Page 86 of The Fake WIfe Playbook

But there she is, practically glowing behind my eyes, smug and satisfied. The I-told-you-so doesn't even have to be said out loud. It’s just there—coiled around my ribs like barbed wire.

I trusted him. Iletmyself trust him. I fell for him, like a total idiot.

And now I get to be the girl whose fake husband was caught cozying up to his real ex while I was out of town, trying to make peace with my mother.

My mother is going toeat this alive.

And the worst part? I did know better. And I still fell in love. Even now, I remember how cute he was hauling that huge silver cup all over town. The look on his face talking to the kids at the skating rink, and his eyes, when they bore into me every time we made love, like it was the first time.

Damn him.Why did he have to ruin it?

“Are you sure you don’t want tea? Or whiskey?” Shay’s voice floats in from the kitchen.

“Both,” I mutter, curling deeper into her couch. I’ve been in the same leggings for two days. My eyes are puffy, and I’m pretty sure my soul is trying to leak out through my tear ducts. The more I cry, the less I’ll pee. I guess that’s a silver lining.

She walks in with a mug and a shot glass, like the absolute legend she is, and hands them both over without comment.

“I hate him,” I whisper.

“You don’t.”

“Iwantto.”

Shay sits beside me, tucks her legs under her, and waits. She doesn’t push. She lets me unload.

“I believed him,” I say finally, voice cracking. “I thought—I thought maybe this fake thing had become something real. I thought hesawme. And then I see that picture and it’s like... none of it mattered.”

Shay’s quiet for a beat. “Maybe it did. Maybe it scared the hell out of him.”

“Then why didn’t he fight for me?”

That silence is heavier. I take the whiskey. It burns, but not enough to make my heart hurt less.

“I can’t go back, Shay. Not after this. Not after everyone knows. My mother will have a field day. I’ll be the girl who married a hockey god and still wasn’t good enough.”

“You weren’t the one who wasn’t enough.”

I laugh. It’s bitter and wet. “Then why am I the one crying on your couch?”

No answer.

God, I miss him, and I hate that I do.

And I don’t know what hurts more: the betrayal—or the fact that, deep down,I still want him to be the one to fix it.

The worst part is the silence in my head.

It’s not the kind that means peace. It’s the kind that waits for you to breathe wrong, so it can pounce.

And it does. No matter what Shay says, I still wonder,Why wasn’t I enough?

It hits like a punch to the chest. I don’t say it out loud. I don’t have to. The words just bloom in my ribcage, heavy and poisonous, pressing on my lungs until I can barely inhale.

What does she have that I don’t?

Tess. God, even her name sounds like something out of a perfume ad. She’s tall. Effortless. That kind of girl who can eat pasta in public and still look like she moonlights as a Pilates instructor. And she doesn’t flinch from cameras like I do. She leans into them. Like she knows they’ll love her. Like she’s always known.

I hate that I remember her perfume—spicy, expensive, laced in every air kiss and “babe, wehaveto catch up soon.”