The Truth

Ford:

The sun was shining down on the verdant, perfectly landscaped quad at Wayland-Blaine Academy. Birds were chirping, the memorial fountain was splashing, and privileged students with no clue what the real world was like were frolicking around in their freshly dry-cleaned uniforms like the assholes they were.

I was so done with this place.

Two girls walked by with binders clutched to their chests, laughing with each other. Other kids sprawled under shady oaks in their stupid cliques eating lunch. Everybody was oblivious, just going about their days as if their lives hadn’t just imploded. Unlike me.

This never would have happened if I hadn’t left my chemistry textbook at home. Normally I didn’t lug it back and forth to school—the thing weighed at least five pounds—but we had a test today, and because the price of tuition granted us certain considerations, it was going to be open-book. Being a fairly average student, my GPA needed all the help it could get. Hence my mad dash home after third period.

But now all I could think about was how much I wished I’d remembered the fucking book when I had left for school this morning, instead of having to sneak back into my own house and accidentally overhearing my parents having another one of their arguments.

At least, that’s what I’d thought it was. Until I heard what they were actually saying.

My parents fought plenty, but always about small stuff. Where to go for dinner. Who to invite to parties. To whom they were or were not speaking in their social circle. The usual.

This argument had been different. I could tell from the moment I heard the tone of my mother’s voice that it was something serious. Serious like cancer, or a death in the family, or some kind of catastrophic financial or (God forbid) social ruin. Which is why I’d decided to eavesdrop.

I should have walked away.

But there’s a reason they say curiosity killed the cat.

“You’re disgusting,” my mother was saying as I crept toward the library doors.

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Dad had replied, sounding bored. “It’s an open secret. You think I’m the only one doing it?”

“These dalliances aren’t just a stain on our marriage. They’re embarrassing. You promised you’d stop!”

I was shocked to hear the tears in her voice; she wasn’t the emotional type. In fact, I’d never seen my mother cry. Usually if she got upset about something, she simply left the room. Which meant she might come barreling out the door any moment. I ducked behind the heavy drapes and held my breath.

That was when the rest of it fully sank in. Dalliances. Plural. My father had been having an affair—no, multiple affairs. He’d been stepping out behind my mom’s back, and apparently after he’d made a vow to stop. Meaning he had a history of cheating.

I’d had no idea.

Sure, I knew my parents didn’t have a warm, cutesy marriage like the kind I saw on TV, but I still thought they had a stable relationship. One that was solid and built on mutual respect and compatibility, if not affection.

My mother wasn’t done talking.

“Ever since you got mixed up with Konstantin Zoric, it’s been one ‘rumor’ after another,” she hissed. “And I know they’re not just rumors. Some of those girls are barely eighteen.”

She was definitely crying. My stomach churned. Dad was screwing Konstantin’s models?

Zoric…the name was familiar. Not just because Konstantin ran KZ Modeling, which was one of the most famous agencies in the world, but because his kids were classmates of mine at Wayland-Blaine. Stefan had graduated already, though he was still kind of a legend, but Luka was a senior this year and then the youngest one was Mary, or Maureen…no, Mara. I never paid much attention to her—she was kind of a quiet, lone wolf type—and even though she was pretty enough, there were plenty of other girls at school to keep me occupied.

“They’re not affairs, dear,” I heard my father say drolly. “Not technically.”

“Not technically? What does that mean?” My mother’s voice was shrill and panicked.

“They’re paid,” he said. “It’s transactional. Not a real relationship. Don’t take it so personally.”

“They’re hookers? And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

I stood there, frozen in shock. Not only had my father been cheating, long term, but he was doing it with sex workers supplied by my classmate’s father. Actual prostitutes. No wonder my mother was freaking out. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Mom had let out another pathetic wail, and that’s when I’d slipped down the hall and out the front door. I couldn’t listen to any more of that. They had to be on the brink of divorce. And I’d seen divorce rip through families before.

My friends with divorced parents had gotten uprooted, their entire lives thrown into disarray. Everything had changed. They had shared custody arrangements, different homes, different sets of rules, parents who continued to bicker and snipe at each other from afar. Some of my friends had even been forced to move away from Chicago to live in the fucking burbs, or even out of state. Others only saw their mom or dad on the weekend, or during school breaks.

That kind of change to my life, my routine, would be the worst thing on the planet. Not just disruptive, but humiliating. And what if the lawyer fees or the divorce settlement or my mom’s alimony messed with my allowance? What if I had to give up my car?

The whole drive back to campus, I was in a rage.

So here I was, brooding during the remainder of my lunch period, gripping my book so hard my fingers had gone numb.

My life as I knew it was over.

Mainly, I was furious at my father. Obviously. How hard was it to keep your dick in your pants when you were that old? But my mom was to blame, too. The way she nagged and shopped her way through the money in their checking account every month and generally made herself a royal pain to be around, it was no wonder Dad had been driven to seek out other women. My mother prided herself on being the ideal society wife—going to the right events, always looking perfectly put together no matter what, making sure she was seen with and by the right people—but behind closed doors, it was a whole other story.

I hated to think about it in detail, but it was clear she fucked up whatever her wifely duties to my father were supposed to be. When a man was getting what he needed from his marriage, he had no reason to wander, be it for emotional or physical reasons.

Regardless of the state of their relationship, though, I didn’t want them to get a divorce. Why should I have to suffer just because they’d made poor choices? They said the vows, ‘til death do they part, and as far as I was concerned that meant they should stay married. For my sake, at least. They could separate after I left for college. It was only a few more years.

Gripping my Mountain Dew can had left me with a fist full of crumpled aluminum. As I walked over to the recycling can, I debated just leaving campus. Playing hooky for the rest of the day. Maybe I’d hit up one of the dive bars on Lincoln Ave that wouldn’t look too hard at my fake ID.

Then I saw Mara Zoric walking across the quad.

Konstantin Zoric’s daughter.

He was the person who was really to blame for all of this. My father would have never gotten involved with a revolving door of barely legal sex workers if it wasn’t for that scumbaggy piece of shit and his so-called “modeling agency,” which was clearly just a front for prostitutes. And meanwhile I’d have to see Mara at school every day, watching her sashay around without a care in the world, as though her father hadn’t singlehandedly just ruined my life and the lives of countless others.

It didn’t help that she was prettier than I’d realized, which somehow made it all worse. That long black hair, the heart-shaped face, the kind of tits you just can’t hide. She was usually the wallflower type, but I could see her laughing with someone at the other end of the quad.

My vision went red.

Suddenly, all I wanted was for her to feel as bad as I did right now. Like her whole world was falling apart, and couldn’t ever be put back together. I wondered if she knew what her father really did. What paid for her nice house, her private school tuition, the black town car that dropped her off every day. I mean, the girl wasn’t stupid. She probably knew everything.

I had a Sharpie in my backpack.

Ducking back into the building, I stalked to the main hallway, to the row of lockers that faced the front entrance doors of the school. Those lockers were the first thing you saw when you walked in every morning, flanked on both sides by gleaming trophy cases, the Wayland-Blaine crest hanging on a banner above.

I glanced down the hall to make sure it was empty. Everyone was either at lunch or in their afternoon classes. I knew it didn’t matter which locker I wrote on.

In big, black, capital letters, I wrote Mara’s name. Her full name: MARA ZORIC. Then underneath it, IS A WHORE.

The janitor would clean it up soon enough, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that everyone in school would see it first. The rumor mill would do the rest.

Sharpie in hand, I turned toward the gym. My revenge was far from complete. Next stop: the boys’ locker room.

Ford:

Against all odds, See Yourself’s fundraising event at the Four Seasons was turning out to be a huge success.

The Grand Ballroom was packed, the mood sophisticated without being stuffy. Emzee was going to raise a ton for her charity and I couldn’t be happier for her. Despite the snafus we had encountered during the planning process, the last-minute catering and sound system issues that cropped up earlier today, and the fact that my ex Claudia had barely managed to do her job, the event had gone off without a hitch thus far.

Yet somehow, nothing was turning out the way I thought it would. Not with the event, of course—surveying the tables, all I saw were happy faces and raised flutes of champagne, which meant people were going to be writing some pretty big checks before they left—but there was definitely something going on with Emzee. I’d barely seen my wife since we arrived. In fact, it almost felt like she was avoiding me.

This should have been our triumphant debut, but whenever I managed to catch a glimpse of her mingling with the guests, I could tell that her smile was forced. Was it just her anxiety? I knew crowds made her uncomfortable, but at the same time, shouldn’t some of the stress that had been dogging her leading up to this night be gone now? Her big event was finally happening, and happening well. If there was a time to celebrate her accomplishments, this was it. But every time I started toward her, she’d disappear back into the fray.

“Ah, young Ford Malone, there you are!”

I turned to find Nathan Watson—a real estate developer and old friend of my father—standing behind me with a plate of canapés. He pulled me into a half hug with his free arm.

“Good to see you, Mr. Watson,” I coughed out as he slapped me heartily on the back.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” he said, brandishing his plate. “Quail egg on toast?”

I waved it away. “Oh, no thank you. Afraid I overindulged on smoked oysters already.”

“Rookie move! You’ve got to save room to try them all,” he said with a laugh. “Figured with the hefty donation I’m making, I might as well eat my weight in puff pastries.”

“My wife will be pleased on both counts,” I told him, straightening my rumpled tux. “Speaking of which, I was just about to go find her.”

“I saw her over by the orchestra a moment ago,” he said.

Looking across the room, I thought I could see the top of her head. She was so short, it was hard to tell, though. “Thanks for the tip, sir. Enjoy your evening.”

With that, I glided away. It’s not that I wasn’t a well-trained master in the art of idle chitchat with bougie types, but Emzee’s vanishing act was giving me my own case of anxiety.

As I ducked around trays of champagne and onion tarts and pricy cheeses and pâté, I suddenly realized that she was possibly still jealous about Claudia’s involvement in the fundraiser, and my ex’s recent failed attempts to woo me back.

Could it be? Even after what happened with my parents in the library earlier, when I’d walked in on them trying to blackmail her and break up our marriage? I’d rushed into the room to defend Em, and then the two of us had fucked in a frenzy in the guest room afterward, which I had to admit was actually probably what people referred to as making love. Because, yeah. We’d both said the words. Fully recommitted to each other with our bodies and our pledge to stay together. For the first time, it had seemed like our marital vow to become one was finally real.

Even before that, I’d been convinced that our relationship was on the mend after I flew to New York to get Emzee back from a conference she’d jetted off to. It had seemed like a turning point for us. I’d done my best ever since to sweep her off her feet, to show her that even if our relationship had started out as a legal arrangement, we could make it a real marriage.

Did she still not get it? It was the two of us against the world—and it always would be. As for Claudia, she would always fall into the “world” category.

Hovering at the edge of the platform where the five-piece orchestra played classy versions of Top 40 pop hits, I scanned the room once again. Where the hell was she? I went over to the bar and tried texting her one more time, but either she wasn’t looking at her phone (likely) or she was purposely ignoring my texts. Fuck.

All I wanted was to steal her away to a corner, pour her a glass of champagne, and toast to a successful evening. And at the end of the night I’d take her home, strip her out of that sexy dress, and reward her for all of her hard work. Reward her over and over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of her. How responsive she was to my touch. How she knew exactly what I wanted and was eager to give it to me. That’s how I wanted this evening to wrap up. But for now, I couldn’t even manage to get near her. My ex, on the other hand—I’d spent most of the night trying to avoid her. Every time I turned around, she was making eyes at me. With her huge blue ballgown and that blown-out blonde mane, she was impossible to miss.

“Ford,” a voice purred from behind me.

Speak of the devil.

“Claudia,” I said, turning around with a whiskey in hand. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Immensely.” She put her talon-like nails on my shoulders, using them to keep me in place while she forced a lingering double cheek kiss. I did all I could to not push her away. She was being ridiculous, per usual, but I wasn’t about to cause a scene.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Claudia said, gesturing around the room like a magician showing off a rabbit fresh out of a hat.

She was flushed with pride, and even though I was annoyed at her, I couldn’t blame her for feeling like she’d done a good job. She’d taken us to tour all the best venues in town, had used her relationships to get us a great deal, and even if she’d been less than helpful today, she’d still managed to put together a great event in service of Emzee’s charity. I was grateful for that.

“Thank you,” I told her, easing her hand off my shoulder. “Everything turned out perfectly.”

“I know,” she said with a satisfied grin. “Where’s wifey, by the way?”

The flirtatious gleam in her eyes didn’t fade, which immediately made me suspicious that she was responsible for Emzee’s distance somehow.

“It’s funny. Now that you mention it, something has been up with her tonight. You know anything about that?” I doubted I’d get a straight answer out of Claudia, but it was worth a try.

“Maybe it’s her period. How would I know?”

I gave her a look, and she gave me an irritated raise of her brows. Clearly this conversation wasn’t going the way she was expecting.

“I saw you walk out of the guest bathroom right before her back at my parents’ house, and she’s been acting off ever since,” I pointed out. “What happened?”

She flashed me an inelegant eye roll. “Is it against the law for two women to use the same bathroom? Seriously, stop trying to pin this on me. I have nothing to do with your marital woes.”

My drink was empty, my adrenaline was pumping, and my intuition was telling me that my ex was full of shit. “You said something to her.”

“What on Earth, Ford? You’re the one who left her behind to go out for drinks with me, remember? Take some responsibility. And by the way, I seem to recall that when you and I were together, we simply communicated our problems and then worked through them. Like adults.”

Smiling sourly, I said, “Look how good that worked out for us. There are some things you just can’t fix, Claudia.”

Such as the fact that she was a selfish, petty, self-centered social climber. That she had wanted to be with me not because of me, but because of how good we looked together. How well-matched our family wealth was. How compatible our elite social circles were.

It had taken me a long time to realize that I didn’t want what Claudia had to offer at all.

The kind of person I wanted dedicated her time and effort to helping other people. She was whip smart and sexy and sweet and she had always liked me for me. Or at least, the person I tried to be. Emzee made me want to be a better person.

“Whatever,” Claudia said. “All I’m saying is, maybe you weren’t ready for marriage. Maybe she wasn’t.”

I didn’t like the look in her eyes. It was one I’d seen before. Whenever she had a secret or some good gossip and was just waiting for it to explode so she could watch the ugly aftermath. Of course, she was usually the one who did something to make it explode.

“You are the last person,” I told her, leaning in close, “that I need relationship advice from. Last time I checked, you were still single.”

Her eyes widened, and I knew I’d hit a nerve.

With a huff, she spun on her stiletto and flounced away. Good riddance.

I got a fresh drink and circled the room again, to no avail. As much as I hated to admit it, what Claudia had said—about me and Emzee not being ready for marriage—did make sense. How could it not? We’d gotten married basically on a whim. My whim. I’d coerced her into marrying me temporarily, just to piss my parents off and keep them off my back about the whole getting-back-together-with-Claudia nonsense. Not that Claudia (or anyone else) knew that.

And yeah, Emzee had been resistant from the beginning. I’d blamed her hesitation on a dozen things, but I’d never considered that she wasn’t actually ready to be married. Especially since I was the groom. It was no secret that she’d been in love with me since high school.

Then again, it was obvious she had a lot of trust issues when it came to relationships. She’d never been in a long-term one before. In fact, our seven-year friendship was probably the longest non-family relationship that Emzee had ever had. Of course I’d done nothing but take advantage of it, since day one.

My gut twisted.

Maybe I’d moved too fast with all that Love Talk earlier today. Maybe it was too much, too soon. Maybe it was too much to ask of a girl with all her trust issues, assuming she’d simply drop them just because I defended her to my parents.

I probably just needed to give her some time to process. Between my declaration of love and the fight with my parents and the fundraiser, she had to be feeling completely overwhelmed.

Suddenly, I realized that it was the first time I’d come to her defense because I wanted to, and not out of guilt over what had happened to her in high school.

Not that she could ever know what really happened back then.

Now that would ruin everything.