CHAPTER 131 — The Discovery

CHAPTER 131 — The Discovery

Lisa's POV

The phone won’t quit ringing.

I’m watching it from across the living room. It’s lighting up and vibrating on the coffee table for the fifth time in the last hour. Unknown number. But I know exactly who it is.

Andre.

I have been ignoring his calls all afternoon, since Leo left this morning. 

Thirty seconds later, it starts again.
"For God's sake," I say under my breath, my palms over my eyes. "Stop calling."

But he wont quit. The calls keep getting through, and more to come, unrelenting. 

I should just answer it. Tell him to stop calling. Tell him I can’t help him. Tell him to leave me alone.

But I can’t bring myself to go to the phone. Instead, I stay snuggled on the couch with a throw draped over me, attempting to act like none of this is really going on. Pretending my life isn’t crumbling because I was dumb enough to meet with my ex-husband.

Finally, it stops ringing again.

This silence that follows is almost worse. 
I look at the clock. 5:47 PM in Boston. Leo is going to be home soon. We need to talk. Really talk. I have to tell him everything—not just about Andre, but about the meeting and the calls. I need to get it off my chest, before it kills us.

The phone rings again. 

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Stop, please," I whisper to the silent room.

But it keeps ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
I'm about to get up, about to finally answer it—tell Andre to go to hell—when I hear the front door open.

Leo's home. 

My heart skips a beat. I stand quickly, smoothing down my hair as I try to pull myself together. Maybe this is good. Maybe him being home will make me finally have this conversation.

"Lisa?" he calls from the doorway.

"In here," I tell him, my voice quivering more than 

The phone is still ringing.

I move toward it, to silence it before Leo comes in, but I'm not fast enough.

He’s in the living room doorframe now, his jacket folded over one arm, his tie loosened. From the moment they stepped inside, his eyes locked on the phone that was now ringing on the coffee table. “Your phone’s ringing,” he says pointlessly.

“I know. It’s fine. I’ll just let it go to voicemail.”

He turns to me and then back. “It’s been ringing a lot. I could hear it from outside.”

"It’s just… spam. Probably." 

The lie is hanging between us like a thin curtain: transparent, feeble.

The ringing stops. 

He was disappointed from earlier this morning. And I don’t blame him.
"Leo, about this morning—" I began.

The phone rings again.

I race toward it, but Leo is closer. His movements are casual as he goes for it. “Let me just decline it for you—”

“No!” Too harsh a panic is in the breathy word.

He freezes, his hand poised above the phone. “What?”

“I mean... it’s fine. Just let it ring.”

He has fixed his gaze on me now with that look I have learned to fear—the one that reads: he knows that something is wrong and that I am keeping something from him and that he is tired of being kept in the dark.

“Lisa, what’s happening?”

“Nothing. It’s just—”

The ringing phone persists, competing for attention, growing increasingly difficult to overlook.

Leo tightens his jaw. Then he answers before I can stop him.

“Leo, don’t—”

But he’s already swiping to answer and putting it to his ear.

“Hello?” His voice is frigid and staccato, but he is not answering from the cold. I watch in horror as he listens to whoever's on the other end. Nothing changes on his face but I see his knuckles turning white around the phone.

"When will we meet again?" he repeats. 
"Sorry, who is this?"

My stomach drops. Oh God. Oh God, no.

"Andre," Leo says slowly, and his eyes flick to me. "And you want to know when you’ll see Lisa again?" 

I can hear Andre on the line muffled but frantic. He has seen the error of his ways. Doesn't have the decency to lie to me.

"I see," Leo says and his voice gets colder with each syllable. "And how many time have you met up with her so far?"

"Leo, please—" I make a step in his direction, my hand going for the phone, but he turns his back to me.

"No no please continue," he says in the phone. "I would really love to hear about these meetings you've been having with my girlfriend."

"Leo, please. Please?" I am now begging, panic clawing at my throat.

He's silent for a moment, listening. Then: "Her ex-husband. Right. That's what I thought."
He ends the call.

The silence that followed was deafening.

He doesn’t budge, phone still in hand, his back to me, and I can see his chest rise and fall in small breaths. He is trying to hide his anger, but I could sense it boiling off him.

"Leo," I say softly. "Let me explain."

"Your ex-husband," he says, voice deadly calm. "Has been calling you. Has been meeting with you. And you never thought to tell me?"

"I was going to tell you—" 

“When?” The word snaps like a whip. “When were you going to tell me, Lisa? After the next secret meeting? After he called for the hundredth time?”

“I didn’t know how—”

“‘Leo, my ex-husband contacted me’?” His voice rises. “How about that? How about being honest with me for once in the past week?”

“I wanted to tell you, I was just—”

“You just what? You figured it was better to sneak around behind my back? To lie to me every day like this? To make me feel like I’m crazy for thinking there’s something wrong?”

Tears are pouring down my face. “I should have told you—”

“Yes, you should have!” He's yelling now, and I have never heard him yell. “You should have told me as soon as he contacted you. But you lied instead. You lied to my face.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Do you have any idea what this week has been like for me?” Now he’s pacing, one hand pulling at his hair. “Watching you pull away, watching you shut me out, wondering what the hell I did wrong? And the whole time, you were meeting with your ex-husband?”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“Then what was it like, Lisa? Enlighten me. Because from wherein I stand, it looks like you’ve been secretly meeting with your ex and lying about it.” 

"He just phoned me out of…" I attempt to explain, the words stumbling over each other. "He wanted to say something; I didn't know what to think—"

"You should have told me first!This is what you do in a relationship, Lisa. You notify your mate when something big like this happens. You don’t conceal it."

"I know, I know I should have—”

"But you didn't." He ceases pacing, in the centre of the room, and the expression he sends me is so disappointingly cruel it actually hurts. "You chose to hide it from me. You chose him over me."

He laughs bitterly. "You’ve been so consumed with whatever is up with him that you’ve completely shut me out. Do you know what that feels like? To have that person be someone who won’t let you in?"

"Leo, please—" I advance on him, my hand going for his arm, yet he draws his foot back.

"Don’t." The single word stops me in my tracks. “Don’t touch me.”

The rejection stings worse than anything else. “Leo—”

"I have to find out. " His voice is quieter now."Why were you meeting with him? What does he want?”

I swallow, trying not to be intimidated. "He... his business is failing. His marriage is falling apart. He asked for my help."

"You help." Leo stares at me. "He asked you for help, and you what? Considered it?" 

Silence.

"Jesus Christ, Lisa." He turns away, hands on hips, head bowed. “You’ve been thinking about helping the man who ruined you? The man who left you for your stepsister?”

“It’s complicated—”

“Young lady, it’s not complicated.” He spins back around. “He hurt you. He doesn't deserve your assistance. He doesn’t deserve anything from you.”

“I know that—”

“Do you? Because I get the feeling you’re going to start falling back into his orbit as soon as he snaps his fingers.”

“That’s not fair—”

“This is all so not fair!” His voice cracks. "What’s not fair is that I’ve been bending over backwards every day to make you happy and to build a life with you and be the man you deserve. And all it takes is your ex to show up, and I’m immediately not good enough."

"You are enough. And Leo, you're everything—"

He looks at me for a long beat and I see something change in his face. The anger ebbs into something worse: resignation.

"I have to learn about your ex-husband by inadvertently answering your phone."

"Leo, no—" 

“I need space.” 

He moves toward the door, grabbing his jacket from where he'd dropped it.

I panic as I follow him. "Wait, please. Don’t leave. Let us talk— We can talk about this—"

“We were supposed to have this talk a week ago.” He pushes the door open. "But you did that for the both of us when you made that decision for us to not tell."

"Where are you going?"

“I have no idea. Anywhere but here. “

“Leo, please—”My voice breaks. "I love you. Please don't go."

He stops in the doorway, facing away from me. For a flash, I think he might stay. Might turn around and say: Let me explain, let me fix this.

But then he speaks, his voice hollow. “I love you too. That’s what is making this so painful.”

Then I drop to the ground and allow myself to crumble completely.