Chapter Forty-Three: Questions

The question hung in the air like smoke—thin, stubborn, and impossible to ignore. Samantha fidgeted with her cup, tracing the rim with a perfectly manicured nail. She didn’t speak right away. Just breathed. Watched the steam curl, dissipate. Then finally, she looked up and met Marissa’s gaze.

“Daniel was…” she hesitated. “He wasn’t what I was supposed to like.”

She smiled nostalgically remembering the first time she’d caught eyes with Daniel at Colombia. “I was still at Columbia, getting my masters. Daniel was working his way through law school. Art history, by the way. With a minor in strategic appeasement of my mother. That’s why I went by the way. Sinclair girls don’t got to college to find careers or purpose. We go to meet the right people. The right husbands.”

“I was dating another guy when we met. Nothing serious, but the kind of guy you’d expect. The guy my parents expected. Blonde, lacrosse player, his family was old money like ours.”

“What’s his name?”

Samantha smiled remembering the silly notions, “Blaine,” she answered.

“Of course it was,” Marissa said half chortling.

“Believe me I know.”

“I mean, Blaine isn’t a person is he? I mean not a real person, that’s a Harvard legacy in human form. Blaine plays squash. Blaine thinks kombucha is exotic. Blaine refers to ‘Africa’ as if it’s one country.”

“Okay okay, I get it.” She smiled. For the first time that night, she actually smiled.

Marissa smirked, savoring it like the last good sip of tea. “I’m just saying. If you name your son Blaine, you’re legally obligated to inherit a boat.”

“Probably two,” Samantha added. “And a fraternity ring that somehow opens trust funds.”

Marissa snorted into her cup.

“But that’s my point,” Samantha said, the smile softening into something more introspective. “Blaine made sense. Daniel didn’t. Daniel didn’t care where my family spent their summer, he didn’t care about my dad’s company. He liked that I had opinions.”

“And you fell head over heels for him.”

“Yeah, he was my first. The first guy I loved. The one I saw myself spending some time with.”

Those had been happy days.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, but it shifted the atmosphere, because the next question was obvious. Inevitable.

“So,” Marissa asked, voice gentle but firm, “why Olivia?”

Samantha hesitated for a moment, it was the first time Olivia had been brought up.

She looked down at her cup, watched her hot chocolate swirl like it might hold the answers. “Something changed when we came back to New York,” she said finally.

They’d come back after a stint in LA, Daniel working legal aid, chasing some ideal he’d had in law school. She’d loved him for that. For the dreamer in him. But that version of him hadn’t lasted.

“Daniel got the job. Corporate law. The high-rise, the tailored suits, dinners with people who called themselves ‘dealmakers’ like it was a spiritual calling. And he was good at it. So good they just kept giving him more. More money. More clients. More pressure.”

“And?”

“And I started to feel like… I was back in that world again,” she said, eyes flicking up briefly. “The one I thought I’d escaped when I fell in love with him.”

Marissa didn’t interrupt. She just let her talk.

“We stopped talking the way we used to. Stopped arguing, even. He’d come home late, exhausted, sometimes not at all. He was working, always working. And when he was, it was like I was a porcelain doll. Too pretty to break, to look at even, too good for him.”

She took a slow breath. “And I became the Sinclair wife I was raised to be. The one who nodded politely at his clients, poured wine, smiled through the small talk. I was performing again. Not even for him, but for the version of us I thought we were supposed to be.”

“So, you fucked my wife because what? You wanted to relive something dangerous?” Marissas tone grew angry. Her voice was low, measured, and focused. “Maybe if you’d loved her, it would’ve been easier. Still would’ve gutted me, but at least it would’ve meant something.”

She set down her cup, the ceramic clinking against the saucer with a little too much ****.

“But no. That’s not what this was. This wasn’t love, it was curiosity. It was escapism for the both of you.” Her voice tightened. “Because being Daniel’s wife was too stable? Too beige? Too respectable? So you needed a little chaos to feel alive again?”

“I’m sorry,” Samantha whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Marissa didn’t respond right away. Just sat there, her tea growing cold in her hands. She didn’t know what to do with the apology. She didn’t even know if Samantha understood what she’d broken, if she ever could.

Finally, Marissa spoke again, “You should be.”

She finished her tea, and then looked up at Samantha. “I knew I was different when I was thirteen,” Marissa said suddenly.

“I was fifteen and I fell in love with a girl who wore eyeliner like armor and let me copy her math homework. She gave me a mixtape once, and I listened to it until it broke. Still have it. Don’t know if I ever loved anyone that quietly again.”

Samantha’s expression softened. For the first time, she didn’t look fragile or defensive. Just… present. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said gently. And she meant it.

Marissa stood, brushing her hand along her hip to smooth the fabric of her jumpsuit. Her gaze lingered on Samantha for just a second more, cool, not unkind.

“Listen,” she said, grabbing her coat from the back of the chair. “I’ve got to get going.”

Samantha looked up, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. “Will I see you again?”

Marissa paused, fingers tightening around the lapel of her coat.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Probably not, we’re not friends Samantha. Only thing that connected us was Olivia. And I haven’t heard from her since. Have you?”

Samantha looked away, she hadn’t of course. But she hadn’t reached out either.

“Didn’t think so.” She left some money on the table as a tip for the waitress. “Do you need help getting home?”

“No, I think I’ll be all right.”

Marissa said nothing further, she just nodded and walked away. She should probably call Leah. Though she had a feeling Leah was no longer at the club.