Cold Feet (11 page)

CHAPTER 11

S
am answered the phone after a single ring.

“Hey, babe! How's the trip going? I miss you,” he said.

“Hey. I miss you, too,” I said, ignoring his question.

“How's Napa? Are you girls wrapped in seaweed right now and debating which
Real Housewives
series is the best?”

“No, we both know it's New York,” I answered automatically. “Although Beverly Hills is a close second.”

“I miss you,” he repeated. “Tell me about Napa.” I looked around the small park I found down the street from the apartment to make my call as I considered his directive.
Okay, well, how about, I skipped out on the fancy lodge you surprised us with and came to San Francisco to go on a secret mission to find my father. Oh, and I have doubts about marriage in general. Does that about cover it?

“I'm so glad you called,” he continued, oblivious. “I was worried at dinner the other night. The money fight. And I know you were upset on Friday morning when I mentioned adding another room on to the house. I want our home to be perfect, but I didn't mean to make you worry. I know how that stuff stresses you out.

“You didn't call me back last night,” he went on, without a trace of accusation, only confusion. “Is everything okay?” Instantly, he sounded nervous, his usual steadiness shaken. I wanted to say yes, everything is fine. I wanted to hang up and worry about all of this another time. Actually, I wanted to ignore it for the rest of my life. But the fear had become too much; the dread in my chest had expanded to the point that I could no longer properly breathe.

“I ran into Val,” I said, before I could consider the wisdom of bringing her up.

“Who? Which Val? Valerie Babbitt?”

“Yes.” I was silent, losing my nerve. Before I could talk myself out of it, I blurted out, “She said some stuff about you guys hooking up. While we were together.” When he didn't respond immediately, my stomach started convulsing. As the seconds ticked by, the uneasiness turned to full-throttle panic. He wasn't denying it. Why wasn't he denying it? I wanted to cry, or scream, or find the nearest black hole and fall into it. Because at that moment I knew. The second he paused I knew that Val wasn't confused, crazy, or lying. I knew it was true.

“Emma. I don't know what to say. I am so sorry.”

“You're
sorry
? So it's true? What is going on?” I exploded, feeling myself lose control as the words escaped my lips. All I could think was,
No, no, no.

“I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. I would love a chance to explain it all. If it makes you feel any better, I have felt sick about this since the day it happened.”

“No. It doesn't. Not at all. How could this be true, Sam?”

“I don't know. But it is,” he said miserably.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I cried. “Why did I have to find out like this?”

“I don't know, it was wrong. I was wrong. It was the biggest mistake I've ever made. I panicked. And I lied because I was scared.”

“You lied because you were
scared
?” I said, as meanly as possible.

“Yes. I didn't want to lose you. I thought if you never knew, it would be better. It meant nothing. It was nothing. Please believe me. Charleston was such a stupid, meaningless mistake. I was freaking out. I thought we were about to break up.”

“I don't care
why
you did it. I care
that
you did it,” I practically wailed, thinking that I finally understood the true meaning of the term
gut-wrenching
. I was pretty sure that if I looked down, I would see my guts down there, lying on the ground. “I thought it wasn't true.” The last thing I'd been pinning my hope on, the hope on which my entire future depended, was washed away. On the other end of the line, Sam was silent. The only thing he could say that would have made it better—that this awful thing that had happened wasn't true—was impossible. “But it's more than that,” I told him. “She was my friend, Sam.” I shuddered visibly. “How long was this going on?” I asked the question before I could change my mind, even though I was afraid the answer might kill me.

“It only happened once,” Sam answered immediately. “I never did anything like that before or since. I made a huge mistake, but it was only once.”

“Maybe that's true. Or maybe you're lying. I have no idea. What else don't I know?”

“Nothing. I didn't want you to know because it meant nothing. Less than nothing. I didn't want to hurt you. Because it didn't matter.” My heart sank even deeper as I started to fully register that there was no possibility this whole thing was a misunderstanding. It was true.

“If you didn't want to hurt me, you shouldn't have cheated on me,” I spat out. “I have to go. I can't talk to you anymore.”

Sam paused, as if assessing his options and choosing the logical and reasonable path.

“I understand,” he said quietly. “I'll give you some space to think this through, but please know that I love you. And there's more to say. More to explain.”

“I have to go, Sam. I can't . . . I can't do this anymore,” I said, not sure exactly what I was referencing. “I have to go,” I repeated, hanging up before he could respond.

In the law, most crimes require that the person had a certain level of mental involvement at the time of the offense, in addition to the physical action, in order to be found guilty. The Latin term for it is
mens rea
, which technically means “guilty mind.” This means that what you were thinking or intending at the time you “committed a
crime” may determine your level of guilt. Depending on your
mens rea
—did you do it on purpose, by accident, or because you were being lazy or stupid?—you can be found guilty of a different crime, at a different level of seriousness. This is true despite the fact that each crime requires the same physical component.

For example, if you intentionally shoot a teller while robbing a bank, that would be murder. However, if you shoot a gun into the sky at a festival to start a footrace—seems unnecessarily dramatic, but maybe you're in Texas—and it falls and hits someone innocently buying a funnel cake, you've committed negligent homicide. But if you're cleaning your malfunctioning hunting rifle and someone pushes you, causing it to fire against your will and shoot your neighbor Stanley, that's an accident. All of the acts are the same—shooting a gun and killing someone—but the mental component, and the resulting crime (and accompanying jail time), is vastly different.

However, there are also crimes that don't require any level of
mens rea
, called “strict liability” crimes. It doesn't matter whether it was your intention to commit the crime, if you had any idea what you were doing was illegal, or if it was completely unavoidable—if you committed the physical act, you're as guilty as they come. One of those crimes is statutory rape. You can tell an officer of the law until you're blue in the face that you didn't know she was under the age of consent and, in fact, you met in a bar where patrons have to be twenty-one to get in. Doesn't matter. Congratulations, you're a rapist. Another example is traffic law. If you committed the crime, it doesn't matter if you
meant to
or not. So the next time you think
about telling the officer you didn't know the speed limit, try crying instead; that's far more likely to get you out of the ticket.

Sam's crime of sleeping with Val would be, without a doubt, a strict liability crime. Maybe he didn't intend to break my heart, much less for me to find out about it the week before our wedding, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter that maybe Sam's
mens rea
wasn't present when he committed the crime, that his intentions were more stupid and weak than intentionally evil. So what if he didn't
mean
to hurt me this badly, or
intend
to cause the resulting pain? He was totally fucking guilty.

After I hung up with Sam, I walked down the street like a zombie. I was in desperate, aching pain. The pain of a person who would give anything to alter the current reality. For several minutes I inwardly begged any god I knew to make the entire thing a joke. When I was about to completely break down, I stopped dead in my tracks. I pushed stop. Stop crying, I told myself. Don't let him do this to you. Just stop. I managed to push the pain slightly out of reach. And that was when the tears in my throat morphed into a mountain of white-hot rage.

I wanted to hurt them. Both of them, Sam and Val. I wanted them to feel as badly as I did. All of the revenge fantasies I'd ever had in my life—the one about slashing the tires of the guy from Expedia who kept me on hold for an hour, or planting porn on the computer of the TA in college who gave me a D in my Intro to Nineteenth-Century European Art class—seemed like child's play. I wasn't going
to cry anymore. I was going to break things. I pictured showing up at Val's new office, lowering my pitch-black sunglasses, and saying mercilessly, You ruined my life, bitch, now it's my turn to ruin yours. I pictured taking all of Sam's stuff and starting a bonfire in the middle of his yard. For the first time in my life, I understood the urge to commit arson.

When I finally made my way back to Dusty and Carrick's, I crept past the quiet living room and found Liv sitting on the bed of our large room, ready to go. She took one look at my tear-streaked face and asked what had happened, her voice filled with dread.

“He cheated on me, for real.” I choked out the words, collapsing on the bed.

“No. Are you sure?”

“He admitted it. It happened when they were in Charleston. Just like Val said. Val, it turns out, was the only person who was honest with me. This is an actual nightmare.”

“It is,” Liv agreed quietly. “I'm so sorry. I wish I could do something.”

We were silent for a few minutes. Me lying there, wishing I were dead. Liv looking at me nervously, trying to figure out how to make everything better.