Mine by Courtney Cole

Author:Courtney Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

seventeen

TESSA

I sit in Ethan’s office, holding the hospital bill beneath the flashlight in my hand.

Line by line, the hospital outlined what was used to make my husband sterile, along with the prices. I flinch when I look at the date, knowing the reason this procedure was necessary . . . was her.

After insurance, we still paid over a thousand dollars for the procedure. A thousand dollars for my husband to safely have sex with someone else.

I wonder how much more money we’ve spent on Lindsey.

I stiffen my spine.

On his desk, Ethan has a framed photo of the two of us on one side, a family photo on the other. In both pictures, he has his arm wrapped easily around my waist, a familiar touch, a casualness born from years of being together. Years of loving each other. At least so I thought.

But if he loved me, how could he do any of this?

I scan the room. Everything in here has been touched by me. The draperies I chose, the wall color, even the heavy wooden desk. Ethan wouldn’t care if he worked on the floor. But I wanted him to have a nice office. Just like I wanted him to have a perfect life. I worked so hard to make it so. And to what end?

Here I sit. And there she is . . . just down the hall in our bed.

I stand up and walk to the bookcases lining the far end of the room. Ethan loves to read, and the shelves are filled with his favorites, everything from true crime to the classics.

I trail a finger along the spines as I pace, and it’s so hard to take everything in. My mind is a rubber band, expanding and expanding, until it snaps back, unable to fathom everything, unable to understand. Is adultery an inevitability of life? Do men just get tired of their wives and cheat? The thought weighs my heart down. Like jagged rocks on the bottom of the ocean, with each pull of the tide, the rocks rake over my lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe.

My finger comes across something foreign, and I pause, bending to examine it.

A piece of paper is stuck between the neatly shelved books. It’s folded, and I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if my finger hadn’t caught on the pointy edge.

I pull it from the shelf and open it, finding a letter written in Ethan’s scrawling handwriting. When I see Dear Tessa, my heart drops, and my knees suddenly can’t support my weight. I head straight to his desk, sinking into his chair to read.

There is no date on the letter, but the deep crease makes me believe it’s been sitting on that shelf for a while. My eyes flit over the words, feeling each one of them in the center of my chest.

Dear Tessa,

I want to start by saying I love you. God, I love you. I love the way you wake up at full-speed every morning, how you always feel there isn’t anything you can’t do .

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