Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

family that existed before you came along. You have no right to ask him to desert our daughters and a twenty-year marriage for a temporary fling. Have some respect for yourself. Leave us alone. It won’t end well for you.

Alicia Gray

She hit send. If she’d hesitated, she would have talked herself out of it. She had no idea what would happen next, but she gave herself a mental high-five for having the courage to send the email and not let it languish in a draft folder.

Butterflies roiled in her stomach. She asked the young girl at the table next to her if she’d mind watching her things while she went to grab a cup of coffee. Alicia wasn’t sure she could drink the coffee despite the dryness in her mouth, but she needed to do something; she couldn’t just sit there. The line was about five people deep, so not too long to wait. As she moved forward, she forced thoughts of what she’d done out of her mind. If Faith had the guts to respond to her email, it would take a day or two, surely. Instead, she resolved, once she returned to her laptop, she would send that email to the admissions office she’d been meaning to and continue gathering the documents and information she would need to launch her return to the classroom.

Except, Alicia was wrong. In the ten minutes that elapsed between hitting send on the email, waiting in line for her coffee, and returning to her spot, a response had come in. And it was vicious.

From: Empress Faith

Re: Eliot Gray

What a sad cliché you are. The clingy wife, desperate to hold on to a husband who doesn’t want her anymore. Have some dignity. Eliot only took you to Paris because he pitied you. Did you think it meant anything? We were in contact the whole time. He couldn’t wait for the farce to be over.

Empress Faith

Her breathing stalled. When she caught her breath again, she covered her mouth, as if to hold the shock and fear inside. The savage, cruel truth was laid bare before her eyes. This woman’s crushing words were nothing less than the deadly avalanche of lava, ash, and gas spewing from a dormant volcano. Its only goal: her complete destruction.

Alicia barely remembered leaving the café. The girl who’d watched her laptop flashed a look of concern as she bundled her stuff, knocking over her newly purchased coffee and dashing out the store. She didn’t know how she ended up on the Mass Turnpike, heading East to Boston. She wasn’t aware of how fast she was driving or of other cars on the highway. She didn’t remember stopping at the toll booth to pay the toll or which exit was the right one. All she knew was that she needed to speak to Kat. She didn’t want to be alone right now. Her friend always knew how to pull her back from the ledge.

She whipped out her phone once she arrived at Kat’s Atlantic Avenue building and sent a text.

Alicia: I’m just outside your building. Need to talk. It’s urgent.

She hit send and waited for a response. One came a few minutes later.

Kat: Come on up. Meet me in the conference room, wrapping up a meeting.

By the time she arrived at the door of the sleek conference room, she could barely breathe. Kat’s employees filed out, casting puzzled looks at her bedraggled state. She entered to see Kat sitting in her chair gazing out at the view of the city. Alicia closed the door behind her.

Kat turned around. “What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”

Alicia plopped down in the chair closest to Kat. “You were right,” she croaked.

“About what?”

“Eliot. He took me to Paris to ease his guilt because he was seeing another woman.”

Kat squinted in confusion. “What are you talking about? I was just running my mouth when I said that—”

“Turns out you were right,” she said, her breath shaky.

“What happened?”

“I’ll show you.” She took out her computer and pulled up the email she’d gotten from Faith.

Kat rubbed her eyes after reading the email. “I can’t wrap my head around the kind of person who would send you this message. It’s cruel. Obviously written by a shameless whore. Do you have any idea at all who this woman is?”

“I don’t,” Alicia whispered.

“A co-worker of Eliot’s? Didn’t you tell me about a woman who brazenly flirted with him right in front of you at a barbecue last year?” Kat snapped her fingers, trying to recall the name. “Barbara Sellers. That’s her.”

“You think? Alicia asked. “She goes by Faith in the emails.”

Kat gave her the “Are you kidding me?” look. “You think Side Chick Babs is going to use her real name when luring away other people’s husbands?”

Alicia had all but forgotten about Barbara, a snobbish, high-on-herself attorney who sometimes worked cases with Eliot. The first time Alicia met Barbara, the woman had not hesitated to unleash a thinly veiled insult at Alicia.

She recalled the disdain on Barbara’s flawless made-up face. “Oh, from the way Eliot talks about you, I was expecting someone different…”

Apparently, Alicia didn’t measure up to Barbara’s expectation of what Eliot’s wife should be. Had Eliot given her an opening, implied that things weren’t great at home?

“I don’t know what to think,” she said.

“Well, I do,” Kat said. “We’re going to write back to Little Ms. Home Wrecker.”

“What? No way.”

“Yes way. She wants to be nasty, let’s show her she doesn’t scare us.”

“Kat, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Things may escalate.”

“Good. Let them. Let her spill her guts and tell all. She’s met her match. This is your husband of twenty years, Alicia. You can’t let some random side dish think she can just swoop in and take everything from you. No. Show the perra who the real empress is.”

Before Alicia could take back the laptop, Kat began to type, wasting no time in composing the perfect response. Alicia still had doubts about this approach, but Kat was