After everyone left, Jason and I stood in the quiet kitchen surrounded by dirty dishes and half-eaten food.
He turned to me. “I am so, so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think she’d go that far.”
“It’s not your fault she’s like that,” I said.
“It kind of is,” he said. “I let her get away with it for too long. I promise you, this was the last time.”
He pulled me into his arms and held me until my shoulders relaxed.
Over the next few months, everything changed.
Richard moved out. Diane exploded, cried, begged, then raged. She blamed me, blamed him, blamed everyone but herself.
The cheating came fully into the open. So did the credit cards and the trips she’d claimed were “girls’ weekends” but were actually gambling binges.
Richard stopped cleaning up her messes.
He came over for dinner a lot. He’d bring a bottle of wine and stories about apartment hunting and therapy.
“First time I’ve slept through the night in years,” he said once. “It’s quiet. No drama.”
Diane, on the other hand, burned through the money she got in the divorce like it was on fire. She posted pictures on social media of fancy lunches and shopping trips like nothing had changed.
Then the posts slowed. Then they stopped.
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