“Just down on the couch,” she said. Her voice sounded light, but tense, like she was trying to sound happy.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just tired. Lots of traveling. Jet lag and all that.”
Chris walked to the couch and found her wrapped up in a wool blanket, her knees pulled to her chest, a cup of tea clutched tight in her hands.
“Want me to light the fire for you?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go to bed soon.”
Chris didn’t know what to do, what to say. He sat on the end of the couch, not too far but not too close.
“Do you...feel weird about—?” It was as far as Chris made it in his question before Joey’s head dropped to her knees and he heard the unmistakable sound of tears.
“Fuck, Joey, what’s wrong?” He moved in closer, terrified to touch her when she was so clearly upset and yet desperate to be near her.
“I’m sorry.” She choked out the words between soft sobbing breaths. “It’s not you, I swear.”
“What is it?”
She raised her head and rubbed tears off her cheeks on the corner of the blanket.
“It’s really over.”
“What is?”
“Me and Ben.”
“Yeah, I assumed it was.”
“No, you don’t get it. I’ve never cheated on any guy in my life. I wouldn’t. And you and I had sex. And since we did, that means I know it’s over, because I wouldn’t have sex with someone else if it wasn’t. I guess... I guess it just hit me that it’s over over.”
“You want it to be over, right? I mean, he’s married.”
“Yes, I definitely don’t want to date a married man. I don’t. But for two years I didn’t know he was married. For two years he was just my boyfriend. Mine. All mine. I thought.”
“You lost a lot here. You lost your boyfriend and you lost your whole vision of who you thought he was.”
“I’m just so stupid. How could I not know? Of course he was married. He never wanted me to come to LA? Never? Not once? Like what did I think that was about? He thought I’d break up with him because the traffic’s so bad? Seriously—what was I thinking?”
“I dated a girl for two years without meeting her parents. It just never worked out time-wise with our schedules. It wasn’t like she secretly kept her parents chained up in the basement. You just took him at his word. You wanted to believe you were dating an honest man. You wanted to believe the best in someone. That’s not stupid.”
“It feels stupid. It feels like I’m stupid.”
“You aren’t. You’re a good person who got lied to. We all get lied to. My ex cheated on me two months with her new boyfriend before I figured it out.”
“Two months is not two years.”
“But she lied to me, and I believed it. You just dated a really good liar.”
“His poor wife—she must hate me.”
“If she’s a good person, she hates him, not you.”
“Unless he lied to her.”
“That’s not your problem. Their marriage is not your problem.”