I need to win

Her words landed like stones in the pit of my stomach, and for a few seconds I just stared at her, unable to muster a thought or a feeling that didn’t sound pathetic even in my own head. Admit defeat to Wiley Henderson? Accept that the one thing he had that I didn’t was something I couldn’t fix with drive, ambition, or discipline? The silent roar in my head swelled and then snapped—something in me decided right then that if there was a way to win, I’d find it, even if the cost was grotesque.

“Sarah… I’m going to need your help to win,” I said, and though I meant to sound confident and calculated, the tremor in my voice gave away how close I was to breaking.

She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist, blinking away fresh tears. “I’ll do whatever it takes as long as it makes this end quicker.” The desperation in her voice was so new it almost scared me; Sarah, as a rule, never admitted to being **** for anything.

“Next time he fucks you, I need you to pay attention to exactly what he does to make it feel so good for you,” I said, forcing the words through a clenched jaw. “And then I need you to tell me. Not just the basics, but everything. What he says, what he does, what you feel in every part of your body. I want a fucking play-by-play.”

She stared at me, not with the contempt or exhaustion I half-expected, but with something closer to relief. “I can… but have you ever considered it might be you?”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah’s voice lost its edge. “I might enjoy it so much because I know you’re listening to me. Like, every time I’m with him, I know you’re there listing to it happen. Maybe it’s just the fact you’re so obsessed with me, and he’s just a prop to make you jealous. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all in my head.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, and for a moment the idea stung worse than anything else she’d said. If I was my own problem, if I’d built the architecture of this humiliation with my own hands, what did that make me? No, I thought, it had to be Wiley. It had to be something he was doing, some freakish trick only he knew.

“Okay, then I’ll leave the house before he gets here next time,” I said, almost daring her to object. “I’ll make it so you can’t even tell if I’m coming back. You’ll be alone with him, no audience, no pressure, no expectation.”

She hesitated, chewing at her lip. “I don’t want this hanging over our heads much longer, so I’ll ask if he’s free tonight…”

Suddenly the logistics of the thing overwhelmed me, every detail of the plan laid out like a serial killer’s evidence board in my mind. The prospect of her and Wiley alone in our apartment, in the bed we’d once picked out together, nauseated me, but so did the idea of this contest dragging on for another week, another month—forever.

“Okay, then I’ll just go to the movies or hang out at the bar until you’re both finished,” I said, already hating the mental image of her texting me some checkered-flag emoji while Wiley zipped up and slunk out the door.

But Sarah was already reaching for her phone. Her hands were so unsteady she almost dropped it, and when she managed to type out the first few words, I saw the screen reflected in her wet eyes. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I watched her thumb hover over the contact, watched the trembling as she composed the most humiliating booty call of all time.

The room felt smaller, denser, as if the gravity had doubled in the space between us. I tried to ignore the fact that the very thought Wiley might come here—tonight—sent a cold animal panic through my chest. Even my heartbeat felt muggy and slow; my body was preparing for defeat before the war had even begun.

Sarah pressed send, and for a moment nothing happened. We just sat there, our naked bodies separated by a gulf that had nothing to do with physical distance and everything to do with the psychic chasm Wiley had opened in our lives. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I.

It was five minutes—five full minutes—before he replied. The phone buzzed on the comforter between us, and I saw Sarah’s whole body coil and then release. She read the message, nodded, and set the phone down on the pillow like it might detonate if she mishandled it.

“Well,” she said quietly, “he be here at five.”

There was nothing to do but sit there, in the heavy air, and listen to the sounds of the apartment. For the first time since I’d moved in, every object seemed to hold a threat. The couch where Wiley had once spilled beer and apologized, the bathroom where he’d left his hair in the shower drain, the kitchen table where he’d once gotten into a shouting match about fantasy football—every surface felt like it vibrated with an invisible residue of him. I wanted to get up, to clean everything, to scrub the walls until my knuckles bled, but instead I just sat there, hypnotized by Sarah and her phone.

Sarah finally broke the silence. “Do you want me to record it for you?” she asked in a voice so small I doubted she meant for me to hear it. When I glanced up, I saw her face was completely blank, as if she’d decided to check out before the worst of it even began.