Suddenly, it all felt like a dream, as if I had built up some kind of fairytale that had never really existed. I had imagined my world, and Brendon has taken a sledgehammer to the fantasy, rendering it a shattered heap of worthless images that mean nothing. – Felicity’s Journal, March 27
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Evening, March 19
To her relief, Felicity returned to an empty cabin. She had to suppress a pang of nausea as she considered whether Brendon remained away to indulge in his mistress, but she needed not to think about it. She needed to distract. Distract in whatever way she could manage. Distract with something that filled her mind with thoughts, not demanding enough to require actual attention, but active enough to grab and keep her mind occupied. A bath and a laptop, her instincts supplied, and she strolled into her room, digging in her duffle for her computer. Then she continued into the bathroom and began to fill the huge bathtub, pouring in some fragrant bubbles supplied by whatever housekeeping service managed the cabin.
Felicity clicked past the offending login information, now rife with new meaning, and opened an app, scrolling through a list of possible shows recommended by her preferences to click on one that looked interesting. Soon, she lay surrounded by warmth and comfort and thoroughly distracted by the clever banter between the scifi captain and his female co-captain. So cliché, she scoffed, unsure of whether she spoke of the show or of her own life. Suddenly she had become a cliché, she sighed. Unbelievable.
Her mind wandered for a while, but she found herself very alert in an instant.
“Felicity?” an anxious voice called, and Felicity settled deeper into the water. How would she face him?
Rather than answer, she lay back into the sultry sting of the water, allowing its heat to draw the burn from the depth of her chest. After far too few moments of grim peace, Brendon stumbled into the room, seemingly unaware of her presence. As usual, his countenance spoke some kind of determined consternation, a deep puzzle of thoughts twisting in his mind that only he could solve. Felicity watched him, her entire body submerged beneath the water save her face. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought she sensed a flowery aroma emanating from his as he neared the bathtub. No, she definitely did not want to talk to him.
She hoped by remaining still, she might escape his notice until he had passed through into the closet. For half the distance across the space, he seemed destined to answer her wishes, but then his eye caught hers in the mirror. She did not move, a burn rising in her throat that wanted to spit out some fiery accusation. Before she could, though, his expression arrested her, an expression she would never have expected: fear.
“How long have you been in here?” he spoke in a hushed tone, almost intimate. “You didn't answer me.”
In her newly unapologetic candor, she did not appease him – did not even explain. “I didn't,” she leveled coolly.
The fear seemed to grow as he took in the deadness in her voice. Somehow, he still expected her to respond to him. Because he doesn't know you know, her brain supplied.
“It's just,” he paused, “you look almost poised for something there, your whole body under the water like that.”
Felicity laughed, understanding the expression. In the past, such emotion on his part might have moved her, but now it just brought a barrier of ice to the surface of her skin, despite the heat of the water. “You're afraid I'm going to go Ophelia!” she snickered. Was he actually anxious for her? Or just anxious that he was caught? “I just might,” Felicity simpered, her voice rising to a near-hysterical wisp as if she held sanity by a weak thread. “I always thought Ophelia so weak, you know. Now I have a lot more compassion for her.”
With a momentary pang of nerves, she watched ice freeze his own expression, the look of an injured dog backed into a corner. If he hadn't suspected before, he did now.
“That's right,” Felicity continued, not caring to hear his thoughts. “It's my problem. My mental deficiency. I will do what I do, irrespective of your choices and decisions. Irrespective of the fact that you smell like betrayal. Don't worry about it.”
She plunged under the water, literally holding her breath with the hope that he would walk away. When her lungs finally burned too much to resist, she surfaced and found him gone. Apparently, he wasn’t too worried that she would off herself. The dull ache of his absence seemed less intense a pain than watching the rejection she feared she might otherwise encounter. Sitting up, she pulled the plug. She would find no more pleasure in anything for a while. For once, maybe Brendon wanted to avoid conflict. That's because there's no way to explain his way out of this one.
Still, neither of them had actually spoken the words, so Felicity had no confirmation that he knew. As she slid on her robe and moved toward the armchair in the bedroom, she considered how she could test his patience with her, see if she could stress him into revealing something.
“Are we going to the party tonight?” she spat.
“The party...?” he replied, insecurity distorting his normally assured expression, “How do you know about the party?”
“A friend told me,” she offered coyly, relishing the doubt in his eyes.
“But you never want to go to a party.”
“Oh, I don't!” Her reserve fled. “But since your entire company is here, why not? You've dragged me to these miserable parties for years! And the fact that I don't like them has given you plenty of reason – ” She cut herself off, but Brendon seemed not to notice. When she escalated things, he tended to get so defensive that her words didn't matter,
“Are you seriously doing this?” he accused. “I have important business to do here - “
“Important?” Felicity mocked, barely hiding the rage in her voice. “That's right. What’s happening between us is just a little thing. I'm sure you would never hide anything really important from me.”
To her surprise, Brendon looked as if she had punched him in the gut. The color fled his face, and his words almost panted in the weakness of his breath.
“Really important,” Brendon whimpered. “Not the lie about this trip.”
Felicity chewed her lip. Though she had hoped he would tell her the truth, now that she felt the imminence of the confession, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it. Had he really expected to hide it forever? “That's right,” she made herself press. “I'm sure there's no dark, dirty little secret that you would want to keep from me at all costs.”
“Is this about ProtoComm?” Brendon stammered, and Felicity had to press her lips together not to burst out in derision.
Still, her words exploded, harsh and intense. “ProtoComm? I mean, peripherally. From what I’ve figured, there was a time when your conduct at ProtoComm would have really set off my sensors, but you cleaned up your act there. You're too smart in business to let petty indiscretions risk your position in the company. Instead, you committed huge personal indiscretions that no one in the company would mind.”
To her surprise, Brendon took a step toward her, his face crumbling in what resembled panic. “How did you find out?” he strained out, and he seemed actually to have trouble standing.
“Find out what?” she pressed mercilessly. “I'm sure you wouldn't do anything really reprehensible.”
“I’m surprised you see it that way,” he hemmed, as if he believed she were serious. “It was just Aimée...”
Time stretched, dark and undefined, as Felicity experienced the difference between suspicion and certainty. For her, suspicion had felt frantic, hectic and unsettled. Though she hated it, she had known some form of it her entire life – that anxiety of the unknown.
But certainty? Certainty resounded like a huge churchbell, echoing and sending reverberations, erasing all surroundings, the past and the future, reason and thought, base emotional sensations. Certainty stood eternal in a moment, a standard and monument of deep, resonant, dark, hollow pain.
“Felicity,” he began, stepping toward her. She held up her hand, arresting his forward motion lest he place himself in reach of her claws. “Felicity, you’re my wife. This doesn't change that. It has nothing to do with you.”
Jumping to her feet, Felicity strode to the other side of the bed, beginning a frenetic pacing that seemed the only way for her to control herself. “You have got to be,” she leveled through clenched teeth, “the most delusional man who has ever lived. Nothing to do with me? Who, exactly, does it have to do with?”
She watched his countenance with utter disbelief as he spoke the words without the slightest compunction or guile. If she believed his expression, he meant what he said. “It has to do with me. With me and Aimée.”
Incredulous, Felicity's eyes flitted around the room, almost as if looking for confirmation from a nonexistent judge or for someone to share her incredulity. “You can't honestly believe that,” she accused, despite her reading of his body language. “You're a smart man. Brilliant, even. There is no way you believe that.”
“Of course, I do, Felicity. You aren’t seeing this clearly. Don’t you love me?”
Somehow, she did not rush at him and punch him in the face. She had put up with his manipulations for so long, let him tug on her guilt to distract her from his transgressions. No more. “You obviously have no idea what that means!” Felicity scoffed. The word “love” emitting from his mouth at such a moment felt like a desecration, a testament to his depravity.
For years, Felicity had argued with herself over the faults in her husband, the insensitivity he had shown their children and her parents, his tendency to press friendly arguments until people ceased being his friend. Felicity had always laid at least part of the blame on the other party: they took offense too easily, they didn't think clearly, they got emotional. Now, for the first time, the veil stripped off of the illusion she had let herself build up and share with her husband. She had played accomplice to an asshole.
A brilliant man, a skilled politician, a generous contributor; but in his personal relationships, when he had to spend any extended effort on a relationship, he pissed people off, and they left him. Only she had stayed by him for all these years, buttressed in part by the children who depended on his attachment and by her hope that he would prove himself a good man. Apparently, a misplaced hope, and the possible ramifications began to wash over her.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
If he would do this, what else would he do? Would he leave her destitute? Would he abandon his children? Would he sacrifice her, her children, his reputation, anything else to the idolatry of his self-indulgence and egotism?
As he stepped toward her, she recoiled physically, though she kept her expression in check. Where was his remorse? His compassion? Absent. Still, the image of her children flashed before her eyes and restrained her. Alex, Nicholas, Noah: maybe Brendon had treated her like trash, but would he so easily dismiss his children? If there was a chance in hell that he would father his children, she couldn't kick him to the curb. Not Brendon.
One thing Felicity knew, if she pushed him too far, he would blast them all to hell. No one really beat Brendon. Just because his ego needed approval, his actions tended toward the generous and benevolent. If he believed that she thought well of him, he would continue to find some manner of acting well. If she revealed the full depth of her disdain at the moment, he might act in a consistent manner with her belief – heartless.
Felicity wanted to scream; she wanted to throw things if not at him at least of his, shattering them into a million pieces. Yet she restrained herself.
When the ringing of Felicity's cell phone shattered the tension, she jumped at the chance of an interruption. She reached for the phone, turning from Brendon.
“Are you serious?” she heard him complain. “You're taking a call right now?”
She pretended she hadn't heard him, her pulse pounding in her temples as she swiped to answer. “Hello?” she barked, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Felicity?” the unsteadiness of the voice on the other end took her aback.
“Nick?” she asked incredulously. “Is something wrong?” Using the drama of the question, Felicity left Brendon standing in the room while she headed to the closet. She could think of three reasons Nick might be calling, and the significance of those options sent Brendon to the background. Either Nick had called about her kids, her parents, or Briel. None of those options felt insignificant.
Nick turned Felicity's question around. “Are you okay?” he begged, and Felicity thought she caught a manic hint in his tone.
“Yeah,” she threw the word out haphazardly, “why wouldn't I be?”
“Well,” Nick paused, and Felicity heard a deep breath on the other end of the phone. “For one thing, you sounded awful when you answered the phone.”
“Ha!” she laughed humorlessly. “Sorry. I'm fine.” She offered no explanation. “What's the other reason?”
“Well...” Nick hesitated.
“Well?”
“I noticed something weird on your computer.”
“Something weird on my computer...” Felicity quizzed. How typically obscure.
“Uh, yeah. Well, not so much your computer. Really, Brendon's.”
A stab of stress pierced her between the eyes. As if she didn't have enough suspicions about Brendon! “What the hell, Nick? What are you doing on his computer?”
“Look, I’ll answer your questions,” Nick insisted, “But before I do, is Brendon there with you?”
“Well, he's here at the cabin,” she offered, peeking out into the bedroom and noticing his absence, “but I don't know where exactly. I'm in the closet.”
“Just keep your voice down, then.”
With building anxiety, Felicity felt her stomach clutching. “Nick,” she insisted, exasperated, “Just tell me what's wrong.” She didn't think she could handle anything else at the moment.
“Does Brendon have any dealings with...” Nick paused as if unsure of his next words.
“With what?”
“Foreign trade?”
“Are you kidding?” Felicity snickered. “Brendon works for an international communications company. Of course, he does, though I don't know the specifics.”
“Well, I found something a little more provocative than 'communications.' And there are some things Briel has said.”
“Provocative?”
“Lissie, I found a couple of files on Brendon's hard drive, hidden and password protected, that seemed to contain something odd. And I found some offshore bank accounts – I doubt you knew about those.”
“You hacked his stuff?” Part of her wanted to punch Nick; another wanted to give him a high five.
“You're missing the point. Are you going to let me tell you what I found?”
Why should she be surprised? She obviously didn't know her husband, having lived for who knew how long with a belief in his character. Now, how could she know whom she had married? No qualms about an affair, something she had heard him speak against a million times when they had first gotten married.
If he could justify an affair, what else could he justify? She had considered that he might abandon the children, cut off their financial support. It didn't seem such a stretch to think he would do something illegal, that he would figure out a way that the legal restrictions were small-minded and overly simplistic. Breathing deeply, Felicity braced herself for another asteroid.
“Let me guess. Something salacious and scary.” She spoke the words deadpan, but the sarcastic tone revealed more irony than skepticism.
“Look, Lissie. Just because I found this doesn't mean I'm saying anything against Brendon. It may just be something his company is doing,” he explained. “I found malware on your computer, a kernal-based keylogger. If you had been infected, then he might have been as well. I was trying to do him a favor!”
“Just tell me the dirt, Nick. It’s not going to shock me as much as you imagine.”
Nick hesitated, “I don’t have anything concrete yet...” He seemed to be stalling, and Felicity’s anxiety made her impatient. How bad was this? “I can't make out all the details, but I made it through the first level of security and accessed the file names. According to Briel, some of the terms inside sound like Darknet pseudonyms.”
“The nanny knows Darknet pseudonyms?” Felicity snorted. “Doesn't seem a particularly good qualification for child-watching.” Though it seems perfectly in character for the woman I saw at her apartment.
“Well, Felicity, apparently, Briel has been working for Brendon in some capacity other than as your nanny.”
For Brendon? Felicity grew more distraught, her breath speeding again. She had thought she was beyond any more shock. Though it explained some of the conversation in Briel’s hallway.
“I mean,” Nick continued, “we've been spending some time together. And some of the things she said about Brendon when she saw the files – it just sounded like she knew something.”
“Like what?” Felicity carped. “Like how to navigate the criminal Internet?”
“It's not the criminal Internet, Felicity,” Nick chastised. “It just happens to be used by a lot of criminals – drugs, arms, trafficking, etc. And Briel is not the problem. It's Brendon and his company. There is something going on there.”
His company? As if Brendon’s personal issues weren’t bad enough – now his business was suspect? “You’re just looking for trouble because you could never resist a conspiracy theory. I mean, Nick, we've both known Brendon for years, and the last thing he would do is something like you're talking about.” Of course, until yesterday, I swore up and down that he would never cheat on me, and now that seems pretty foolish. Since she didn’t know anything about the business, she was afraid Nick would drag the affair out of her, and she was not ready to share that misery with anyone else yet. “There are a couple of shady characters at his office, but at a company that size, that’s not surprising. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me. What could cause me trouble right now? I’m in another country on vacation with my husband.” And a good portion of his apparently corrupt company.
“Just be careful, sis.”
“Honestly, Nick. I'm just a boring mom with a boring life. There is nothing to be concerned about except that my brother is far too nosy.”
Nick laughed, offering tacit agreement. A moment later, the gravity had returned. “But you'll be careful,” he repeated. He sounds just like Jase.
Shaking her head, Felicity breathed herself calm. “I'll do my best,” she conceded. “But you stay off Brendon's computer! I’m sure it’s nothing.” Lie.
“I'll do my best,” Nick retorted, and Felicity would have reprimanded him had Brendon not entered the bedroom at that moment.
“Bye, Nick, love you.” She adopted a light tone. “And don't let Briel push you around,” she said, only half joking.
“Love you, too, sis,” Nick responded, still serious. “And be careful.”
“Right.” Click. She did not want Brendon to ask her any questions about Nick's call.
Rounding out of the doorframe, Brendon reared up in front of her. “Are you ready?” he barked, eyeing her disheveled appearance.
I confront the man about his affair, and he still pushes me around? Unbelievable.
“Do I look ready?” she sassed. “I still have an hour.”
“I just wanted to know if I was going to have to carry you.”
Felicity glared at him. He wore an impish look which would normally have softened her, but in this case, it only galled her. “Don’t even,” she leveled, and his expression transformed into base anger. True, she had agreed to go with him, but it stemmed more from her desire not to be alone with him than her love for social events. Still, she subdued her tone before continuing. “I'm coming, but. I have to change. I'll hurry.”
Brendon crossed tentatively to her, reaching a hand to take hers. She wanted to draw back, but she held her breath and let him grasp her fingers, though she continued to scowl at him. Don't do anything rash, she admonished herself. Make it through tonight for the kids.
“Let's not fight,” he pleaded, his eyes falling to their joined fingers. Did he honestly expect to erase the distance between them with a touch? Delusional, she reiterated.
A moment later, Brendon had wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her to him, his lips meeting her upturned mouth with an urgency Felicity couldn't explain. She let him kiss her. Self-loathing enveloped her as she didn’t move. If she meant what she had said to Jase, that she would try to work it out for the kids, she had to look forward to his touch for at least another fifteen years until little Nicholas was grown. She swallowed her nausea and tested her endurance. Another fifteen years…
After several moments, Brendon stepped back, leaning in for a last kiss on Felicity's forehead and releasing her. “You get ready,” he commanded. “I'll get everything else set.”
As she closed the closet door behind her, Felicity leaned against the wall, allowing her head to fall back and breathing deeply. One thing she had always prided herself in was her ability to read people, to know things about them that they didn't know themselves. With Brendon, though, Felicity found her instincts constantly confused.
Because he seemed completely justified in his own mind, he never wore the guilty aura of a deceiver. Personal conviction, though, did not equate to the moral high ground. Still, his actions usually seemed noble. How else could she have stayed with him for more than a decade? Brendon sometimes championed the weak. Maybe out of personal contempt for those in power, maybe to look like a hero, but he had helped them.
Unfortunately, though, something about Brendon seemed to have changed recently. ProtoComm had gotten to him – maybe corrupted him – and he seemed much more possessed by the money and prestige. About one thing Felicity was certain now, and with a certainty she rarely had: Brendon had lied, about too many things. And hearing Nick's suspicions, Felicity realized that she could count on nothing in regard to Brendon. If she couldn’t trust him, she couldn’t trust him. Infidelity or criminality? The fact that she had to ponder either option made her sick to her stomach, and she stood still to breathe for a few seconds.
The numbers on her watch suddenly leaped out at her: 6:25 p.m. No more time for emotions and confusion, not if she intended to follow through with her plans. Grabbing her backless dress, the only appropriate dress she had brought, she gathered her other necessities and ran to the closet. Coming through the door, Brendon smirked appreciatively at the dress. I’m not wearing this for you, Felicity retorted in her mind, glowering.
She threw on everything but the dress, then she proceeded to brush her teeth, straighten her hair, and managed cosmetics in a matter of minutes. Lastly, she drew on the dress, requiring a more-than-willing hand from Brendon to fasten the halter strap behind her neck. Kissing her bare shoulder, he crooned, “You should wear the necklace I bought you.”
Shrugging, her body responding to his touch even while she hated him, Felicity reached over to a bag that sat on the bathroom counter. She drew out the strand of freshwater pearls, in greys and blues, and reached to place it on her neck. It dangled deep into the V-neck of the dress, and she sighed at the obvious sensuousness of the effect.
Before she could manage the hook, Brendon grasped her hands, gently extracting the necklace from her grip. He stepped behind her, brushing his fingers along her collarbone and up her neck as he brought the two ends of the chain to meet, lingering with his hands on her shoulders before finishing his task and closing the clasp. As he drew his hands away, she felt his lips warm the skin beneath her right ear, and a shiver ran up her spine. “I wish I didn't have to let you out like this.”
As the cold air replaced the heat of his skin, Felicity split into two, half of her infuriated at his gall, and the other half almost stirred by his touch. Hurt had rendered her desperate for connection, and even his damaged, destructive touch promised to soothe the ache. Fortunately, her mind was clear. That promise was like every other promise he had made her – a tantalizing lie.
“Too bad,” she leveled, spinning away from him.
“Maybe we don't have to go,” he answered quietly. At first, Felicity thought that Brendon was teasing, but his face conveyed heated sincerity when she looked at him. She recognized that look. Not tonight. Eventually, she realized, if she were really planning to stay with him. Her head spun before she righted herself.
“I want to go,” she responded coldly. When she looked back at that moment, she would wonder if Brendon had held second thoughts, and if she had reacted differently, would he have altered his course. When she looked back, though, she wasn’t sure she would have wanted him to. His character would not have evolved for the better, and more of the same would have led down an even darker road.
Her expressed desire to attend the party ran so counter to Felicity's established manner that Brendon peered suspiciously into her eyes. After a second, though, he stepped back and let her pass in front of him. Felicity sighed in relief. He waited patiently, his expression gone cold, while she threw on a few last-minute touches and laced the ribbons of her stilettos. Then taking her by the hand he led her to the waiting car. As he pulled her down into the running vehicle, she couldn’t escape the impression that he was dragging her into her tomb.