Chapter 6: The Answer He Couldn't Give Me
I waited for Daniel to deny it.
I waited for him to look me in the eyes and say Megan was twisting his words.
I waited for the man I had married to remind me that whatever mistakes he had made, our marriage still mattered enough to defend.
Instead, he stood silently beneath the restaurant awning.
Megan watched him with an expression I couldn't read.
Ryan looked between them, his face slowly hardening.
“What did you say to her?”” I asked.
Daniel rubbed his palms together.
“I don't remember the conversation exactly.””
Megan laughed.
“Of course you don't.””
He turned toward her.
“That's enough.””
“No,” I said.
“It's not.””
My voice surprised me.
It was steady, even though my hands were trembling.
“You have spent the entire evening telling me pieces of the truth. Every time I ask a question, another secret comes out. I'm not leaving until I understand what happened.””
Daniel looked at me.
“I never told her I wanted to leave you.””
“That isn't what I asked.””
He swallowed.
“At the coffee shop, she asked whether I was happy.””
“And what did you say?””
He hesitated.
“I said things had been difficult.””
Megan shook her head.
“That's not all you said.””
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“Because you kept asking me the same question.””
“And you finally answered it.””
Ryan stepped closer.
“What did he say, Megan?””
She looked at him with a mixture of frustration and satisfaction.
“He said he didn't know whether he was happy anymore.””
The words struck me harder than I expected.
Not because I believed every unhappy moment meant a marriage was doomed.
Not because I expected Daniel to pretend we never struggled.
But because he had looked another woman in the eyes, discussed the state of our marriage, and left her with the impression that my place in his life was uncertain.
And that woman had been my best friend.
I turned toward him.
“Did you say that?””
He looked devastated.
“Yes.””
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
The streetlights reflected in the windows behind him.
Inside the restaurant, our friends were still gathered at the table, probably wondering whether we would return.
I felt as if I were standing outside my own life, watching strangers dismantle it piece by piece.
“Were you unhappy?”” I asked.
Daniel's eyes filled with tears.
“Sometimes.””
The honesty hurt.
But what hurt more was that I had never been given the chance to understand how serious things had become before he shared them with Megan.
“Why didn't you tell me?””
“I tried.””
“When?””
“We talked about it before.””
“We talked about arguing over chores and spending too much time at work. We talked about feeling disconnected. We never talked about whether you were happy being married to me.””
He looked down.
“I didn't know how to say it.””
“So you told her?””
“I thought she could help me understand what I was feeling.””
Megan gave a small, self-satisfied smile.
I noticed it immediately.
“Don't,” I said to her.
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Don't what?””
“Don't look pleased about this.””
Her smile vanished.
I turned back toward Daniel.
“Did you ever consider that the reason I felt disconnected from you was that you were taking the conversations we should have been having and having them with someone else?””
He stared at me.
“I didn't think about it that way.””
“That's the problem.””
My voice cracked.
“You didn't think about how any of this would affect me.””
He reached toward me again.
This time, I stepped farther away.
“Please don't touch me.””
He let his hand fall.
For a moment, I felt guilty.
Then I remembered Megan's arm wrapped around his neck.
I remembered the smirk.
I remembered the messages accusing me of being paranoid.
And the guilt disappeared.
Ryan sat down on the low stone ledge beside the entrance.
He looked suddenly older than he had at dinner.
“Can I tell you something?”” he asked me.
I nodded.
“I knew something was wrong before tonight.””
Megan turned sharply.
“Ryan.””
He didn't look at her.
“I kept thinking I was being insecure. Every time she mentioned Daniel, she'd tell me I was making something out of nothing.””
He rubbed his face.
“She'd ask what he was like at home. Whether he was affectionate. Whether he helped you with things. Whether he ever got frustrated with you.””
I felt a chill run through me.
Those questions sounded familiar.
Megan had asked me similar things over the years, often during conversations about relationships.
At the time, I had assumed she was comparing notes because she was unhappy with Ryan.
Now I wondered whether she had been studying my marriage.
“Did she ask you about me?”” I asked Ryan.
“Yes.””
“What did she say?””
He looked uncomfortable.
“She told me you were lucky. That Daniel was patient and dependable. That you didn't understand how rare that was.””
Megan crossed her arms.
“I was complimenting him.””
“You were comparing our marriage to theirs,” Ryan replied.
“So?””
“So you made me feel like I could never measure up to a man who wasn't even trying to compete with me.””
He paused.
“And then you started telling me what Daniel supposedly thought about his marriage.””
I looked at Daniel.
He seemed stunned.
“What did she tell you?”” he asked.
Ryan gave a humorless laugh.
“She said you felt trapped. That you wanted someone who understood you. That you were tired of always being the reasonable one.””
Daniel shook his head.
“I never said that to her.””
“Maybe not in those exact words,” Ryan replied.
“But she made it sound as though she knew things about your marriage that you weren't telling your wife.””
I felt my throat tighten.
Megan had not only used my trust to gain access to Daniel.
She had used Daniel's private frustrations to create a story in which she was the person who truly understood him.
And perhaps she had been telling Ryan a similar story about herself.
A story in which everyone else was failing to appreciate her.
A story in which she was always the misunderstood one.
“What did you want from him?”” I asked.
Megan stared at me.
“I wanted nothing.””
“Then why the messages?””
“Because we were friends.””
“Friends don't ask married men whether they wish they had met under different circumstances.””
She looked away.
I continued.
“Friends don't arrange secret coffee meetings to discuss whether a marriage is worth saving.””
“That wasn't a secret meeting.””
“You didn't tell me.””
“Because I knew you'd react like this!””
Her voice echoed against the building.
Several people near the entrance turned toward us.
Megan lowered her voice, but her anger remained.
“You've always been like this. The second someone makes you uncomfortable, you assume the worst.””
I stared at her.
“I'm not uncomfortable because you spoke to Daniel. I'm hurt because you deliberately tested my marriage and then tried to make me feel foolish for noticing.””
She shook her head.
“You never trusted me.””
I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing.
“I trusted you more than anyone.””
“Then why didn't you trust my intentions?””
“Because you sat on my husband's lap after telling him you wanted to see how much I trusted him!””
She fell silent.
For a few seconds, the only sound was the traffic passing nearby.
Then Ryan stood.
“I'm going home.””
Megan looked at him sharply.
“Ryan, wait.””
He shook his head.
“I can't do this anymore tonight.””
“You're seriously leaving me here?””
He looked at her, and his expression was so tired that I felt a pang of sympathy for him.
“You've spent months telling me that I'm the problem. Tonight, I watched you deliberately humiliate your best friend because you wanted to prove something about her marriage.””
He paused.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to believe anymore.””
Megan's face twisted.
“So you're taking her side?””
“No,” Ryan said quietly.
“I'm finally admitting that I don't know what your side is.””
He walked toward the parking lot without looking back.
Megan watched him go.
For the first time, she seemed unable to control the situation.
Then she turned to me.
“Are you happy now?””
I shook my head.
“No.””
“Because you've destroyed everything.””
I looked at her for a long moment.
“No, Megan. I'm trying to understand why you thought you were entitled to any of it.””
She stared at me, her eyes shining.
Then she did something I hadn't expected.
She began to cry.
Not the dramatic tears she sometimes used when an argument wasn't going her way.
These tears looked real.
Her shoulders trembled, and she pressed her fingers against her mouth.
“I didn't mean for it to happen like this,” she whispered.
I felt my heart tighten despite everything.
There was a time when I would have crossed the distance between us immediately.
I would have hugged her.
I would have told her we could work it out.
I would have tried to make her feel better, even if I was the one who had been hurt.
But I stayed where I was.
“What did you mean to happen?”” I asked.
She looked at Daniel.
He stared back at her, his face pale.
“Megan,” he whispered.
“Just tell her the truth.””
She shook her head.
“You don't understand.””
“Then explain it.””
She wiped her cheeks.
“I thought if she saw us together, she'd finally understand.””
My stomach twisted.
“Understand what?””
Megan looked directly at me.
“That you don't own him just because you married him.””
The words left me speechless.
Daniel took a step back as if she had slapped him.
Megan seemed to realize what she had revealed.
Her eyes widened.
“I didn't mean—”
But I raised my hand.
“No.””
She stopped.
For twelve years, I had believed our friendship was built on love, loyalty, and mutual respect.
Now I was beginning to understand that Megan had been carrying a different idea of what our lives meant.
She had looked at my marriage and seen something she wanted.
And instead of accepting that it belonged to me and Daniel, she had started behaving as though she had a claim to it.
I turned toward my husband.
“I need space.””
He nodded, tears running down his face.
“I understand.””
“No, Daniel. You don't. But I hope you will.””
I walked toward the parking lot.
Neither of them followed me.
When I reached my car, my phone vibrated.
It was a message from an unknown number.
I opened it.
There was no greeting.
No explanation.
Just one sentence.
You need to know that Megan wasn't the only person who knew about those messages.
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
And the person who knew the most was sitting at your table tonight.
My fingers went numb.
I looked back toward the restaurant.
Through the glass, I could still see Daniel standing beneath the awning.
Megan had disappeared inside.
May you like
And suddenly, I wondered whether the betrayal I had uncovered was only one part of a much larger secret.
Because whoever had sent those messages knew something about my marriage that I hadn't even begun to understand.
