Wedding Night Confession: Husband Said I Slept With Your Best Friend novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Every Word

Declan repeats what Tierney told him, including that she kept the tire iron for ten years. Miriam sets the terms of their marriage, and at seven a.m. Tierney knocks with croissants.

Declan sat on the edge of the bed with his hands between his knees.

I stayed at the window, because if I sat I might hit him.

"Every word," I said. "In order. Start with what she said first."

"She said your name and then she said 'I'm sorry.'"

"Sorry for what?"

"For telling me what she was about to tell me."

I turned around. "Say it plainly."

"She said, 'Miriam killed a man in Madison, and I've kept it quiet for ten years.'"

"She said you were a good person who did a bad thing to save yourself, and that you'd never forgive me for knowing."

"What else?"

His jaw worked. "She said she still has the tire iron."

I put my hand flat on the glass to stay on my feet.

"She told me it was gone," I said. "She told me she handled it."

"She said she kept it in a locked box at a storage place on the west side. Your fingerprints are all over the handle, and his blood was on it."

"She said that's why she never let you out of her sight, because someone has to look after the evidence."

I laughed once, and it came out ugly.

For ten years Tierney had called herself the person who protected me.

She had been the one holding the proof.

"Did she say where he is?" I asked. "Where she put him?"

Declan looked at the carpet. "She said she weighted him down in Lake Monona."

I had never been told that.

In ten years I had never been told one detail, and I had never asked, because I had been afraid of the answer.

"Do you believe her?" I said.

"I believe she told it to me very well."

That was not an answer, and I let it go.

"Next question," I said. "Did you sleep with her more than once?"

"No."

"Did you want to?"

He did not answer for a while.

"For about an hour," he said, "I wanted anything that wasn't being lied to by you."

"You didn't tell me because I never gave you a reason."

"You never gave me anything," he said. "That's the truth, and I know it isn't fair."

I should have thrown another glass.

Instead I said, "That's an honest answer, so it stands. Now I decide what happens next."

He nodded.

"The game stays on," I said. "Every night we each ask one question, and we each answer it truly. No jokes."

"If someone dodges, the other picks the penalty."

"Done."

"You tell no one what I told you. Not your mother, not your sister, not Tierney."

"Done."

"You don't call Tierney, you don't see Tierney alone, and if she calls you, you answer and you tell me what she said."

"Done," he said, and for the first time his voice cracked.

"Neither of us leaves this marriage until I say the game is over," I added.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because she's already texted me tonight," I said. "She is already acting like my best friend. I want to find out what she gets out of it."

He looked at my phone, face down on the nightstand.

"You don't think she told me for my sake."

"I think she wanted you to carry it into our wedding," I said. "I think she was counting on it."

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand.

"I should have called you that night. I should have said, 'Miriam, what are you hiding,' and waited."

"Yes."

"I should not have kissed her."

"Yes."

"I'm not asking you to say it's okay."

"Good," I said. "It isn't."

"Then I get one question tonight," he said. "Do you want me gone?"

"Ask me tomorrow," I said. "Tonight I don't know, and that's the truth."

He accepted it. He said nothing else.

I took a pillow and a blanket from the bed and dropped them on the sofa by the window.

"You sleep there."

He stood, and he did not argue.

He lay down in his wedding shirt with his shoes still on.

I switched off the lamp and lay in the dark in my dress, because I would not take it off with him in the room.

I had married a man who had cheated, and I was still married to him.

I had a best friend who had kept a bloody tire iron for ten years and called it love.

At some point I slept, because I woke with the dress twisted around my legs and gray light at the curtains.

Declan was awake on the sofa, watching the door.

Someone was knocking. Three short taps, then three more, the way Tierney has knocked on my door since we were nineteen.

"Miri?" she called, cheerful. "It's seven. Open up, I brought croissants!"

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