Page 3 of Scarlet Thorns

“I’m calling it suspicious. Normal people don’t research symptoms for weeks instead of just making a doctor’s appointment. Normal people don’t avoid their boyfriend formysterious health issues that only seem to affect them when it’s convenient.”

Heat floods my face, a combination of anger and humiliation that makes my hands shake.

“You know what’s suspicious? Your immediate assumption that I must be cheating instead of considering that I might actually be telling you the truth.”

“Can you blame me?” Stanley sets down his glass and crosses his arms. “After everything that happened with Melissa, I know what deception looks like.”

The reference to his ex-girlfriend makes my back stiffen. Melissa, who I caught him with six months ago in his office. Melissa, whose moans I heard through the closed door before I walked in on them. Melissa, who he fucked on his desk while I was at home planning a surprise dinner for our anniversary.

“Are you serious right now?” I can barely get the words out. “You’re comparing your actual cheating— which I witnessed with my own eyes— to your paranoid theories about my medical issues?”

“I apologized for that. I made it right.”

“You apologized, yes. But making it right would have involved rebuilding trust, not using your guilt as an excuse to become suspicious and controlling.”

Stanley’s jaw tightens. “I’m not controlling.”

“No? Then what do you call interrogating me about where I’ve been? What do you call dismissing my pain as lies and excuses? What do you call accusing me of cheating because I’m not in the mood for sex?”

“I call it being realistic about what happens when someone completely changes their behavior without an explanation.”

“I gave you an explanation. You just don’t want to believe it.”

“Because it doesn’t make sense!” Stanley’s composure finally cracks completely. “If you’re really in that much pain, why haven’t you done anything about it? Why are you choosing to suffer instead of getting help?”

The question hits too close to home because I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Why haven’t I made that appointment? Why do I keep hoping this will resolve itself? Why am I so afraid of finding out what’s wrong?

“Because I’m scared,” I admit quietly. “Because I don’t know what they’ll find. Because my mother always told me that women just have to deal with pain and I’ve been trying to deal with it on my own.”

For a moment, Stanley’s expression softens slightly. “Ilona—”

“But you know what I’m more scared of now?” I continue. “I’m more scared of staying with someone who assumes the worst about me instead of trying to understand what I’m going through.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Isn’t it? I tell you I’m in pain, and you call me a liar. I tell you I need space to figure out what’s wrong with my body, and you accuse me of infidelity. What part of that sounds like understanding to you?”

Stanley runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, messing it for the first time all evening. “I just… I need to know that we’re okay. That you’re still committed to this relationship.”

“My commitment was never in question. But yours might be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I look around his pristine apartment, taking in the expensive furniture and carefully curated art. Everything here reflects his taste, his preferences, his vision of how life should look. There’s nothing of me in this space except for a singlephoto of us tucked away on a bookshelf, almost like an afterthought.

“It means that the second things got difficult, you decided I must be the problem. You didn’t ask how you could help. You didn’t offer to come to a doctor’s appointment with me. You didn’t even consider that I might be telling the truth. You just jumped straight to betrayal.”

“Because that’s what my experience has taught me.”

“Your experience? You mean the experience whereyoucheated onme?”

Stanley flinches. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I told you the truth about it. Eventually.”

“Eventually. After I caught you. After you tried to gaslight me into thinking I’d misunderstood what I saw.” The memories are flooding back now, sharp and painful. “Just like you’re trying to gaslight me now into thinking my pain isn’t real.”