The coffee had gone cold in my hands, and Jules was still holding on to my fingers.
Then my phone buzzed once against my knee, and Alistair's name lit up the screen.
It was not a message to me. It started with her name.
Alistair: Clarissa. Give me until the vote. After that we can talk about what we want.
There was more. The words came up one after another, easy as breathing.
Alistair: She's a placeholder until September. You know that.
Alistair: She looks good in the photos and she keeps her mouth shut.
Then the last one, sent a minute after the others, like an afterthought.
Alistair: Come over tonight. I'll fuck you on the desk and you can stop sulking.
Jules read it over my shoulder, and her hand went still on my wrist.
Jules: Read it again. Out loud. All of it.
I read it, and my voice came out thin and polite, like I was apologizing for the words.
Three years with Alistair, and this was the first love letter I had ever read from him.
Maris: It wasn't meant for me.
Jules: No. It was meant for her. That is the part you keep skipping.
The phone rang in my hand, and his name filled the screen again.
Jules: Put it on speaker. Let me hear him.
I answered without the speaker. Three years had made a habit of him.
Alistair: Did you get a message from me? A wrong one.
He did not sound sorry. He sounded like a man checking that a door was locked.
Maris: I got it. All of it. Placeholder, September, the desk.
Alistair: Delete it. It was nothing. Don't make it into a wedding.
Maris: A placeholder is nothing?
Alistair: It's a word. You're not stupid, Maris. Don't start acting like it.
Alistair: My mother is watching the calendar. If you embarrass her before the vote...
Alistair: Elm Court is a line item. Her grant is a line item. Think before you cry.
He said it calmly, the way he ordered wine.
Then a woman laughed somewhere behind him, and the sound moved closer to the phone.
Clarissa: Is she crying? Ask her if she's crying.
Alistair: She's getting there.
Something in me went very quiet, the way a room does when the power cuts.
Maris: Say it again. With her listening. Say I was a placeholder.
Alistair: Don't ruin a good afternoon over a text.
I hung up first. It was the only thing that day I did first.
My hands shook so hard that Jules took the phone out of them and set it face down on the step.
Jules: You are not a placeholder. You are not a line item. You are not a problem.
Jules: He just showed you what he is. Believe him.
The shame came up hot then, and it was not about him. It was about me.
Maris: I knew, Jules. Somewhere in the last year, I knew. And I ironed his shirts the next morning.
She asked me what I wanted to do with the truth, and for once I did not reach for a softer word.
Maris: He betrayed me. In front of the donors, in the drive, in a text meant for her.
The word sat in the air between us, ugly and true, and it did not kill me.
Jules: So what are you going to do about it?
Maris: I'm done protecting him. Not one more thing to keep him comfortable.
It was the first promise I had made in three years that felt like it belonged to me.