Chapter 4

MAYA

The sun had gone down hours ago but the house felt colder than the air outside. I sat on the edge of the sofa with my hands gripped together. Every time a car drove down the street my heart jumped. I knew the conversation with Sarah would not stay a secret. She was too honest to hide it and Liam was too connected to her now.

Lovely was sitting in the armchair across from me. She had stayed because she saw how much I was shaking. She had brought me a glass of water but I could not drink it. My throat felt like it was closing up.

"Maybe you should go to bed, Maya," Lovely said softly. "You are exhausted. You can talk to him tomorrow."

"No," I said. "I can't sleep. If I close my eyes I just see Sarah’s face. I have to wait for him."

At nearly midnight the headlights of Liam’s truck swept across the living room walls. The engine cut off and the silence that followed was terrifying. Then came the sound of the front door opening. It didn't just open. It hit the wall with a bang.

Liam walked into the room. He didn't even take off his chef’s coat. He looked like a storm that had finally reached the shore. His eyes were red and his mouth was a thin line of pure anger. He didn't even look at Lovely. He looked straight at me.

"What did you do?" he asked. His voice was low but it vibrated through the floorboards.

"Liam, I just wanted to talk," I started. I tried to stand up but my legs failed me. I stayed seated.

"You went to her house?" Liam stepped closer. "After everything you took from her? After you killed her husband? You had the nerve to walk onto her porch and ask her for favors?"

"I was desperate," I cried. "I am losing you, Liam! I can feel you going to her and I just wanted to ask her to give us a chance."

"Give us a chance?" Liam laughed and it was the most painful sound I had ever heard. "There is no us, Maya! I told you that. But you went and bothered a woman who is trying to heal from the wound you gave her. She called me crying. Do you know how hard it is for her to cry? She is usually so strong but you broke her peace today."

Lovely stood up and tried to step in. "Liam, she is just hurting. She isn't thinking straight."

"Stay out of this, Lovely," Liam snapped. He didn't turn his head. "This is between the woman I thought I married and the stranger standing in front of me."

I couldn't take it anymore. I pushed myself off the sofa. I ignored the walker. I ignored the pain in my hips. I let myself fall to the floor right at his feet. I grabbed the bottom of his trousers with my hands. I was on my knees, looking up at him with tears blinding me.

"Please, Liam," I begged. "I am begging you. Look at me. I am your wife. I made one mistake. Yes, it was a huge mistake. It was a terrible, horrible choice. But it was one time. Does one mistake mean I have to suffer for the rest of my life? Does it mean you have to throw away five years of marriage?"

Liam looked down at me. There was no love in his eyes. There was not even pity anymore. There was only disgust.

"One mistake?" he whispered. "You call it one mistake? You lied to me for months. You slept with another man while I was working double shifts to buy this house. You sat across from me at dinner and smiled while you were planning your next meeting with him. That is not a mistake, Maya. That is a series of choices. That is a lifestyle."

"I love you!" I screamed from the floor. "I love you more than anything!"

"You don't love me," Liam said. He reached down and pulled my hands off his clothes. He did it with so much strength that I fell back against the floor. "You love the safety I give you. You love the fact that I am a good man who would never do what you did. But guess what? Being a good man doesn't mean I have to be a fool."

"Don't leave me," I sobbed. I tried to crawl toward him. "Please, just hold me once. Just tell me you will try to love me again."

Liam stepped back as if I were something rotten. "Love you again? Maya, I find it hard to even breathe the same air as you. Every time I look at your face I see Mark’s dead body. Every time you touch me I feel his hands on you. Do you understand that? You are a walking reminder of the worst day of my life."

Lovely was crying now too. "Liam, stop. That is too much. Look at her. She is broken."

"She should be broken!" Liam shouted. He looked at Lovely and then back at me. "She wants to talk about suffering? She gets to live. She gets to have a friend like you. She gets to have a house. Sarah has a grave to visit. I have a memory of a wife that never really existed. Maya isn't the victim here. She is the architect of this whole nightmare."

I stayed on my knees, my head touching the carpet. The physical pain of being on the floor was nothing compared to the words he was throwing at me. He was making sure I felt every ounce of the fire I had started.

"You think you can just say sorry and have the world go back to normal," Liam continued. "But some things are broken beyond repair. You didn't just break a glass. You ground it into dust. You can't put dust back together."

"I will do anything," I whispered into the carpet. "I will leave the house. I will go to a different city. Just don't hate me. Please don't hate me."

"I don't even have the energy to hate you anymore," Liam said. His voice suddenly went flat and cold. "Hate is for people you care about. When I look at you now, I just feel empty. I see a woman who destroyed two families because she was bored. I see a woman who is so selfish she went to a widow’s house to complain about her own problems."

He walked toward the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked, lifting my head.

"I am going back to Sarah," he said.

"No!" I shrieked. "Not tonight. Not after this!"

"She needs me," Liam said. "And for the first time in my life, I am going to be where I am actually wanted. I am going to be with someone who knows the value of the truth."

"Liam, stay!" I reached out my hand.

He didn't even look back. He walked out the door and a moment later I heard his truck start up. He was gone. He was going back to the woman who was soft and kind. He was going to the angel while I was left in the dirt.

Lovely came over and sat on the floor next to me. She put her arms around me and pulled me into her lap. I cried until I couldn't breathe. I cried until my eyes were swollen shut.

"He hates me, Lovely," I choked out. "He really hates me."

"He is just angry, Maya," Lovely whispered, though her voice didn't sound like she believed it.

"No," I said. "He told me the truth. He fell in love with a lie and now he finally sees me. And he doesn't like what he sees."

I looked at the walker standing empty in the corner of the room. It looked like a skeleton. My whole life felt like a skeleton. All the beauty was gone. All the flesh and warmth were gone. I was just a pile of bones on the floor.

I had tried to beg for my life back. I had tried to force a man to love a woman he no longer recognized. But as the silence of the house settled back around us, I realized that Liam was right. I had made my choices. I had lit the match. And it wasn't his job to put out the fire while I was still holding the gas can.

I sat there on the floor with Lovely for hours. I didn't want to get up. I didn't want to go to the bed we used to share. I just wanted the world to stop turning. I wanted the ground to open up and take me away.