Page 2 of What Broke First (The Cheating A$$hole #1)

The kitchen was eerily quiet, the only sound the soft tick of the clock on the wall.

Matt sat at the table, his hands clasped tightly in front of him, his eyes fixed on his wife, Sarah, across from him. He had just confessed to the affair, and now he waited, the weight of the words.

“I slept with someone else,”

hanging in the air.

Sarah blinked once. Slowly. Like she hadn’t heard him right. Then, finally:

“Who?”

He hesitated. A heartbeat too long.

“Lily,”

he said, his voice thick.

“The assistant from my office.”

Sarah laughed. Once. It wasn’t a genuine laugh; it was sharp yet hollow.

“The one in the tight skirts and see-through blouses? That Lily?”

He flinched.

“It wasn’t planned. It was stupid. It…”

“It was your exit strategy,”

she said, cutting him off. Her voice was steady, but every word hit like a slap.

“You have two children upstairs. A wife. And apparently a wandering eye and a restless dick.”

Her face drained of color, and for a moment, he thought she might hold it together. But the tears broke through anyway, spilling unchecked. She didn’t wipe them away. She just stared at him as if the man she’d married had been swapped out for a stranger.

“How could you?”

she whispered.

“How could you do this to us?”

Sarah reached for her coffee cup with trembling hands. It was empty, but she gripped it anyway, like it was the only thing anchoring her to the table.

Something crumpled inside Matt, slowly and painfully. He wanted to reach out to comfort her, but he knew he had no right to do so.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,”

he said, his voice thick with emotion.

“I never meant for this to happen. It just... it just got out of control.”

Sarah shook her head, a sob escaping her lips.

“Out of control? Matt, we have two children! Tommy and Emily need their father. I need…”

She trailed off, covering her face with her hands.

Then, quieter.

“Was something wrong with us? With me?”

Matt’s chest clenched. “No,”

he said quickly.

“God, no. You’re… Sarah, this wasn’t about you.”

“Then why?”

she asked, her voice small now.

“Was it... was it our sex?”

Matt looked down at the table.

“We hadn’t had sex in a while,”

he said softly.

“But that’s not…”

He looked up.

“But that doesn’t mean this was your fault. I was tired and weak. I didn’t even know how lonely I was until it was too late.”

She dropped her hands and looked at him. Her expression was a jagged blend of pain and disbelief. She didn’t recognize the man across from her. Not the man she married. Not the man who used to make grocery lists on napkins and dance in the kitchen when no one was looking.

This man was tired. Hollow. A stranger with her husband’s face, saying things that shattered everything she thought she knew.

“Do you love her?”

“What?”

His eyes widened.

“No! Sarah. No. I don’t love her. I don’t even know her.”

She nodded once, slow and deliberate.

“So it wasn’t love. Just...a good fuck? How often do you fuck strangers, Matt?

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes flat, then shoved back from the table. The chair legs screeched across the floor. A low sound rumbled in her throat as she tipped her head to the side until her neck cracked. She crossed her arms, holding herself tight, then looked at him again, her gaze steady, heat rising like a warning he couldn’t mistake.

“How long?”

Matt swallowed.

“This is the only time. It happened once.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“So you ruined our family for once. Good to know you’re efficient.”

“I’m sorry,”

he said again. Uselessly.

“Don’t say that! Why do you keep saying that? You’re not sorry you fucked her,”

she snapped. Her voice cracked then, the first sign that the real anger was close.

“You don’t get to be sorry right now. You get to pack your things. You get to explain to Tommy and Emily why Daddy’s not sleeping in the house anymore. You get to live with this.”

Matt felt a gut punch of guilt. He thought of Tommy, their eight-year-old son, who always looked up to him with such admiration, and Emily, their five-year-old daughter, who adored him unconditionally. He knew he had betrayed them, too.

“I know I’ve hurt you, all of you,”

he said, his voice breaking.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Sarah dropped her hands, looking at him with a mixture of anger and pain.

“But you did,”

she said, her voice steadier now.

“You can leave now.”

Matt felt a tear slip down his cheek. “I know,”

he whispered.

“And I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”

Sarah looked away, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“I don’t know if you can,”

she said finally.

“I don’t know if we can ever be right again.”

Matt nodded, swallowing hard. He knew she was right. He had broken something that might never be fixed. But as he looked at her, at the pain etched across her face, he knew he had to try.

Matt stood, panic surging.

“Sarah, please...”

She turned her back on him.

“I’m serious, Matt. I want you out of this house before they wake up.”

And just like that, he was dismissed. From the table. From the kitchen. From their life.

That night, Matt packed a small bag and stood at the top of the stairs, frozen. Tommy’s door was cracked open, the glow of a night light spilling out into the hallway. He heard the soft sound of breathing. His little boy, still dreaming, still innocent.

He walked past Emily’s room and stopped again. Her stuffed unicorn had fallen to the floor. He wanted to pick it up. He didn’t. His throat burned as he turned away.

He went to Lily’s apartment.

She opened the door, her smile faltering when she saw the strain carved into his face.

“You look wrecked,”

she said, catching his hand. Her grip was firm, insistent.

“Come inside.”

“I told Sarah,”

he said.

“I left. And now I’m here, because I don’t know where else to go.”

Once the door shut, she pressed closer, her voice low.

“You’re brave, you know that?”

He didn’t feel brave. Not even close.

She pulled him deeper inside, steering him toward the couch with a certainty that didn’t waver. Her eyes flicked over him, hungry.

“You need this,”

she whispered.

“You need me.”

Matt sank onto the cushions, his body heavy, his mind still stuck in Sarah’s kitchen, her voice dismissing him, Tommy’s night light glowing down the hall, Emily’s unicorn on the floor. His stomach clenched, but then Lily was on her knees, her hands at his belt.

“Lily—”

he managed, voice raw.

She looked up, her mouth curving.

“Shh. Let me.”

His head tipped back against the couch. Eyes closed. His body gave in, even while his mind fractured under the weight of everything he’d lost.

Later, lying in her bed, listening to her soft, contented breathing, he felt the hollowness yawning wider inside him. He had gotten what he thought he wanted, but at what cost?

Sarah’s face. Tommy’s trust. Emily’s unicorn. Alone in that big house without him.

He wondered if this was desire or just the biggest mistake of his life.