It just so happened I had to run to the grocery store, and I figured maybe I would casually stop in front of his house and introduce myself—be a friendly neighbor.
It all went downhill from there.
Frankie smiled at me as I rolled down my window. He wal
ked up to my car, and I don’t know what happened between that minute and eight hours later, but I fell asleep in that man’s bed.
Thinking back on it now, we never took one step backward. Whatever it was we had, was the true definition of insta-love, and now I know why people laughed when I told them it was love at first sight.
Clearly, I was blind to reality.
Everything was perfect. Frankie Cameron was perfect.
Was.
Frankie told me I was beautiful each and every morning, right when I woke up, even when I knew I looked like a zombie. He held doors open for me and walked on the side of the curb closest to the moving cars. Frankie even cooked. How could I have not fallen in love so fast? Frankie made me feel like the luckiest woman alive.
Until today.
Today, I feel like the dumbest woman who has ever stepped foot on this earth.
Today, I want to know what Frankie fancies about red-heads with freckles.
Today, I want to hear that Frankie is experiencing a bout of amnesia and forgot we have been married for eight years.
I doubt that’s the case, however.
Her name is Amber. Amber has the same shade of red hair as I do, and freckles along her spine, just like me. Amber looks to be about ten years younger, though.
“Oh, Amber, babe … right there—” Frankie moans.
“Do you want me to get that for her?” I ask.
Frankie’s head snaps upright with shock. His face falls into a look of destruction. “Who is this?” Amber asks.
“His wife,” I answer for him, somehow remaining entirely too calm. “I placed your purse by the door. You can see yourself out now.”
In silence, Frankie and I watch as Amber makes her way across the bedroom, picking up her strewn clothes along the way. She doesn’t even seem embarrassed that I walked in on them, or to be naked in my bedroom, for that matter. She’s doing little to cover her perfectly trim body.
Once we hear the front door open and close, I tilt my head to the side.
I will not cry. I refuse to give him that.
“Let me guess: you can explain?”
I take a few steps closer, taking advantage of the fact that he’s naked and won’t be flying around the room to escape my wrath.
“What’s there to explain? You caught me cheating on you.” Wrong answer, dickhead.
I lift his pants from the floor and throw them at him with all my strength. “Why wouldn’t you just leave me if you were unhappy with me? Why hurt me in this way, Frankie?”
Frankie combs his fingers through his hair and closes his eyes. “It’s been two months, Rose. You haven’t touched me in two months.”
I haven’t. It’s because I smelled a rat. Or perfume. I smelled the perfume and saw a hickey on his neck. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, but I couldn’t convince myself enough to look at my husband the way I had looked at him for the years prior.
“You started cheating on me three months ago. The first time you cheated, I smelled the perfume. The second, third, and fourth, I smelled extra cologne that you used to cover up the scent she left behind. Her name popped up on your phone while you were in the bathroom one night, and then two weeks ago to the day, you came home with a hickey on your neck. How hard were you trying to hide this, Frankie?”
“She came onto me,” he says.