Chance Encounters

“I sure hope you’re right.” Caroline closed her puffy eyes, hoping for any sliver of solace.

Chapter Seventeen

Caroline took the following day off from work to pack her things at the apartment she used to share with Clay. She walked through the door and nearly jumped ten feet when she saw him at the table.

“I didn’t think you’d be here, Clay. I’m sorry, I can come back later or something,” Caroline offered.

“No. I wanted to be here.” Clay’s eyelids were swollen and dark circles surrounded his eyes.

“Are you sure? I promise I won’t take anything that isn’t mine.” She glanced around at the things they shared.

Clay tried to laugh, “I don’t think you’re going to take my stuff Caroline. I just…” He stopped talking and placed a finger against the side of his head. “It just doesn’t make sense, Care.”

Caroline’s heart started to throb in her chest. She moved to put her purse on the counter. “What do you mean?” she asked as calmly as possible.

“I still don’t get why you rushed off to New York? If Tracey’s fine, then why’d you leave like that? I don’t understand where you went.” Clay’s eyes crinkled as he waited.

She felt horrible for lying and knew she needed to come clean. At first, she thought the lie was to protect Clay from being hurt more. But the reality was, she was protecting herself. She didn’t want to give Clay a reason to hate her.

Caroline wondered if she had the courage to be completely honest with him. She looked at Clay’s somber face before he implored, “Please…just tell me the truth.”

Nerves rattled her body from the inside out. “I got a phone call during the party.” Caroline moved to sit in the chair directly across from him. She swallowed hard, the lump noticeable in her throat. “Do you remember the guy from the airplane?”

Clay’s forehead wrinkled. “Jackson, or something like that?”

Caroline nodded. “He was in a real bad accident.”

“So? What does that have to do with you?”

As Caroline gazed at the table in front of her, Clay’s anger returned. “Caroline! What does that guy getting in an accident have to do with you?”

Caroline sobbed uncontrollably.

“Caroline! Answer me!” he shouted at her. She looked up at him as the confusion in his eyes subsided. He rose from the table, grabbed the chair he sat on and hurled it into the wall behind him. “Are you kidding me? That guy? Have you been talking to him all this time?”

Caroline felt her stomach twist into tightly bound knots. Her face drained of all color as she fought off the urge to throw up. “Have you been cheating on me?” Clay demanded, his body trembling with angry thoughts.

“No! I didn’t cheat on you. I promise!” She finally spoke, but her words offered little comfort.

“I don’t believe you!” he screamed at her, the veins in his neck bulging with every beat of his adrenaline-filled heart.

“I swear, Clay. I never did anything with him.”

He pounded his fists on top of the table with such force that the glasses and candle crashed onto their sides. His breaths were quick and heavy as tiny beads of sweat rolled down the side of his beet red face. His hands clenched into fists and then unclenched, his knuckles shifting between white and pink. He turned to pace around the living room as Caroline watched him helplessly, her body wracked with uncertainty.

Clay closed his mouth and tried to breathe calmly, his breath rushing loudly through his nostrils. He walked over to the tossed chair that had punctured a small hole in the wall and picked it up. He brought it to the table and sat down. “Tell me everything,” he insisted through clenched teeth.

Caroline wiped the tears from her face, scared to death to admit the whole truth to him. “What do you want to know?”

“How many times have you seen him?” Clay shouted.

“I had lunch with him once after the flight, but that’s it,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Did you kiss him?” Clay asked coldly.

Caroline suddenly felt like she was on trial. “No.”

“How often do the two of you talk?”