online that you don’t like?” He moved his eyes to Jake. “If that’s true, my guess is that whoever did it is technically gifted enough not to leave behind any trace that could lead back to him. Or her.” He paused. “Let’s just say I’ve heard of people attaching something called a key-logger to a picture they send someone, like a virus. And that does exactly what it sounds like. It logs every key someone types on their laptop or phone and sends it to the other person’s computer. Passwords, even. Once someone has those, everything else is easy. Like changing the password so the person whose account it actually is can’t log back in.”

  “You mother fucker,” Jake said, and it looked like he was about to lunge at Andrew, so I grabbed him by the arm.

  “Honey, d
on’t,” I pleaded. “He’s not worth it.”

  “That’s not what you were thinking when I bent you over my desk and fucked you in the ass,” Andrew said.

  Jake’s fist hit shot out before I could stop it, landing a solid punch. Andrew stumbled backward, his hand clamped over his right cheek.

  “Goddammit!” he yelled, but with a high-pitched edge, as he leaned forward at the waist. I suddenly saw a flash of the geeky bartender I used to know behind his eyes.

  “If you ever come near my wife or me again, I’ll fucking kill you,” Jake said. The muscles of his jaw worked under his skin. “Do you understand me?”

  Andrew didn’t speak, but he nodded, his hand still covering one side of his face. He looked scared, which made me glad.

  “Good,” Jake continued. “Now, if those posts aren’t deleted in the next ten minutes, I’m going to come back here and finish what I started. And if the police show up at my house, talking about charging me with assault, you’ll regret it. You’ll never see me coming.”

  I didn’t know this side of Jake existed. I hated that my actions had pushed him to this point. But at the same time, it felt like I had never loved him more.

  “You’re a fucking bastard,” I told Andrew, as Jake and I were turning to leave. “And karma is a bitch.” I wish I felt as strong as I sounded. “Why did you do this?”

  “We had something special,” he said. “And you threw it away.”

  “It wasn’t special,” I snapped. “It was nothing. It was just sex.” I looked at Jake—at the violent, dark storm that had taken over his face—and again, I couldn’t believe I’d done anything to jeopardize our relationship. The blip of excitement I’d experienced with Andrew was so utterly shallow and meaningless compared to what Jake and I shared. And not only in bed. We shared a life, an imperfect, messy, too busy, but amazing life.

  Andrew looked as though he might say more, but then glanced at Jake, and thought better of it.

  My phone rang as Jake and I had climbed back into his car, and I grabbed it out of my purse. The caller ID showed that it was Tiffany. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” I said, urgently. “I need you to delete my account from Neighbors right away. It’s been hacked.”

  “What?” Tiffany said. Her voice sounded scratchy and muffled, like she’d been crying. “I’m at the hospital with Lizzy.”

  “Oh my god!” I said. “Is she okay? What happened?”

  “She snuck out last night with a college boy who works at the pool. Carter, I think? She drank too much and passed out. A few girls at the party found her in a bedroom and couldn’t wake her up, so they got scared and called 911. She has alcohol poisoning. And someone wrote “slut” on her forehead in black ink.” Her words stumbled out slowly, awkwardly, as though she couldn’t believe what she was saying was true. “Apparently, she had another account on Instagram that Lacy didn’t know about. It was worse than the first. I’m reading through her direct messages and the things she talked about doing with these boys...what she said she’d let them do to her....” Her voice broke and she trailed off, not finishing her thought.

  “Oh god, Tiff, I’m so sorry,” I said. Jake touched my arm, questioning. “Is she going to be okay? Was she...?” I trailed off, unable to ask an unfathomable question.

  “No,” Tiffany said, sniffling. “Thank god. No evidence of that. The doctor said she’s going to feel like shit, but she’ll be fine. She can go home in the morning.”

  “I’m so glad. I can’t even imagine how scared you must have been. Is Ben with you?”

  “He’s in Portland, at a car auction, but he’s on his way. The boys are with a sitter.”

  “Do you need anything? I can be there, with you, until Ben shows up.” My head was still spinning from everything that had happened over the last few hours, but the thought of Tiffany sitting alone in a hospital waiting room, or next to Lizzy’s bed, was heart-breaking.

  “No, no, that’s okay.” Her voice held a forced brightness. “What was that you said about the Neighbors app? I haven’t looked at it since this morning.”

  “I really hate bothering you with this now,” I said, “but somebody hacked my account and posted some pretty slanderous stuff. I can’t log in. You’re the administrator, so is there any way you could please delete my account altogether?” I didn’t want to risk Andrew not taking down the posts. “Only if it’s not too much of a hassle. I know you have so much going on....” I flinched, thinking about how she would read the posts first. Even if I asked her not to read them, she would do it anyway. I know I would have, if the tables were turned.

  “Okay,” Tiffany said. “No problem. I’ll do it when we hang up.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Even though the damage had already been done, my body flooded with relief. “I’ll check in with you later. And please let me know if I can watch the kids or something, when the sitter has to leave.”

  “I’m sure Ben will go home after he stops here, but thank you,” Tiffany said. “Really. It means a lot.” She spoke with sincerity, and I was glad that I had stopped to talk with her at the pool the other day.

  “Of course,” I said. We hung up, and I saw an all caps text from Charlotte: “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???”

  I quickly tapped out a response: “Too much to text. Tiffany’s deleting my account. I’ll talk with you later.”

  “What happened?” Jake asked as he pulled away from the curb. The knuckles on his right hand were already puffy and red; they would likely be bruised by tomorrow morning.

  I told him about Lizzy, and that Tiffany was going to delete my account. We drove toward home in total silence after that, a sick feeling still plaguing my stomach. I hoped that our visit to Andrew had convinced him to leave us alone, and that he wouldn’t report Jake to the police for assault. I worried that he might use his technical skills to harass us in other, more devious and damaging ways. I worried that the texts and pictures that had been posted would ruin my career. I hadn’t even told Jake about losing the last part of the development deal. I wondered how I was going to explain to my children the complexities of an adult sexual arrangement—that I hadn’t been cheating on Jake. In their eyes, I was just a mom, not a woman with desires and needs. I didn’t know how to make sense of it for them. Or anyone else, for that matter. The whole of Queens Ridge were, without a doubt, already judging me for what they’d seen about me. They’d judge Jake, too, I was sure, for “letting” his wife fuck other men, but when it comes to sex, no matter how equal the treatment of both men and women is purported to be, I knew that Jake would get off easier than me.

  “You okay?” Jake asked as we pulled into our driveway. Ella’s car was nowhere to be seen, which concerned me, but then I realized that she was likely at work.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not.” I was exhausted and physically aching, like I’d been flogged. I looked at him, my eyes filling with tears once again. “I fucked everything up. I don’t know how to fix it.”

  He stared ahead for a minute, his arms ramrod straight, hands at ten and two, still gripping the steering wheel. “It’s not the end of the world,” he finally said.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was wrong. That I’d broken something between us past the point of mending, and that our life together might never be the same again.

  ELLA didn’t come home that night after work. Peter texted me around eleven, saying that she’d come to his house, and wanted to spend the weekend, which was unusual, because she’d already spent the entire week there. Normally, she and Tuck spent the summer weekends with us.

  “Did she tell you what happened?” I replied.

  “Yeah,” he said, with his typical brevity.

  “Tuck, too?” I asked, as acid roiled in my stomach. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch; I was too nauseous.

  “Yeah. But he didn’t see the pictures.”

  I cringed, knowing that Peter had surely been told what the posts were about, and that Ella had shared the details no
t only with him, but with her brother.

  “It’s complicated.”

  It took a minute for him to respond. “None of my business.”

  I pressed on. “My account was hacked.” But the emails and texts were real; the pictures, too. A fresh wave of embarrassment surged through me.

  He didn’t reply, and I didn’t text anymore him after that.

  I looked over at Jake’s side of the bed, feeling a sharp pang inside my chest. It was empty, the covers still flat and tucked up under his pillow. Despite the brief comfort he’d given me earlier and confronting Andrew, he had retreated to the guest room for the night.

  “I need some space,” he said, and I knew it would have been pointless to try to argue. If he had done the same thing to me, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in the same bed with him, either. Maybe not even the same house.

  I plugged my phone into the charger on the night stand, turned off the light, and closed my eyes, settling into my pillow. I took deep breaths, trying to relax, but my mind was littered with landmines—every thought I had exploded and sent me right back to the moment when I saw the first post. The horror I’d felt. The pure, unadulterated humiliation. I wondered what was being said about me in other Queens Ridge homes tonight.

  I tossed and turned for hours—my body exhausted, my mind wired and alert—until finally, around four in the morning, I decided to get up and attempt to burn off the adrenaline raging through me. I skipped my usual morning coffee—I was jittery enough—and left Jake a note on the counter before heading out the door.

  It was barely light. The air was still cool, and in the distance, the sun had peeked up behind the craggy, snow-topped Cascade Mountains, casting a pink and orange haze over the cloudless sky. I pumped my arms as I walked, trying to focus only on my breathing, and the balls of my feet, and then my heels, hitting the pavement. Even as I did, I had to fight off tears. The shame I felt in knowing that my most intimate behavior had been broadcast in such a public matter was astounding. I couldn’t believe Andrew had sunk to that level. He had said that the police would never bother to get involved in something as petty as this. But there had to be some sort of repercussion, some punishment for what he had done. Wasn’t it slanderous? Wasn’t it an attack of my character? Wasn’t breaking into my email and Neighbors account some kind of cyber-crime? I wondered if I should speak to a lawyer, but then realized if I did, it would only draw more attention to what I had done, and I didn’t think I could handle that. Nor would I want to put Jake or the kids through anything more than they were already dealing with.