Page 135 of The Temptation of Truth

Lifting Mabel’s coat, I find my sandals, but then my eyes catch on a small, rectangular card on the floor beside them. It looks like the kind of card you’d get with a flower delivery. I remember a lot of those after the accident. This one isn’t expressingDeepest Sympathies, though. It’s got red hearts on it, and the print says...

My heart trips over itself as I read the card once, then twice, before turning to Mabel.

“What’s this?”

Guilt transforms her face, and it’s like a knife to the chest. It doesn’t hurt, though. It just renders me numb. I’ve been abundle of live wire nerves since waking up this morning, and my body can’t handle any more. It just shuts off.

“She sent me flowers yesterday. I threw them away, but I still should have told you.”

Yesterday.

Before or after I told her I wanted a divorce? Is that why she was so insistent that I not make the decision based on her?

Kat wants to go public. Kat misses her. This is what Mabel wanted. I close my eyes and breathe.

“You threw away the flowers but kept the card.”

“It’s not like that. I swear.”

I push to standing and hold her eye contact. My heart might me breaking, but I’m too exhausted to feel it.

“Have you texted her since getting the flowers?”

“No.”

“So not even to tell her you’re not interested.”

I watch sorrow flood her eyes, and that’s the first pinch of pain. Since I’ve met her, Mabel has never looked at me with sympathy, with pity, until right now.

“Did you consider it? Her offer. She said she wants to go public. Have you considered it?”

She stays silent, and that turns the pinch into a cut.

“Foundation of truth, Mabel. Have you considered it?”

She exhales. “Yes.”

My eyes fall shut as the word slices through me, and I imagine myself bleeding from my chest. I wish I could go back to the numb.

I turn toward the door, but she wraps her hand around my wrist and stops me.

“It’s not like that, Aurora. I was going to contact her today. I just haven’t had a chance.”

Logically, it makes sense, but I’m struggling to think straight right now. Too much is going on. Too much is happening.

Kat misses her. Kat wants to go public. Mabel considered it. It’s what Mabel wanted from the beginning.

Meanwhile, my husband, whom I don’t love, is downstairs right now being insulted by Sav Loveless. I want to leave my husband. I’ve been fantasizing about a life without him. But Mabel, the one I have been picturing in his place, is considering an offer from her ex, the tall, gorgeous, famous model.

God, I can’t even process it all. It’s too much, too fast, and it hurts too much to think about, so I don’t even try. I force a plastic smile and cue up my happy homemaker tone of voice.

“It’s fine. You have to do what’s right for you, right? I’m happy for you. You and Kat make a beautiful couple.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t talk to me like I’m him.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re acting like you don’t care. You’re lying. We don’t lie, remember?”