Chapter 6 - The Cost of Being Right
I stayed with Elise for eleven days. She did not ask me to make a decision until the twelfth morning, when she found me sitting at the kitchen table with the ring in my palm.
“You can love someone and still refuse to be loved badly,” she said.
“That sounds like something printed on a mug.”
“I would buy the mug.”
Marcus had told Lila's mother the truth without me. Her name was Dana Bell. She lived in a small house near the cemetery, where yellow roses grew beneath every window. Marcus called me from his car afterward.
“Dana knew,” he said.
“Knew what?”
“She knew Kate was driving. Lila had called her from the car. Dana heard us arguing. She heard Kate say she was going to turn the wheel.”
I stood by Elise's sink. “Why did she let you take the blame?”
“She said Kate's father threatened to take Kate's little brother away and have him placed in foster care. Dana believed silence was the only way to keep him safe.”
“Was it?”
“No. It just gave everyone a different reason to be afraid.”
Marcus told Dana about the photographs and the recording. Dana had cried, then slapped him. Afterward, she had asked him to visit Lila's grave.
“Are you going?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He was silent. “I miss you.”
“I miss who I thought you were.”
“I am trying to become someone you can know.”
“Try for yourself first.”
I ended the call.
That afternoon, Kate's attorney sent Marcus a letter demanding payment for the storage unit, the apartment, and “emotional damages arising from the broken promise.” The letter included a copy of the forged transfer document.
Marcus wanted to ignore it. I told him not to.
“You need an attorney,” I said. “Not me. Not your guilt. An attorney.”
He hired one named Priya Shah, who had handled fraud and harassment cases for years. Priya found that the forged transfer had been filed electronically but never recorded. She also discovered that Kate had opened a credit card in Marcus's name and used it to pay the storage fees.
“She has been financially attached to you for a decade,” Priya said. “The emotional part is obvious. The paper trail is what gives us leverage.”
“Can she go to jail?” Marcus asked.
“Possibly. But my first goal is to keep her away from both of you.”
“Both of us?”
Priya looked at me. “If you intend to remain together, yes.”
I did not answer.
That night, Marcus sent me a message with no explanation. It was a photograph of the river at dusk. Beneath it, he had written, “I told Lila I was sorry for making her into a secret.”
I typed three replies and deleted all of them.
The next morning, Kate broke the protective order.
She sent a video to my work email. It showed Marcus and me at a restaurant months earlier. The angle was from another table, and the audio had been edited to make it sound as if Marcus was saying, “Nora doesn't know anything. She will believe whatever I tell her.”
The video was sent to my supervisor, my parents, and Elise.
My supervisor called me into her office.
“Do you need time away?”
“No.”
“Do you need security?”
“I need everyone to stop treating me like I am the fragile part of this story.”
She nodded. “Then tell me what you need.”
I told her. I asked for the messages to be preserved, for Kate to be barred from the building, and for every employee to know not to give out my schedule. My voice shook, but I kept speaking until the requests were written down.
When I left work, Marcus was waiting across the street.
“I didn't ask you to come,” I said.
“I know.”
“How did you know where I would be?”
“Elise told me.”
I closed my eyes. “You cannot keep appearing.”
“I wanted to tell you the video was edited.”
“I know it was edited.”
“There is something else.”
He held out his phone. On the screen was a message from Kate sent just before the video.
“If Nora leaves you, I will send her the second recording.”
“What second recording?” I asked.
Marcus's thumb hovered over the screen. “The one where I tell Kate to turn the wheel.”
I looked at him.
“Did you?”
“I don't remember.”
“Then find out.”
“Nora—”
“No. You don't get to protect me from the truth by keeping it hidden. If you told her to turn the wheel, I need to know. If you didn't, I need to know that too.”
His face crumpled. “I am afraid you will decide I am just as bad as she is.”
“I will decide what I think. That is the part you keep forgetting.”
For the first time, he handed me the phone without asking me to trust him.
Priya arranged for a forensic analyst to examine the recording from the storage unit. The result came two days later. The audio had been spliced. The words “turn the wheel” belonged to Kate, but Marcus's voice had been placed beneath them from a different conversation.
In the original recording, Marcus said, “Kate, slow down. Please slow down.”
He had not caused the crash. He had reached for the wheel after Kate had already turned it.
The truth did not make the lie disappear. It made the lie heavier.
I called Marcus that night.
“I heard the original recording.”
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
“What happens now?”
“Now you stop asking me to decide whether you are worth forgiving.”
He breathed shakily. “What do I ask?”
“Ask whether you are willing to live honestly even if I never come back.”
There was a long silence.
“Yes,” he said.
May you like
I believed him.
That did not mean I went home.
