“Oh, baby. Stop this. You know I don’t want you on my phone. We’ve promised to trust each other. Don’t do this.”
He’d gone back to bed then, never asking her if she was okay, his phone tucked beneath his pillow. Asleep in moments, Gabe had acted like nothing had happened the next day.
Now Tess stared at the computer screen, her brain working in overdrive as she tried to process all the ways their lives were intertwined. Opening another browser, she systematically began to change the passwords to all her business accounts, a little zing of power zipping through her at each change she made. Her business email accounts. Zing! Her business vendors. Zing! Her business shared folders. Zing! Her mobile accounts. At that one, Tess paused. Curious, she clicked on Gabe’s phone statement. It didn’t take long to figure out the number that had been lighting up his line for so many months. Methodically, Tess screenshotted the number, as icily detached as she could be. Gathering information.
Building her walls.
She’d asked him, hadn’t she? Repeatedly. Was something wrong? Was there something he’d wanted to tell her? She’d even asked him to his face – is there someone else? Gabe had assured her that he was just dealing with the stress of leaving his job – something that Tess had done everything in her power not to remind him he’d brought upon himself – and had brushed off her worried questions. She’d let it drop, knowing men tended to clam up when stressed.
Now she scanned the phone records, looking back for months as the text messages continued to that same number. Thousands of Facebook messages streamed before her, months of infidelity laid out in vivid, graphic detail, her future crumbling around her. Tess copied it all, saving the file to her password-protected shared drive. She nosed through any other important documentation she could find on Gabe’s computer until there was nothing else to be found – nothing else she could do except confront her husband.
Tess sat still, frozen as the end of her marriage loomed. She waited in silence when the front door opened. She waited as Gabe greeted the dogs. She listened as he whistled down the hallway – cheerful, she imagined, from his most recent orgasm – until he rounded the corner into his office.
“Why are you on my computer?” Gabe’s face contorted in rage.
Tess’s hands clenched, and she shifted the chair, turning enough so he could see the picture on the screen behind her.
“It’s over.”
“Tess, that’s not what you think,” Gabe said, stepping forward to put his hands out, but dropping them at her look.
“I knew it. I knew it! I should’ve trusted my gut, but I let your voice drown out my own. It’s over, Gabe. There’s no way I – no, we – can come back from this,” Tess said, her voice cold as betrayal sliced through her.
“Okay, let’s just talk about this rationally. That woman means nothing,” Gabe insisted, pacing in front of his desk, the dogs following his movement.
“Nothing? Really?” Tess turned to read some of the messages. “‘I love you, Babers’ — ick, babers? — ‘I can’t wait to have you in my arms again. We’re meant to be together.’ Really, Gabe?”
“That’s just bullshit. You shouldn’t be reading that crap. It means nothing,” Gabe slammed his hand on the desk, causing the dogs to jump up and pace between them.
“Gag me, you’re sending her Disney kissing emojis. What is this girl, fourteen?” Tess bit out, her heart pumping in her chest, sweat trickling at the back of her collar.
“She’s in college, and I don’t love her. It’s not what you think.”
She barked out a laugh, turning to look at the naked picture of them in bed together.
“I’m fairly certain I’m quite clear on what this is,” Tess said, and raised an eyebrow at him. “A co-worker of yours, I see. I suppose this explains why you left work. Oh… were you fired? I bet you were fired.” Tess slammed her own hand down on the desk. “That makes so much sense to me now.”
“I was not fired.” Gabe’s face darkened, anger reaching his voice for the first time. “I chose to leave.”
“I bet you were asked to leave, weren’t you? For screwing your subordinate. Even for you – what a dipshit move,” Tess said. She was so completely fed up with Gabe’s lies.
“I said I wasn’t fired,” Gabe shouted.
Tess laughed at him, knowing it would antagonize him and not even caring.
“Oddly enough, Gabe? I’m having an incredibly hard time believing anything you tell me right now. I can’t imagine why.” Tess turned back to scan the messages on the computer screen.
“Stop reading those.” Gabe tried to grab the computer’s mouse, but Tess snatched it away from him, slapping his hand back.
“Hands off. As you’ll remember, this is my company’s computer and you’re not allowed to touch it.”
“That’s such shit and you know it,” Gabe seethed, continuing to pace.
“How could you, Gabe? Honestly? After everything I’ve done for you? You knew this was the one thing I’d never get over. You knew how important trust was to me – you knew. This is the way you treat me?” Tess searched his face, looking for any sign of remorse.
“It’s just… I don’t know. I screwed up. She was just there, and a distraction from everything, I guess.” Gabe stopped to lean across the desk to Tess. “I swear to you, she means nothing. I love you, Tess, not her.”
Tess wasn’t buying it.
“I should’ve expected this, honestly, I really should have. It’s not like you’ve been particularly trustworthy in the past, but I thought we’d moved past all that. I had hoped I wouldn’t be another one of your casualties, and that you’d learn to love yourself enough to not do this to the person you’re with, like so many times before.” Tess crossed her arms as she leveled a glare at Gabe. “I guess I thought I’d be enough for you, Gabe. That I’d be the one to change you. My mistake.”
“You are, Tess, I swear you are. You’re more than enough for me. I don’t deserve you.” Gabe held his hands out to her. “Please, we can work through this.”
Tess shook her head, ice flowing through her veins.
“You’re right, Gabe. You don’t deserve me.”
He smiled. “Look, babe, you are making way too big a deal –”
She cut him off. “I’ve moved all the money and changed the passwords on all the accounts.” She met his eyes dead-on. “Pack a bag and get out.”
He stared at her, breathing through his nose, his chest rising and falling rapidly, rage clouding a face she’d once thought to be handsome.
“You don’t have to be such a bitch about it,” Gabe said coldly. Then he smirked. There it was – just a glimmer of joy in taking his power back.
Tess was a contrary sort, however. And now seemed like the perfect time to stop listening to what people – most notably, Gabe – told her to do.
Bitch, she thought. Yeah, she could get behind that.
Chapter Three
Tess lay awake that night, forcing herself to relive all the warning signs she’d ignored. Her heart raced as she rolled over repeatedly to lift the blinds and peek out at the driveway below, wondering if he’d come back. Tess wasn’t even certain that she actually wanted Gabe to come back, or if she just wanted the validation of him begging for her. If she was honest with herself – and there really wasn’t a more honest time than three a.m. on a cold spring night after kicking her cheating husband out – part of this was about her ego. Wasn’t she worth fighting for? What did it say about Tess that the man couldn’t even give it a try?
In the movies, the husband would stand in the yard and cry, pleading for forgiveness with flowers in hand – the grand gesture, so to speak. Tess wasn’t sure that a grand gesture worked if you couldn’t trust a single rotten word that poured from his mouth.
It hadn’t been easy to get him out of the house. First came the lies, then the platitudes, then the finger-pointing. At that point, Tess had actually started laughing and retreated to another part of the house to call one of h
er best friends, Mae. She filled Mae in on every gruesome detail, knowing full well that Gabe could hear. Though she doubted he cared, as he was so busy trying to erase everything on his computer.
It was only when Gabe realized Mae had dropped everything to storm across the city in a blaze of righteous indignation that he jumped into action. Refusing to be concerned that Gabe was still home, Mae had banged right through the front door like an avenging angel of fury, and Gabe had fled, the back door slamming and tires squealing in his wake.
Mae and Tess had looked out the window in shock.
“Well, that was one way to get him out of the house,” Tess quipped, laughing before the tears fell.
“That man is not worthy of you,” Mae said, settling into the couch with a box of tissues, a bottle of vodka, and an open ear.
“I’m not sure what I did to deserve this,” Tess whispered.
A tirade of curses fell from her normally docile friend’s lips, her vehemence shocking Tess. “You did nothing to deserve this. How long have you been carrying this man for? How many times have you lifted him up? You bailed him out of jail for his DUI! Paid for a lawyer to reduce his sentence. Paid off his student loans. Bought him a new truck. Supported him when he randomly quit his job. Do you remember dropping him off at jail for his DUI sentence? You cried the whole way home.”
“I did. A full three hours ride. And made his damn parents pick him up when he got out, as I was so angry with him.”
“As you should have been. He put your life in jeopardy too. Honey…are you okay? Was he really upset, or did he apologize?”
“Oh, he was mad at me. Honestly, I’m not sure which he was angrier about, getting caught or the fact that I’d moved all the money.”
Mae refilled their glasses. “Do you know anything about her? Wait, do you think him quitting had to do with this girl?”
“He said it didn’t, but he worked with her, so…” Tess shrugged.
“I bet we can find out.”
An hour of internet sleuthing later, they had determined that indeed, the sudden quitting of his job had been in direct correlation with the fact that he’d been caught messing around at work with the new HR intern. Gabe had been kindly asked to leave.
“You’d think they’d teach them in Human Resources that nookie on the job is a no-no,” Tess hiccupped, the vodka comfortably ensconcing her from feeling the pain too deeply.
“Well, she is just an intern.”
“And not a very bright one at that.” Tess laughed and then looked at Mae sadly. “Now what?”
“Now, you take it a day at a time and figure out what you want,” Mae said, pulling Tess in for a hug. “I can’t tell you what to do here. I hate him for hurting you, but this is your marriage and your choice. You have to decide what’s right for you.”
“I don’t know what that is right now. It’s so weird,” Tess said, pulling back to meet Mae’s eyes. “I just sat there at that computer and stared at it for the longest time. I already knew, I just knew what I’d find… and yet I hesitated. It was like a part of me just thought about the sheer exhaustion of going through the mechanics of a divorce. You know what I mean? It’s like… just the everything of it all. Shit, I’ve changed my name for this asshole. We have bank accounts together. A mortgage. Everything is all tied together. We were going to move out of state. Do all these things… and now, it’s just like… I just want to sleep. Thinking about the amount of effort and awfulness ahead of me is just not something I want to deal with.”
“You didn’t say anything about him… the loss of him,” Mae said, gently running her hand over Tess’s arm. “You’ve gone through really tough stuff before, hon. You know you can handle it when life throws bad shit at you. But what about Gabe? Can you live without him? Do you still love him?”
“I don’t know,” Tess whispered. “I honestly don’t know. I… how many chances do you give a person? Is that what marriage is? Just forgiving and forgiving and moving forward as though you won’t always be wondering where he is or what he’s doing? I’ve already had my issues with him, as you well know. Our foundation of trust has been shaky for a while now.”
“You have time,” Mae said, stretching her long legs before her and propping her feet on the table. “You don’t have to decide anything today except what you need in this moment.”
“I just want to curl up in my bed with the dogs and tune the world out.”
“Then do just that. Tomorrow is a new day. You can look at this with fresh eyes. I want you to know that I love you, sisterfriend of mine. I will support you no matter what you choose to do.” Mae had hugged her and left shortly thereafter, motioning to the vodka bottle on the way out. “Not the whole thing, mmkay?”
“Roger that,” Tess had said, though she did pour herself one more drink after Mae had left.
She’d walked the house aimlessly, unsure what her next step was. Room to room to room, sipping her vodka, the dogs following her curiously. They hadn’t lived here long – just over two years – and the house had a load of problems. Tess loved the character of it, though: an old 1930s cream brick house with a real fireplace – a feature Tess had insisted upon. There was something so charming about having an actual fire during winter, while the snow fell outside, the crackling logs and scent of burning wood warming the living room, the dogs curled in their favorite spot in front of the hearth. It had been a good compromise for them – a house just outside of the city, with more space than the condo they’d been living in, but not so large that they couldn’t manage the upkeep. Tess had stopped at one of the guest rooms, now her office, a room she’d once considered for a nursery.
It hadn’t taken Gabe long to disabuse her of the notion of having children, and to her surprise, she’d found that she was just fine with the thought of being a childless couple. It wasn’t like she’d spent her life yearning to have children, not in the way she craved the adventures of traveling. Tess did so love to travel.
Tess rolled in bed, punching her pillow as she thought about how much travel she’d put on hold through the years because of Gabe. Sure, they’d taken a yearly vacation when Gabe could use his time, but she’d never once taken a trip on her own since she’d married him. Not to do research for work or attend conferences that could help her build her career. Not to join any of the girls’ trips she’d been invited on, no matter how much she wanted to go. Not even to visit her best friends. She couldn’t. Not after she’d seen the true colors of the man she’d married.
He’d come home drunk from a friend’s bachelor party. The drunkenness wasn’t unusual, but he’d been surprisingly randy, all but jumping her and pushing her into sex she didn’t particularly enjoy. Sloppy sex with a blind drunk man was not exactly the most seductive end to her night. He’d kept mumbling about his hat and his wallet, and Tess had tried to get answers about how he’d gotten home or where he’d been before he’d passed out on top of her.
The next morning, his wallet had been missing. Tess patiently tried to piece his night together for him, and he swore up and down that he had walked home from the bar, an easy five-minute walk from their house. Finding an ATM receipt in his pocket, they determined he’d gone to the gas station. He left for work, her questions unanswered, and Tess decided to go to the gas station to see if anyone had found his wallet. The clerk, a smiling elderly Indian man who’d always greeted her cheerfully, offered to review the security tape with her.
There she watched her freshly-minted husband get led to an ATM by a hooker, before being taken outside where he slid his hand up her skirt and had his way with her on camera. The pity in the gas station clerk’s eyes as they watched the silent black-and-white scene play out before them on the small television was more than she could bear.
A part of her had died that day as she’d learned that she couldn’t fully trust the man she’d just signed on to live her life with.
She never returned to that gas station. And she never left Gabe alone for a weekend again.
Ch
apter Four
“He did what?” Vicki’s voice snapped through the phone. Tess felt her back go up, waiting for exactly what she knew was coming and the entire reason she’d avoided calling her sister the day before.
“Gabe’s been having an affair.”
“I told you he was trash,” Vicki said, and Tess held the phone away from her face and gave her sister the middle finger.
“Yup, you sure did, Vicki. Repeatedly.” Tess scratched Red’s pointy ears. A French bulldog, Red easily fit into her lap and, sensing she was sad, had been glued to her side for days.
“Stop calling me Vicki; you know I hate that,” Vicki griped, and Tess smiled, having scored a small point.
“Sorry, Victoria.” Tess infused a snotty tone to her pronunciation, knowing it would annoy her sister but not really caring.
“Honestly, Tess, it’s not like I didn’t see something like this coming,” Vicki said, “Gabe is as lazy as they come, not to mention his questionable intelligence. Frankly, I’m actually surprised he was even motivated enough to do something as interesting as have an affair.”
Tess pressed her lips together and eyed the vodka bottle sitting on the kitchen counter from the night before, idly wondering if it was too early for a drink.
“Really? You find it ‘interesting’? I’d say it’s fairly trite and boring, no? Same old story. Middle-aged man has crisis of confidence and seeks out willing college intern to stroke his ego. And other parts of him,” Tess bit back, annoyed that her sister couldn’t just be there for her. Was it so hard to offer condolences instead of ‘told-you-so’?
“Mmm. It is probably the most excitement he’s had in years.”
“Gee, thanks, Vicki. You know it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part – I was the one who always wanted to book us vacations, go to concerts, or try new things. He didn’t like doing things outside of his comfort zone.”
“Yeah, which was mainly a barstool.”
Ms. Bitch: Finding happiness is the best revenge. Page 2