The Lie

“You’re fast,” I tell her as she slips into the passenger seat.

She giddily drums her hands across the dash and beams at me. “I’m fast when I want to be. I love this car. Where are we going again? Oh right, somewhere far away. Can we get coffee first? I’m dying.”

I can’t help but grin at her as I turn the key. The car starts on the first turn. She’s my good luck charm. “You don’t seem like you need coffee.”

“I always need coffee,” she says emphatically. “You know this. So where to?”

“I honestly don’t know. You pick.”

“Do you have a map?”

“Of Scotland?”

“Yeah.”

I nod at the glove compartment. “In there.”

She opens it and it falls open with a clunk. She takes out an old faded road map and starts looking it over.

“Anything strike your eye?”

“I’m looking for Loch Ness.”

“That’s too far.”

“Okay, is there like another lake with a swamp monster?”

“Nearly all the lochs are in the Highlands.”

“Arrrrrrrrrr in the Highlands,” she says playfully, imitating my accent.

“Okay, maybe no coffee for you.”

“Don’t be cruel, Professor Blue Eyes.” She goes back to studying the map but the mention of my nickname makes a small fire build inside me. And not one of anger.

She points on the map. “Here. Balmoral.”

“That’s where the Queen lives.”

“I know. I want to say hello.”

“It’s a two-hour drive,” I point out.

“Well, then we better get cracking,” she says. “The Queen is expecting us.”

She’s definitely full of spirit today. It seems to latch onto me and I ingest it like a tonic. She’s erasing all the humiliation and pain from the morning.

We head out of the city, taking the A-90 to the M-90 and speed north. After we get her some coffee and we share a couple of sausage rolls for breakfast, I warn her that we literally will see the estate and have to head back. But she doesn’t mind.

And honestly, neither do I. I crank the old radio on the car to pick up an oldies station playing a special on Otis Redding. The day is warm and gorgeous, and even though we’re going fast, our windows are down, enjoying the wind and the sun on our skin.

About an hour into our drive, Natasha turns to me and says, “Tell me the truth. Why did you come to get me this morning?”

“Was it that unusual?” I ask without looking at her.

“Yes,” she says. “The last time you came to my house without me knowing…”

“Back then I was following up on an email. I wanted to know if you were all right,” I tell her before she can tell me anything else about that night.

“And now I want to know if you’re all right,” she says gently.

I glance at her. There’s a softness in her eyes that undoes me. I grip the wheel hard, conscious of my every movement and how they might appear to her. A good man, after the night she kissed me, the night I kissed her right back, would have never been alone with her again.

But I’m not a good man.

I’m a man who is slowly but surely falling in the wrong direction.

“I’m fine,” I say, but it comes out gruff and broken.

“What happened?” she asks. “It’s your wife, isn’t it?”

I shouldn’t tell her anything. I should let private things be private. And yet, this is Natasha. I can hardly hide anything from her. Not only does she know me in ways I can’t even fathom, but I only want to be honest with her. I want to tell her, talk to her, confide in her.

I want her in so many—too many—ways.

I take in a deep breath. “I’m just coming to realize that Miranda and I are entirely different people. And we have been for a long time.”

Silence. I glance at her to see her staring down at her hands, her face round and sweet and sad. “Oh. Well, marriages are hard work, I imagine. It must be normal.”

“That’s what people want you to believe,” I tell her. “But I’m not sure I’m willing to settle for that. Not when I know how good something can be.”

I let those words hang in the air. I’m not sure if Natasha picks up on it.

She stares out the window. “There’s always marriage counseling.”

“She wouldn’t go.”

“You don’t know that,” she says half-heartedly.

“I do know,” I tell her. I don’t bring up the fact that I’d suggested it last year when I first started having troubles in the bedroom with Miranda. To be frank, I couldn’t get it up. She didn’t take as much offense as I thought, but even so, I wondered if there was some underlying issue.

The problem still persists, not that I’ve tried to make love to her in months. It’s just…easier this way.

“She’s perfectly happy to just let things be,” I tell her.

“And you’re not.”

I knead my hands on the steering wheel and catch a look at myself in the rearview mirror, at how tired I look. “I’m not happy at all.”

As Otis Redding plays, we fall silent. Trees and fields and small towns baking under sunshine pass outside the car.

“Are you happy now?” Natasha finally asks. “Right here, with me?”

I clench my jaw. How blunt this lovely girl is. No boundaries. No fear.

I look at her.