***
On the drive home, Kayla sat beside me with the room listing still open on her phone.
Andrew hadn’t come.
That had been my decision.
This conversation belonged to us.
We made it halfway home before I asked the question I’d been avoiding.
That had been my decision.
“Why did you need Andrew to fail?”
Kayla kept looking through the windshield.
“I didn’t.”
“Then why wasn’t it enough when I asked you to stop?”
She locked her phone.
For several blocks, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Because Eric didn’t cheat on me.”
“Why did you need Andrew to fail?”
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“He didn’t cheat.” Her thumb rubbed the dark screen. “He didn’t hit me. He didn’t steal from me. There wasn’t another woman.”
I slowed at a red light.
“Then what happened?”
“He didn’t cheat.”
Kayla gave me the answer as though she still hated how little space it took up.
“He said he didn’t want our life anymore.”
The light changed.
I didn’t move until the driver behind me tapped his horn.
Kayla looked out the side window.
“Six years, Amanda. And that was it.”
“He said he didn’t want our life anymore.”
I drove.
