Chapter 1: At the Window (Present Day)

I stood at the bedroom window, the phone still warm in my hand from the text I had just sent back to Roxie: “Ok. I understand.” The words looked small and cowardly on the screen, and truthfully, I was anything but ok and given the situation and circumstances, I definitely did not understand. All I knew was that I had cheated on my husband, the man I loved, with his closest friend and coworker, whose wife had become the most important person in my life aside from my husband and children, and who was my closest friend and confidant. That dear friend had just texted me this morning, and not only did she know I had slept with her husband, but she had texted me videos he had taken of our infidelity. On top of that, she was apparently blackmailing me. I was definitely not “ok,” and I absolutely did not “Understand.”

Outside, the California morning was already bright and ordinary, the street quiet except for a neighbor walking a dog. Inside the room still smelled faintly of the perfume I had sprayed on the bare mattress, and under it the heavier, unmistakable scent of sex that no amount of airing out was going to erase.