Can't Look Away(83)

A sour expression morphed Liz’s face. “What do you mean ‘last time’?” She scrunched her nose, peering at me suspiciously.

“Never mind.” I shook my head, mortified, staring into my lap.

“Honestly, Caitlin, it’s kind of creepy how obsessed you are with this whole situation.” She emitted a dismissive sound—half chuckle, half scowl. I could feel her watching me. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said. “If the waitress comes by, grab the check. I have to meet a friend downtown.”

Liz grabbed her purse and disappeared inside the restaurant, and that’s when I noticed she’d left her phone facedown on the table. I hesitated, weighing my options. I still had so many questions, and Liz was clearly done giving me answers. The way she’d just looked at me made me feel like a leper, a pariah, Tom Ripley in the eyes of Dickie Greenleaf. I knew I’d be wise to never broach the subject of you and Jake in her presence again. Looking through Liz’s phone was a risk, but it might be my only chance to learn the truth.

Time was ticking. Before I could change my mind, I snatched the phone. I’d sat beside Liz at enough post-Pilates drinks to have had the chance to watch her enter her passcode—four sevens in a row—which thankfully she hadn’t changed.

I quickly clicked the green messages icon, scrolling down, but there was nothing from you on Liz’s phone. I stopped when I saw the name Everly—the friend who’d let it slip to Liz that you were pregnant. Their latest text exchange was from ten days earlier.

Everly: Moll is engaged, can’t you just be supportive? Hunter is a really good guy. Nina is planning a drinks thing at the Spaniard later this month—just come. She’s sending you the invite.

Liz: I’ll think about it.



My breath slipped out of my throat. I exited the text exchange and put the phone back on the table, facedown the way I’d found it, my heart thrashing inside my chest.

You were engaged, Molly. You were engaged to the new guy, Hunter, the man with whom you’d cheated on Jake. Already? How was it possible?

Liz came back from the bathroom, sliding into the chair across from mine. She picked up her phone, checked the screen, and tossed it into her bag. “Did you ask for the check?”

“Huh?”

“Caitlin?” Liz raised a dark, thin eyebrow. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “No, I … I think I just drank this last marg too quickly. Um, no, the waitress hasn’t come by yet. If you need to go, that’s fine. I’ve got it.”

“Well, thanks.” Liz stood, studying me strangely. I suddenly had the distinct feeling I would never see her again. “Get home safe.”

But after she left, I ordered a third margarita. I needed to be drunk enough to do what I did next.

I needed to know, Molly. I needed to see it with my own eyes. Because the fact that you’d gotten engaged to a man you’d only been with for a few short months, after years with Jake—this narrative made me assume that you’d kept the baby. That you and Hunter had made the decision to tie the knot and raise your child as a real family.

But I’d made the mistake of assuming things about you before. There was only one way to be 100 percent certain.

I’d long since memorized your Bhakti Yoga schedule. You taught the 8:30 candlelit flow on Wednesday evenings, which gave me half an hour to get to Williamsburg. The timing was perfect. Three skinny margs deep, it felt especially meant to be. I left cash on the table and ordered an Uber.

I wasn’t actually going to take the class. What if, somehow, via Jake, you knew what I looked like? What if you recognized me? It was too risky. Instead, I lingered on the sidewalk outside the studio, pretending to look at my phone while slyly glancing through the glass windows at the front desk, where you sat beside a dish of burning incense, checking students in.

I remember how you looked exactly, because how could I ever forget? Your wheat-blond hair pulled up into a topknot, a few loose strands sprinkling the back of your neck. Your wide, genuine smile as you handed students rolled-up yoga mats, swiped their credit cards. Your body, of course, is what I remember most. The cantaloupe-size bump protruding from your midsection, stretching the fabric of your white racer-back top. A baby growing inside of you. Visible proof of your infidelity.

A rail-thin guy sporting a man bun and a beaded necklace paused in the entryway to Bhakti. He grinned at me, holding the door open. “Coming in for Molly’s eight thirty?”

I was in such a state of shock from seeing you in the flesh again—after years of you existing only in my mind—that several moments passed before I realized his question had been directed at me.

My breath was shallow, choppy. I shook my head. The hippie man shrugged and walked inside.

I roamed around Williamsburg aimlessly for the next hour, maybe longer. The June air was warm and soft, conducive to wandering, and I don’t know how much time went by before I finally hailed a cab to take me home.

I didn’t sleep that night. My thoughts spiraled—electric, hopeful, relieved. You were very much still pregnant. You were with Hunter and you were marrying him and you were having his baby. I couldn’t imagine why you would’ve willingly deceived a man as beautiful and extraordinary as Jake, but it didn’t matter.

And as I figured out how to reappear in Jake’s life, I kept the memory of you at Bhakti Yoga—the sight of your cantaloupe belly—stashed in the back of my mind. A reminder that if I ever needed proof of your deception, it would always exist, and I’d never have to look very far.