Let the truth set them free

“Rachel, could you tell me everything you’ve heard about Griffin lately?” you ask, trying your best to sound genuinely curious and not… aggressive like Griffin’s been. “What makes you think that he cheated on you?”

“I didn’t!” Griffin cries out, and you glance back at him.

“I think we’ll make that clear in just a moment,” you nod to him. “But I have to set things straight with Rachel first, so that we’re all on the same page.”

With that, you turn back to Rachel, noticing the slight frown on her face. You gesture for her to speak.

“Well, I heard from a friend that Mars told somebody else that she’d slept with Griffin,” Rachel says slowly. “I mean, I know this is all based on what other people have said, but still… they’d have no reason to lie! And Griffin’s been accusing me of sleeping with other guys when I haven’t done anything like that. It just all seems very suspicious to me...”

The frown on her face softens into something resembling confusion.

“And is that all that you’ve heard?” you ask her.

“It should be enough,” Rachel says, though the hesitancy in her voice makes clear what she really thinks.

“Okay,” you say. “When did your friend tell you about this?”

“Last night,” Rachel says. “That’s how we started fighting, when I brought it up with Griffin and he accused me of cheating, so I knew that there had to be something—”

“Let’s not go there just yet,” you say, holding up a hand. “Do you know when your friend heard Mars talking about it?”

“Oh, I don’t know the exact day,” Rachel says. “She said it was about a week ago?”

“And did Mars say when she slept with Griffin?” you ask.

“I think she…” Rachel thinks hard for a minute, and then shakes her head. “But it can’t have been too long ago if she was telling somebody else about it, right?”

Griffin snickers at that, and you shoot him a disapproving look.

“I talked to Mars yesterday,” you say. “It turns out she did sleep with Griffin—”

“I knew it!” Rachel crows, jabbing a finger at Griffin. “And you tried to say you weren’t cheating—”

“Hold on, hold on,” you exclaim. “It did happen, but it was during orientation week, before the two of you got together. And they never slept together again. I don’t even think they really talk anymore.”

“Is that true?” Rachel asks, staring at Griffin. “Is that how things happened?”

He shifts silently in his seat, looking awfully uncomfortable.

“Uh… yeah, we did it, back then,” he says quietly. “Never again though.”

“So why didn’t you just SAY so?” Rachel yells, throwing her hands in the air.

“Because it was hard to explain! How was I supposed to give you all the details and the context when you were interrupting me every other second with an accusation about all the terrible things I was doing,” he grumbles.

“You kept saying that I was cheating on you!”

“Let’s take a step back,” you say, sensing that tempers are rising again. “Griffin, what was your reason for accusing Rachel for cheating on you?”

“I’ve told you,” Griffin says. “There’s no reason for Rachel to be making up crazy stories of me cheating with other women. But one thing that I do know is that cheaters love to accuse others of doing the same thing. So, I don’t know, maybe she’s not fucking some guy, but all the time that she’s spent with the Fiji guys, all those weird accusations… I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“Maybe she didn’t act perfectly,” you say, “but can you see how those words might have made her feel like something was going on too?”

Griffin shrugs noncommittally.

“And that you should have just explained things clearly from the beginning?”

He shrugs again, and says: “She still shouldn’t have randomly blamed me for cheating just based on some stupid rumour.”

“And can you see why it was premature to jump to that conclusion based on hearsay alone?” you ask Rachel.

“Well, he should have explained himself better—”

“You should have let me speak—”

“Guys, let’s not argue about this again,” you say, feeling faintly exasperated at the two of them. “I think it’s clear that you both handled this poorly. But at the end of the day, nobody cheated on anybody else. This was all just one big misunderstanding.”

“Okay?” Rachel says, the so what? clearly hanging in the air.

“So everything is good now. There’s no reason for the two of you to be mad at each other,” you say.

“Fuck, are things between us just supposed to be normal again?” Griffin asks, staring at Rachel. The expression on his face isn’t nearly as angry as it once was, but it’s far from the face you’d expect from one lover looking at another.

Rachel glares back at Griffin, and then her expression softens. She look to you.

“I don’t know,” she says softly. “I mean...” She meets Griffin’s eye. “I think I still like you. But I didn’t like everything that just happened. Yesterday and today.”

“Oh yeah, you can say that again,” Griffin grimly chuckles.

“It sounds to me like the two of you need a bit of a break,” you say.

“Yeah,” Rachel nods, quickly coming to terms with the idea. “I don’t want to give up just yet.”

“I’ll probably feel better about it in a couple days,” Griffin says. “A break’s a good idea.”

He sighs and gets up from the couch, deliberating avoiding Rachel’s eye.

“Thanks for sorting Rachel out, Alex,” he says, patting you on the back. “I’m going to head out now.”

With that, he leaves the room, leaving a teary-eyed Rachel sitting alone on the couch.

“I don’t even really know why I’m crying,” she says.

It’s only a bit of moisture in her eyes, nothing like a full on sob, but you give her a sympathetic look.

“I’m sure things will work out,” you tell her.

She nods, and gets up too, giving you a quick hug.

“Thanks for talking to us. I think we needed somebody else to say the obvious stuff to get through to us,” she says.

“Glad that I could help,” you say, feeling a bit awkward about it. “You’re my friends. It’s what I should have done.”

“Well, still,” she smiles. “Thanks.”

With that, she too leaves the lounge. You decide to hang around there for a while longer, starting on your sizable pile of work. People gradually trickle in, filling up the room with their laughter and conversation. By the time one in the morning rolls around, you realise that your eyes are sore and your hand is cramped from all the reading and writing that you’ve done, so you decide to turn in for the night.

Griffin +10
Rachel +10