Page 4 of Cruel Summer

TWO

I can’t begin to explain this via text. We need to get coffee.

She fired off the message to her group text with Whitney and Elysia before the sun was up, and before Will, who had slept in one of the boys’ old rooms, she assumed, was up.

She hated running with an all-consuming passion, though she often made herself do it anyway, but this morning it wasn’t for her health. It functioned as an escape.

She put earbuds in, music on. She hated to hear herself gasping for breath when she ran. It was just demoralizing.

Her thoughts followed the rhythm of her feet as she ran down the sidewalk, toward the coffeehouse she always met her friends at. She supposed she’d find out once she got there if they had time to meet.

She had to leave her house either way.

What will we tell the kids?

What if we tried it?

What if he’s got a twenty-year-old girlfriend?

He said he didn’t.

But he might be a liar.

He’s a stranger.

He’s a stranger.

He’s a stranger.

She let that one play over and over again, because it was upsetting and satisfying all at once.

She stopped in front of the coffeehouse and took one of her earbuds out, and then she could hear her breathing, which sounded less winded from working out and more shattered.

When she touched her cheek, she realized there was a tear on it.

She wiped it away quickly, then leaned against the brick facade of the coffeehouse, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her leggings.

Pony after drop-off? From Elysia.

Yep. From Whitney.

She looked up at the black-and-gold sign for Pony Espresso, their standard meeting place because they had coffee, avocado toast, and cake, so all moods could be served.

Here.

She walked inside, and grimaced when she saw most of the tables were full. It was loud, though. The sounds of the coffee grinder and the clatter of forks and knives combined with the chatter were a relief in some ways.

She’d been mad at Will for dropping his bombshell on her in public, but thinking about trying to explain what had happened last night in the relative silence of one of her friend’s kitchens felt impossible.

It would be better if all her words could be dampened here by the normal town gossip, which usually included such scandalous tidbits as the pastor of the local megachurch using tithes to finance his new hilltop house and the owner of Bella Notte stealing lettuce from the neighboring deli’s produce deliveries.

She ordered a piece of cake and a coffee. She wasn’t going to pretend she was out for her health today. This was all about coping strategies.

Not that she knew which coping strategies you were supposed to employ when your husband asked for an open marriage.

An open marriage.

She took her carrot cake and coffee to a four-person table in the back corner of the dining room and sighed with relief when Elysia walked in, her red hair piled on her head in an epic messy bun that looked like it had taken real effort when Sam knew that it hadn’t.

Elysia had been styling her wild curls that way since high school.

In contrast, Sam had tried many things with her extremely straight brown hair over the years.

From making it burgundy to making it blond and trying to style it with a little bit of wave.

Right now she had bangs. A mistake she made every five years or so.

Elysia’s hair wasn’t the only thing that hadn’t changed much since high school. She was committed to low-rise jeans and hoop earrings. She was a flurry of movement. Hair and jewelry and the fluttering caftan she had on over her white tank top.

She held up a hand and gestured toward the counter, indicating she was going to order, and Sam waved back.

Whitney came in a few minutes later, her short dark hair perfectly styled, her makeup more suited to an evening out than morning coffee in a small town.

Her steps were short and decisive as she crossed to the table, her wedge heels loud on the wooden floor.

Whitney was the shortest in the friend group, by a lot, and always wore shoes that gave her a little bit of a lift.

She stopped and turned to the line, where Elysia had just made it to the front. She grandly mouthed coffee , then nodded and continued to the table and sat down directly across from Sam.

“What’s going on?”

“I can’t say it twice,” said Sam, looking down at her cake.

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. Really yikes.”

“I’m glad you texted early. I don’t have any clients until ten.” Whitney did nails at a salon down the street.

“Well, that’s good. We might need the whole three house.”

Elysia appeared a minute later in a flutter, with coffees and two avocado toasts.

“Oh, thanks,” said Whitney, pulling a coffee cup and a slice of toast toward her.

“Welcome. Okay, what’s going on?”

She took a deep breath. She’d known these girls since middle school. Known them since before her first kiss with Will. She didn’t know if that made this easier or harder.

“Will… Um. He…” She took a bite of her cake and couldn’t even enjoy the rich cream cheese frosting. For God’s sake, the man had broken her. She put her fork down and pushed the plate away. “He asked for an open marriage.”

Elysia and Whitney just stared. Then looked at each other. Then back at Sam. “He…” Elysia said at the same time Whitney said, “What…”

“Will,” Whitney said. “ Will asked you for an open marriage. Straight-arrow, khaki-pants, never-drinks-more-than-one-glass-of-wine Will?”

That almost made Sam laugh, but only almost, because actually, it brought up a very good point. All the ways in which Will lived his life—cautiously and expectedly—had always seemed like his own impulses, and certainly not something to be pushed off onto her or the institution of marriage.

He was a reasonable man. Down to his socks, which always matched.

That made her feel a little more validated in her reaction. He’d never done anything to suggest he wanted something like this. She’d had no reason to suspect he wasn’t as content with things as she was.

“Yeah, the very one,” she said. “I… I don’t know what to do.” She could feel tears threatening again, tears she didn’t want to cry here, or ever, actually, because tears felt helpless, and what she hated most about this was feeling helpless.

“I don’t know what to say ,” said Whitney. “He just doesn’t even remotely seem like the type.”

“Oh,” Sam said, laughing now instead of crying. “I know. You can imagine my shock when he said this to me while we were out on a date.”

“This happened last night ?” Elysia asked.

“Yes.”

“What did he say he wants, exactly?”

She felt exasperated because she couldn’t say she really understood what he wanted, even after the discussion last night.

“To have sex with other women. I mean, he said it was more than that, but that’s…

you know that is the real sticking point for me.

We’ve never… He’s the only man I’ve been with.

I’m the only woman he’s been with. It’s… I can’t even process it.”

Her friends were quiet for a moment. “What do you want?” Whitney asked slowly.

“Uh…to not have to think about this? To have not ever heard my husband say that? To go back to my wildly happy, perfect life? Because that’s what I had.

That’s what I’ve always had. You know that.

He and I…we’re us . You know what I mean.

It’s been us since we were sixteen. We’re the forever ones.

” She shook her head. “I just can’t… I can’t believe him.

I can’t…” Hysteria suddenly had her in its grip.

Panic was making her heart beat faster, making her breath short.

“I was this man’s first kiss. His only. He’s jeopardizing our life, us , because he wants to have sex with other people. ”

“I mean…at least he told you, assuming he hasn’t already done it.” Elysia’s words were soft, firm, and felt a little unfair.

Though it was Elysia’s husband’s affair that had driven home some very deep truths about her own possessiveness.

You have to leave him , she’d told Elysia then. How can you stand knowing he touched someone else?

“He says he hasn’t. But I don’t know how that makes it better. He’s turned it into some kind of thing where he expects me to, like, sign a permission slip, and if I don’t do it, I’m holding him back, and if I do…”

“No, it is better,” said Elysia, looking at her directly now.

“I’m not saying it’s easy or nice to hear.

I just know what it’s like when your husband does something behind your back and makes you feel like a fool.

I know what it feels like to have him already make those decisions about your relationship without bothering to tell you. ”

Sam closed her eyes. The thing was, she did feel like a fool.

Will’s I’m not happy was haunting her.

She felt like a fool for happily living her happy life while her husband was decidedly unhappy in it.

“But I have to do something. Decide something. I love him. I want to be with him.”

Elysia nodded slowly. “You know, when Jake cheated on me, I didn’t want to leave him. Because I loved him, and finding out he…did that didn’t immediately destroy that love. But I couldn’t get past what he did, either. He didn’t ask me to. He blamed me. That made it easier to leave.”

Will wasn’t blaming her. Maybe that was why she was starting to feel like this was worse. He was talking to her. Sharing with her. He was doing all the things you were supposed to want people you loved to do. But she hated what he was sharing. She didn’t know how to get around that.

“I… I take your point,” she said. “But like, what am I supposed to do? Do I do it? And then what? Is this how you end up at suburban sex parties? Am I destined for a life of upside-down pineapples?”

She knew everyone in her suburb. The idea of having a sex party with any of them was…ugh.

“I think swinging and open relationships are different,” Whitney pointed out.