Chapter 2Too Late To Beg Professor Crawford

The front yard had been landscaped with meticulous care—dormant rosebushes, evergreen hedges, and a handcrafted wooden swing hanging from a sturdy oak limb.

A small brass plaque was set into the timber: Garrett’s Girl.

I reached out and touched the wet wood. A jagged splinter caught the pad of my thumb, drawing a tiny bead of crimson.

Memories flooded back, uninvited. Years ago, when we were living on canned soup in a cramped graduate flat, Garrett used to hold me from behind and whisper into my neck: One day, Nora, when we have our own house, I’m building you a porch swing. And when we’re old and gray, I’ll push you on it every single sunset.

I had believed him. I spent fifty years waiting for that swing.

I died without ever seeing one. Yet here it was, weathering the rain in someone else's yard.

I closed my eyes against the rain.

Through the sheer curtains of the living room window, muffled voices rose in sharp dispute.

"I told you, you do not show up where she can see you!" Garrett’s tone was razor-sharp, an icy authority I had never once heard him use at home. "If you cross that line again, we are done."

Brooke was sobbing, her voice breaking in furious protest. "Why? I'm your woman too! She tells you to delete my number and you just erase me like I’m nothing? What am I to you?"

A brief, suffocating silence.

"She is my wife," Garrett replied, his voice flat, brutal, clinical. "What are you? A mistress. Know your place, Brooke. Don't push me."

I stood on the wet grass, dizzy with disorientation. In my mind, Garrett Crawford had always been the consummate gentleman—patient, articulate, soft-spoken. I had never known he possessed a face so callous.

Inside, Brooke choked on her tears, finally lowering her head. "I get it... I won't go near her. I promise."

The shadows shifted as he drew her close.

When he spoke again, that familiar, tender cadence had returned. "Good girl. As long as you stay quiet, you get the house, the car, the allowance. If you want a child, we’ll have one. But my one non-negotiable rule: you never exist in front of Nora."

Then came the rustle of clothing and the wet, frantic sound of their mouths meeting.

The December rain soaked through my coat, chilling me straight to the marrow.

I walked onto the porch and pressed the brass doorbell.

"Who the hell is that?" Garrett’s voice drifted toward the entryway, followed by brisk footsteps.

The door swung open.

When his eyes landed on mine, the world seemed to drop into a vacuum.

The blood drained from his features so violently he looked half-dead. "Nora..."

The sheer terror in his gaze made my stomach turn. He lunged forward, trying to grab my wrists, shaking his head frantically. "Nora, listen to me. It’s not what you think. Let me explain—"

I sidestepped him. His hands grasped empty air, trembling violently.

"So," I said, my tone as level as a stranger asking for directions, "this is where your second home is. Aren't you going to show me around?"

The calmer I remained, the more unravelled he became.

"Nora, please. Let’s go home. We’ll talk at home, I’m begging you—"

"Who is it, Garrett?"

Brooke appeared in the hallway, tying the belt of a cashmere robe. The moment she recognized me, her posture froze, but within seconds, the shock hardened into a venomous smirk.

"Well. Look who’s here. Come on in." She tilted her chin up. "As the lady of the house, let me brew you some tea."

Garrett spun on her, his face dark with fury. "Brooke, shut your damn mouth!"

Her expression twitched with humiliation, but she didn't back down.

I walked past Garrett into the foyer.

The interior was warm, smelling of cedar and vanilla. On the sofa sat custom throw pillows printed with a photo of the two of them kissing against an alpine backdrop. On the corkboard in the kitchen, dozens of polaroids mapped out years of domestic bliss: sipping coffee by the Seine, hiking in Zermatt, standing under the green glare of the aurora in Reykjavik.

I stepped closer to the corkboard.

The date on the Paris photo matched our five-year anniversary—the weekend he supposedly had a seminar in Chicago.

The Switzerland photo was stamped during the week I was hospitalized with an emergency appendectomy.

And the Iceland trip...

I ripped the polaroid off the corkboard, my nails digging into the glossy paper. The timestamp was the second week of our honeymoon.

He had brought his mistress on our honeymoon.

My hands shook so violently the photo fluttered like a dry leaf. He had laid beside me in our hotel room, and the moment I drifted off, he had slipped down the hall into hers.

When pain reaches an absolute ceiling, the human body simply stops feeling it. The agony gives way to a vast, barren silence.

The only sounds in the cottage were my heels clicking on the hardwood and Garrett’s desperate pleading behind me.

"Nora, look at me. Please, we can—"

Crack.

The slap echoed through the open-concept room. The force of it stung my palm, leaving a scarlet mark across his cheek.

"Why?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He had no answer.

Before he could speak, Brooke lunged at me from the side, shoving me hard. "You crazy bitch! Who do you think you are, hitting him in my house?"

My balance gave out on the wet floorboards. My lower back slammed hard against the sharp mahogany corner of the bar cart. A sharp, searing pain shot up my spine.

"Nora!" Garrett shoved Brooke away with such force that she stumbled into the wall. He reached for me, his eyes brimming with a protective panic that made me want to retch. "Are you hurt? Talk to me—"

"Don't you dare touch me!" I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.

Brooke picked herself up, her face twisted with bitter, envious hatred. "You figured it out, didn't you, Nora? I’ve known who you were since day one. On your little honeymoon? I was in the room right next door."

Garrett’s voice was an enraged roar. "Brooke! Shut up!"

She didn't stop. Her eyes shone with the exact same vile triumph I had seen fifty years later at his grave. "Every single night, the second you fell asleep, he was in my bed, fucking me into the mattress! And then he’d wash up and crawl back under the covers with you before sunrise!"

Every drop of warmth left my body.

I doubled over, a sudden wave of bile rising into my throat, dry-heaving against the edge of the bar cart.

Garrett went completely white. "Nora, please, let’s go home. You can't catch a chill, you’re not well—"

I pushed his hands away with every ounce of strength I had left.

"We’re getting a divorce, Garrett. Today."