Page 11 of What Broke First (The Cheating A$$hole #1)

Matt waited in the school parking lot, engine off, fingers drumming the steering wheel. When Sarah appeared, her stride was brisk, purposeful. She didn’t expect to see him.

“I have ten minutes before gymnastics,”

she said flatly, not slowing.

“I’ll make it quick,”

he said, stepping out.

“Would you come to therapy with me?”

She blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“My therapist suggested it. I go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Five-thirty. Sometimes it runs late. This Thursday, she wants us both there.”

“I don’t think so,”

she said without hesitation.

“Therapy isn’t going to unscramble the eggs, Matt.”

He followed her a few steps.

“It’s not about fixing what’s passed. It’s about understanding it. So I stop repeating it. So you don’t have to keep sweeping up after the emotional wreckage I caused.”

She opened her car door.

“That sounds noble. But this isn’t my mess to mop up.”

“Then come tell me that to my face in front of someone who gets paid to keep us civil,”

he said.

“You deserve the floor, Sarah. Take it.”

She hesitated.

“Okay, fine.”

Thursday came. At 5:31, the door opened. Sarah stepped in. The therapist’s office was too warm. Or maybe that was just Sarah’s skin tightening around her bones. She paused in the doorway, eyes sweeping the neutral walls and soft lighting like she was casing the place before deciding if she’d stay.

Dr. Colleen stood to greet her with a calm, welcoming tone.

“You must be Sarah. Thank you for coming. Showing up is a sign you haven’t given up entirely.”

Sarah unbuttoned her coat but didn’t sit right away.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it. Showing up is also a sign that I keep my word.”

Matt rose from his chair, uncertain if he should say something, then sat back down.

Dr. Colleen nodded once and gestured to the seat next to Matt, though not too close.

“Still, you’re here. That matters. Let’s begin. Sarah, why don’t we start with you? What’s one question you’ve been carrying that you need Matt to answer?”

Sarah didn’t hesitate. She turned to him, eyes sharper than they’d been in weeks.

“Why did you cheat?”

Matt inhaled, slow and deliberate, like the breath might help him survive the words that needed to come next. His fingers knotted in his lap. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet but clear.

“I felt like a ghost in my own life,”

Matt said.

“Like I was walking around in someone else’s story. I had everything, but I wasn’t in it. I was... going through the motions. Job. Bills. Dinners. Parent-teacher nights. And somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like I mattered in any of it.”

He looked at the floor, then at her.

“Lily made me feel seen. Wanted. Like I was someone with heat and breath and skin again. And I didn’t realize how long I’d felt invisible until someone looked at me like I wasn’t.”

Sarah’s expression didn’t shift, but something flickered behind her eyes. Something gutted.

“You had everything,”

she said, voice strained.

“A good job. Healthy kids. A family. Me. I lived my life for you. Rearranged my dreams around yours. Handed you loyalty on a silver tray.”

Matt leaned forward, voice tight.

“You act like coming home every night to silence and cold shoulders was some kind of gift.”

Sarah’s jaw flexed.

“What did you just say?”

“I’m saying you made our house feel like a hotel lobby. We barely talked. We barely touched. You think I didn’t notice how little you even looked at me?”

“Were you looking at me, Matt?”

Her voice cracked open, sharp and shaking.

“I was the gift, Matt. I gave you my trust. My love. A vow of forever. And you traded it for a barely employed chaos goblin in a halter top.”

Dr. Colleen didn’t flinch at Sarah’s words. She waited a beat, letting the silence stretch just long enough to let the temperature drop from white-hot anger to something more reflective.

Then she leaned forward, her voice firm but steady.

“You two didn’t get here overnight. Affairs don’t begin with a kiss. They begin with erosion. With unspoken needs, unmet expectations, quiet dismissals. But here’s the thing...”

She looked at Sarah. Then at Matt.

“You both stopped seeing each other long before Lily came into the picture.”Matt stiffened. Sarah blinked, her jaw still clenched.

Dr. Colleen went on.

“Taking each other for granted is the slowest form of emotional death. It doesn’t look like a screaming match. It looks like an empty dinner table. Missed eye contact. Touch that stops feeling like comfort and starts feeling like an obligation. You both played a part in that.”

Sarah’s shoulders tightened.

“So, what, we’re equally to blame?”

“No,”

Dr. Colleen said gently.

“Responsibility isn’t a pie chart. There’s no neat division. Matt chose to betray your marriage. That’s his to own. But long before that, you each chose to stop reaching. And that’s what I want you to sit with.”

She let the weight of her words settle.

“You loved each other. I can see that. But love without effort becomes assumption. And assumption becomes resentment. That’s what kills most marriages, not the affair, but the silence that came before it.”

Neither of them spoke. The room felt smaller. Dr. Colleen leaned back slightly.

“The question now isn’t who’s right. It’s whether either of you has the desire and the courage to stop rewriting the same day with new blame. You don’t need to decide that today. But you will need to decide.”

Matt swallowed hard.

“I want to try. For real this time.”

Sarah stared at him. Her eyes didn’t soften. But for the first time, they didn’t harden either.

Dr. Colleen nodded.

“That’s a start.”

They left the therapist’s office in silence, the night cooler than either of them expected. Sarah folded her arms, more from instinct than chill.

Matt glanced at her, his expression unreadable.

“I meant what I said in there. I want to try.”

She kept walking. “I know.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

She stopped at the edge of the parking lot and turned.

“It’s not about belief, Matt. It’s about trust. You didn’t just betray me. You took something that only ever belonged to you, my certainty. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.”

He nodded, jaw tight.

“I get that.”

“I don’t think you do,”

she said, her voice low but steady.

“You lost me the moment I realized I didn’t matter in the world you were choosing to live in.”

He didn’t respond. What was there to say?

She unlocked her car and slid in, the door shutting with finality. Matt watched as her taillights disappeared, then stood alone beneath the weak glow of the parking lot light, wondering how many more times he’d have to watch her walk away.

Inside the car, Sarah exhaled hard and shook her head. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t spiraling. She was... considering. The steering wheel beneath her palms felt colder than it should have, and she sat motionless, letting the moment stretch.

She scrolled to Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, cranked the volume, and screamed every lyric with reckless abandon on the drive home. It wasn’t grace. It wasn’t healing. But it was catharsis.

Tomorrow night, she had a date. And no, it wasn’t about revenge or even hope. It was about reclaiming the version of herself that didn’t ask permission to feel good.