I try to imagine being a new wife and finding my husband’s journal where he wrote about loving someone else. I would’ve been broken. “She loved you the way…”
“The way I loved you.”
“God, that’s…sad.”
“I couldn’t leave her. I felt this intense sense of moral responsibility to fix things. I tried. God, I fucking tried. Cutting you out was hard, but watching her grow to hate me ate at me. I worked as much as I could because she seemed happier when I wasn’t around.”
What a horrible way to live. “I wanted you to be happy, it makes me incredibly sad that you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t always unhappy. There were good times before the journal appeared. And afterward, she tried to get over it. But she couldn’t. And eventually she and I settled into a routine where we became a version of friends, mostly for Everly’s sake, but she also loved me.”
“Do you miss her?” I ask the question and instantly wish I could take it back. There’s no right answer to that and I don’t want him to be uncomfortable. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, I do, I promised myself when we started this that no matter what, I will tell you the truth and we’ll work through it.”
My finger moves making patterns on his chest as I wait.
“Yes, I do miss her. We may not have been married like most couples and our relationship was more like roommates, but she was my wife for thirteen years. She was my friend, the mother of my child, and had she not died, we’d still be living the life we settled into.” His eyes move back to mine and then he shakes his head slightly. “That said, I’m happy to be out of the relationship we had. But I wish that it wasn’t her death that brought you to me.”
“I wish it wasn’t that either.”
I never wanted Meghan to die. I didn’t understand what happened with all of us, but the last thing I would’ve wished was for something to happen to her.
We both fall quiet, and then he clears his throat. “My question. Since we’re onto the heavy stuff and I was planning to ask about orgasms and positions, I figure we’ll shift to trial and error with those.” I giggle and roll my eyes. “Why did Keith give up all of his rights and, follow-up to that, why the hell would you let him?”
Jesus, I don’t want to answer this. I wish I had built in a veto option to this game. But this is Derek. Derek won’t judge me. He never has. Nina is the only person who knows. I was too mortified to tell another soul.
I sit up, pulling the sheet around me, clutching it like it might save me if this goes a different way. I don’t know that anyone will want to be with someone who has a sex tape looming out there.
My stomach is in knots and I open my mouth but shut it.
“Hey,” he says at my distress. “What is it? Why do you look like you’re going to be sick?”
I don’t want to look in his eyes, but he has been honest with me and I need to do the same. “It’s bad.”
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
He might after this.
“After Chastity was born, Keith insisted on a paternity test, which was ridiculous, considering he was the only man I’d ever been with, but he didn’t believe me. By that point, I knew he was probably screwing around on me, but I didn’t care or maybe I did, I don’t know. Anyway, I granted the test immediately and that’s when the floor dropped out and I found out what lengths he would go to in order to get his way.”
“What did he do?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“It wasn’t just him, Derek. I was stupid. I trusted him when we were together. I wanted him to…I don’t know…fill the hole in my heart. I thought that maybe Keith could love me until you were ready to. I was in college and we were drinking and I did dumb things during that time. I let him…” My stomach heaves and I want to throw up. Instead, tears form at my mortification. I’ve always been ashamed of trusting him, but saying it to someone I love, makes self-hatred so much worse. “I let him tape us.”
“Tape you?”
I look up, begging him to understand without having to say the words. “Yes, when we were…”
“A sex tape?”
I nod as the bile climbs up my throat.
“And he what?”
“He threatened to expose it. To leak the tape and ensure my daughter had to live in that shadow.”
Derek’s eyes close and he releases a heavy breath through his nose. “He threatened you?”
“He gave me a choice. I either let him sign his rights away or he would ensure that my life was the one that was altered.”
A tear falls down my face. I’m so ashamed. I knew better and yet I didn’t say anything when he said he wanted to do it. Men often come out of sex tapes as the hero in some way—it’s women who bear the fallout. I was young and if I didn’t live in this town where everyone’s memories fade but scandal never does, I could’ve told him to fuck off. However, I do live here, and in order to make sure Chastity never had to deal with it, I let him off the hook.
I protected her, myself, my family, and any future I might’ve had. Not only would Keith never love our daughter, but he would also have made it so the town she was surrounded by whispered more than they do now.
In the distance, I hear my phone ring, but I can’t move to answer. I wait for Derek to respond, because I’m dying inside.
“Who else knows?” he asks.
I see it now,
