Side Trip(75)

“Steve showed me,” he interrupts. Steve worked at Larson’s. He worked out with Mark. They’ve gone to dinner with Steve and his wife, Rachel, several times. Joy friended them both on Facebook several years ago.

“We’re at the gym, I’m leg pressing six-fifty, and out of the blue he asks if we’re getting a divorce.”

“I changed that a long time ago.”

“When?” he snapped.

“That night I went out with Taryn, after I quit my job. I was drunk. It was stupid. I’m sorry. Nobody looks at those statuses anyway.”

“Steve did.” He tosses the phone onto the table and shoots to his feet. He paces the kitchen, hands on waist. “This wouldn’t be a big deal if this was the first time this happened.”

“First time what happened?” She’d changed her relationship status only once.

He stops in front of her. “You don’t voluntarily share what you’re feeling about anything. I have to pry it out of you. You didn’t tell me you hated your job before you quit. You didn’t tell me you changed your mind about when we’d start trying for a baby. You’d had your IUD removed for an entire month before you said anything to me. You still won’t talk to me about your sister. You never told me either that Surfari Soaps had been a dream since you were a kid. I always thought Vintage Chic was your dream job.

“It slays me that you don’t respect me enough to share what’s going on with you before you actually do it. It makes me think you’re hiding something from me.”

She bites into her lower lip. Tears burn behind her eyes. But the truth of his words sears more.

“Have you seen a therapist like you said you would?”

She shakes her head.

“If you won’t talk to a professional after promising you would, how am I supposed to believe you’ll ever say anything to me?” His shoulders sag and he turns toward the hallway. “And here I thought we were doing great.”

“We were. We are!” She thought so anyway.

“Then you wouldn’t have changed your relationship status in the first place.” He pockets his phone and leaves the kitchen.

“It was a mistake,” she says, following him to the front parlor. “I forgot about it. I’m sorry. Mark, listen to me.”

“You only forget to change back a relationship status when you don’t care.” He picks up his gym bag and drops it on the couch, right on the remote she left on the cushion. The TV volume shoots to the ceiling and the breaking news report about a plane crash on the west coast fills the room like a burst bubble.

“Turn that off,” Mark bellows over the TV. His hand dives into the bag’s side pocket for his wallet and Joy thrusts her hand under his bag, searching for the remote. She pauses the TV and the screen freezes on a 737 burning on the beach.

Mark pockets his wallet and jogs upstairs, taking two steps at a time.

“Where are you going?” Joy hollers up after him, anxious he’s going to leave her but afraid to let go.

“Out.” Mark stops at the top of the stairs and looks down at her. “Don’t wait up. I’m crashing at Steve and Rachel’s.” Their bedroom door slams, waking Joy up.

She needs to come clean with Mark about Judy and her sister’s lists, and she needs to come clean with her parents about what she’d done. She doesn’t have the strength anymore to live Judy’s life, which means she no longer belongs here. She and Mark want different things. The only fair thing to do is to let him go.

Joy returns to the parlor, determined to catch Mark on his way downstairs. They’ll talk. They’ll forgive, and then they’ll part ways.

Picking up the remote, she plays the TV, diminishing the volume until it mutes. Bright red ticker tape moves across the bottom of the screen. The plane had crashed shortly after takeoff. All souls aboard were believed to have perished.

Joy turns off the TV. The news is too depressing, and she already feels sad enough.

“What’s this?”

Joy turns around. Mark stands on the parlor threshold. She didn’t hear him come down the stairs. But he’s got Judy’s hatbox and the lid’s missing.

“That’s mine,” she says, her tone urgent. She notices the Polaroid photo in his hand. Her and Dylan, in bed, smiling up at the camera. Nausea rolls through her. She knows how devastated Mark will be.

“I accidently knocked the box off the top shelf when I was looking for my Bruins duffel and . . .” He frowns, then reads the date on the back of the photo out loud. He looks up at her, brows drawn. “This was two days before you got to New York. Who is this guy?”

“Mark . . .” She has nothing to say. There’s nothing she can say.

“Who is he?” Mark shouts.

“Someone I met on the way.”

It sounds like she picked up a hitchhiker. In a way, Dylan had been. He was a stranger who needed a ride and she gave him one.

“You slept with him.” A statement, not a question. His face hardens, and his skin turns blotchy and red. “We were engaged!” he explodes. “I’ve been such a fool. He’s why you didn’t want me to go with you.”

“No!”

He gives her a look. He doesn’t believe her. “Everything makes perfect sense now, all those times you forgot to text me, or didn’t pick up my calls. He’s the reason you wanted to break off our engagement.”