Chapter 3

It was a quiet hour of driving before we were closing in on Lake Powell. The trip from Vegas, where Cassidy and I had moved together after college, was supposed to take just under four and a half hours, dipping through southern Utah and northern Arizona, but with our stops we were closer to five and a half.

“Why cosplaying?” I asked. We hadn’t talked much since the facefucking - I’d asked a few questions about the App, and she’d answered with what answers she could give me. Points accumulated as you raised scores with people and met certain thresholds. She’d only ever gotten Love points from me, my family, and her family. The couple of times early on in her cheating that her affair partners - I corrected her on that the first time she said ‘one of the girls’ and she accepted it - started to gain Love points, she distanced herself quickly. Another line she drew in the sand for herself. All of her points had come from Affection and Lust scores.

Cassidy turned to look at me and scrunched her eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

“After you dropped out of college and took that job at the hotel, that’s when you started your social media stuff and cosplaying,” I said. “Has the App been helping you with that, too? Even if you weren’t using it?”

“Mm-mm,” she shook her head. “The App only activates when I meet someone or interact with them in person. If someone sees a picture or a video with me on social, or even if we send emails or have a phone call, there’s no effect. I took the night shift at the hotel because I wouldn’t be interacting with many people and wanted to be focused on you, and then I started the social media stuff because I knew I-” she stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, you’ve heard my sister say for years she felt like I was living my life with cheat codes. It always pissed me off, but it was because it was true. And I didn’t like it. Doing social media stuff? Every like, or follower, or subscriber - it’s all because of Me. Not the App. The App can’t make my cosplay outfits look cooler; at least, I don’t think it can. I put in the work, and the internet decides if it was worthwhile. No outside influence.”

“That makes a roundabout sort of sense,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “And I love you.”

I exhaled and pressed my lips together, unable to decide if my heart was hurting or surging every time she said it.

We drove into Page, a town on the south end of the winding Lake Powell, crossing over a bridge that spanned the Colorado River and looked out at the Glen Canyon Dam. Usually, this would have been the time that Cassidy would want me to pull over so that we could take a picture, but neither of us was really in the mood.

Just a little way into the town I found a liquor store and pulled in. We both hopped out since the plan had always been that we’d pick up our drinks for the week here in Page - food was being organized by the woman who organized the trip, and we’d paid money ahead for it.

As we walked into the store from the parking lot I noticed that Cassidy hadn’t bruised, thank God, but she did look like she had a red welt in the shape of some fingers crawling out from her daisy dukes onto the top of her thigh.

Inside the store, I quickly went to the back and got a case of Heineken for myself, and a case of a cider Cassidy liked, while she stayed near the front of the store to fetch the liquors we liked for mixing and some wine from the racks. As I walked back carrying the two heavy boxes of bottles I saw Cassidy had a freezer door open and was selecting some mixers to go with the vodka and was slightly bent over at the waist. Beyond her, a greasy-looking guy was lounging at the counter working a toothpick in his teeth and staring at Cassidy’s ass.

A surge of revulsion and anger rolled through me, but I managed to quash it.

Cassidy stood up, slipping two mixers into the basket she was carrying and turned to walk to the counter with me. As I glanced over at her I noticed that her crop top was showing off two obvious nipple bumps.

Now, usually, this would embarrass the hell out of her and she would want me to signal that it was happening. On any normal day I would, discreetly, and she’d either use me to block or she’d head out to the car.

But I was still pissed off, and resentful. And even though I knew it was petty, I didn’t say anything.

As I approached the counter, the store clerk flicked his toothpick away behind the counter and stood up, obviously eyeing Cassidy. I set the two cases I was carrying on the counter and turned, taking the basket of bottles from my fiancee.

She smiled at me, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses but I could still see the sadness in that smile. The guilt. The grief. The self-loathing.

Fuck, I was being a child.

I fished the truck keys out of my pocket and handed them to her. “I’ll take care of this,” I said. “Go get the gate unlocked and the cooler ready.”

““Kay,” she nodded, and I could tell she wanted to go up on her tiptoes and give me a peck on the lips, but she hesitated. She wasn’t sure if that would be OK, and that killed me. It fucked with my head. Made me feel like the bad guy. But I wasn’t.

I turned back to the counter, and she sauntered out of the store.