The Photo

“Listen, I don’t know how to even tell you this, but Jake was with another girl last night. I saw him, at the concert.”

Jenna’s head spun as she tried to process what her best friend in the entire world was saying. Bea wasn’t one for pulling punches, but she also had a heart of gold and so if she was saying that Jake was with someone else last night, Jenna knew it was killing her to say so. 

“Explain this to me like I am stupid, because I truthfully do not understand. Jake was at the concert last night?” Jenna’s mind reached for words to try to convey her feeling, but there was nothing. She was blank. How could this even be possible right now?

“Yes, and Jen, I’m sorry. It was him, and he was with some other girl. Here, I have this picture, because I couldn’t tell if it was him at first.” Bea pulled out her phone and illuminated was a photo of Jenna’s husband, Jake, wearing the fucking shirt she bought him not even a month ago, with his arm slung casually around a petite brunette. And since Jenna was not at the concert last night, and is a curvy red head, there is no denying that the woman in the photo is decidedly not her. 

“What the fuck, Bea?” Jenna felt all of the blood in her body rushing to her head, she felt her face heat, she heard nothing but static in her ears. She felt her finger tips go cold, the first sign she was about to have a panic attack. Then her arms got cold and went numb. Her chest began to ache. The very real physical sensations of her anxiety was what she couldn’t ever say out loud. It wasn’t just in her head when she had a hard time processing things, it was everywhere in her body. She stood up. She had to get Bea out, she couldn’t even stand to look at her. “Get out. Get the fuck out of my house,” she rasped. She felt the pressure in her chest growing, making it harder to breathe, to think.

“Jenna, I am here for you, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to have to tell you this!” Bea’s face was stricken and pale. She looked upset and on the verge of tears, which made Jenna irrationally angrier. 

“Like hell you didn’t. You have hated Jake from the beginning.” That wasn’t even true, Jenna had no idea where the venom she was spewing was coming from. Bea and Jake had never been best friends, it was true, but Bea was always very supportive of Jenna. They had been roommates in college when Jenna met Jake and while Bea made a few comments in the beginning about him seeming like a bro, all of the criticism stopped once Jenna became serious with him. And in the ten years since, they had gotten married, had kids and Bea was always right next to her, smiling and supporting her. But Jenna could hardly access those facts about her best friend. She saw red shapes swimming in her vision. 

“Jenna, I’ll leave, but please text me or call me when you want to talk. I can help you with whatever you need.” Bea got up to leave and all of the rage inside of Jenna evaporated leaving her collapsed on the couch. She wiped her face and was surprised to find it wet, unaware she had been crying. She heard the door shut, and she put her face into the throw pillow that was beside her on their couch. Their couch, that they picked out, the two of them. They had movie nights on it, and dance parties with the kids when they were in grumpy moods during the witching hours between dinner and bedtime. They kissed on this couch, and acted like teenagers, unable to keep their hands off of each other. They sat on this couch when they found out that Jenna’s grandmother passed away. Jake had comforted her and rubbed her arm and told her he would take care of everything. And now, Jenna was face down, feeling the tingle of breathing too much of carbon dioxide, wondering how that same man who comforted her and was playful and sexy with her, how he could be the one who was touching another woman.

Jenna tried to recall last night, if Jake seemed off, if there was some inner instinct about him that she had felt. But he hadn’t, and she hadn’t. He seemed normal, and she trusted him when he said he was going to go out with friends from college who were in town for a night. She didn’t question him, didn’t even feel the slightest suspicion when he arrived home in the early hours of the morning, only to get up a few hours later with the kids. She felt lucky. She remembered this morning feeling grateful that she had a husband who would go out, not even often, but still want to take care of the kids. Her face burned with embarrassment, about what she should have known, what she should have picked up on. She felt the loss of the trust in her marriage, to be sure, but the humiliation was by far the overwhelming feeling. She turned her face and gasped for breath not recycled into the pillow. Shame overtook her, for relying on a man that she said wasn’t like any of these other men who were caught cheating, for bragging about her marriage when her friends complained of their husbands, for thinking they were “rock solid” in her words. Her hand shook as she wiped her mascara from under her eyes. She felt herself take a stuttered breath. She went to the sink in the bathroom and washed her face, feeling the cool water wash away her flood of emotions. In its place was nothingness. She held her breath and slowly released, feeling the tense muscles she had tightened in her neck and shoulders relax slightly. When she heard the small feet coming down the stairs, she plastered on a smile. Behind it was more nothingness, but there was a small flicker of love for the tiny humans that she created. She would fan that flame and focus only on that. 

“Mommy! Can we call daddy and ask him to bring home cheeza?” Her daughter had taken to calling cheese pizza cheeza and she felt something close to happiness at that word, at the smallness of her tiny hand touching, always touching Jenna’s hand or arm or face. She grabbed her and gave her a tight hug, blinking back the tears that she didn’t give permission to form. 

She guided her children in front of the tv, kissing them both on the forehead. Screen time caps be damned, she wasn’t in any mindset to be a fully present parent right now. 

She made her way to the kitchen that they had just finished remodeling, the marble counters gleaming, reminding her of the day Jake took off of work so they could browse at the countertop place, holding hands and building their dream kitchen of the home Jenna believed they would grow old in. No one really does that, she thought, they move and get divorced, but Jenna had believed they were an anomaly, sturdy and impenetrable. She heard the whispers at her subconscious threatening to make their way to her thoughts. The whispers of the people she knew that would talk about what Jake did to his family, and how Jenna reacted. Jenna didn’t know how that would be yet. Should she confront him today? Should she send the kids to her dad’s house so they can yell and throw things? Jenna wasn’t even sure she could pick up a vase let alone throw it; her body was depleted of energy. She felt similarly when her daughter was a newborn and wouldn’t sleep, that same floaty feeling of disconnectedness and weakness all the way to her bones. She remembered Jake waking up with her at every feed, getting her water, changing her daughter’s diaper and then handing her to Jenna to feed and then putting their daughter back to bed. With their son, they each had a kid to take care of, up and down throughout the night. But while she remembers the frustration and the resentment festering while sleep deprivation had its claws in her, she felt so grateful to have Jake as a partner. 

That thought stung Jenna as she shook her head, trying to physically remove it from her mind while she focused on the task at hand: pretending everything was okay so she could make it until bedtime. What other choice did she have? She could yell and throw things at Jake, but it wouldn’t change the loss of trust, it wouldn’t even make her feel better. 

She checked the clock, and Jake had forty minutes until he was due home. Normally that would fill her with a sense of excitement. But now, she felt stupid. Stupid for not being able to catch on that something was wrong, and stupid that he felt brazen enough to be in public with this woman, and stupid that she now had people talking about her private marriage affairs. Her mind drifted back to Bea, and how she knew that she didn’t deserve the reaction Jenna gave her. She should text her, or call, but the energy to grab her phone and formulate something close to an apology evaded her. 

Jenna had read stories of women who were cheated on in the past. The ones who always confused her were the public figures who quietly left their relationship and never publicly talked about it, with only rumors to support any allegations of cheating. Jenna thought to those women now, and how she understood the quietness, and the resolve to hold this shameful thing close to their chests. While Jake was the one with the indiscretion, Jenna was the one who would be pitied and spoken of in whispers. 

While the nothingness she kept pulling around her emotions like a security blanket allowed her to process without being so upset in front of the children, she felt something else bloom inside her. Something she didn’t have the capacity for before. She felt hatred for the father of her children, her husband whom she planned her life around, the man whom she thought of as her best friend. That hate burned like an ember in the middle of her chest, and she touched there, between her breasts and pressed. She didn’t know what would happen next, but she knew that she would carry that hatred like a locket, always reminded of when she loved but was broken in return. There would always be a piece of her heart, she thought, that was tainted with the doubt he put there. 

She blankly grabbed her phone, ignoring the missed calls and texts from her loved ones, some who were with Bea last night no doubt seeing Jake and his female companion, and dialed for the local pizza place. Then she turned her phone off, and sat down to watch a movie with her children.