Chapter 4 - Camille Had Not Been Told the Truth Either
I met Camille five days after leaving Daniel.
Naomi thought I was insane.
Maybe I was.
But I needed to hear the story without Daniel editing it.
Camille chose a quiet coffee shop near Bryant Park.
She looked nothing like the woman I had imagined.
No dramatic glamour.
No smugness.
Dark blond hair tied back.
Black sweater.
No makeup.
She looked ashamed before she sat down.
“I’m sorry.”
I did not say it was okay.
It wasn’t.
“How far did it go?”
Camille closed her eyes.
“We kissed.”
My stomach tightened.
“How many times?”
“Twice.”
“Did you sleep together?”
“No.”
I watched her.
“Truth.”
“That is the truth.”
I believed her.
Not because I wanted to.
Because the rest of the evidence fit emotional betrayal better than a hidden sexual affair.
Daniel had become Camille’s rescue system.
Late-night calls.
Meals.
Legal appointments.
Moving help.
He liked being the person who could stabilize her.
Camille liked being rescued.
That combination can become intimate long before sex.
“The bracelet?”
“He gave it to me after my divorce became final.”
“Why return it?”
Her face tightened.
“Because that night I asked what you thought about how much time we spent together.”
“What did he say?”
“That you understood.”
Of course.
Camille continued.
“I asked why you never needed him the way I did.”
My hands tightened around my coffee.
“He said you were different.”
A pause.
“Stronger.”
There it was again.
Camille looked down.
“I liked hearing that at first.”
“Why?”
“Because it made me feel less guilty.”
Honest.
Then came the part Daniel had never told me.
Camille had tried to end their closeness after the second kiss.
Daniel convinced her it was not an affair.
He said our marriage had become “functional.”
That we loved each other but no longer needed each other emotionally.
“That was a lie,” I said.
“I know.”
“How?”
Camille looked at me.
“Because I saw him panic when you called after your surgery consultation.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He had forgotten your follow-up.”
My stomach dropped.
Camille had been sitting beside him when my name appeared on his phone.
Daniel looked terrified.
Not annoyed.
Terrified.
“That was when I realized he wasn’t trapped in a dead marriage.”
She swallowed.
“He was actively failing a living one.”
The sentence hurt because it was accurate.
Camille ended things.
Daniel did not tell me.
Instead, he came home and became unusually attentive for two weeks.
Flowers.
Dinner.
Appointments.
I thought cancer had changed his priorities.
Actually, losing Camille temporarily had frightened him back toward me.
I looked at her.
“Why wait months to send the box?”
Camille’s eyes filled.
“Because admitting what I did meant admitting I wasn’t only a victim of his lies.”
That answer was ugly enough to be true.
Then she pushed one final folded page toward me.
“Read this.”
May you like
It was another message from Daniel.
And this one made the bracelet seem almost irrelevant.
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