Page 12 of One More Chance
The park I picked was nearly deserted, a few stray kids chasing the last of the fireflies and a couple joggers punishing their bodies in the heavy air. The late summer air was humid, oppressive, and stagnant.
Angie was already there, leaning against the restroom wall in cutoff shorts and a tank top damp with sweat. Her lipstick was a little too red for the hour, her grin a little too sharp.
"You're late," she said without looking at me.
"It's ninety degrees. You want me to rush through Hell?"
She smiled. "With what we are about to do, Hell is where you belong."
I almost laughed.
The sun was going down, bleeding orange across the sky. Shadows grew long between the trees. Crickets screamed from the tall grass. The tennis courts were deserted and the public bathroom stood isolated; a forgotten bunker in the heat-swollen stillness.
She took my hand without asking and I followed her inside.
The air reeked of piss and bleach. The cramped bathroom was dimly lit by a dying fluorescent bulb. The fan overhead hummed but did nothing to move the heat. There were scribbles on the stall walls, declarations of teenage heartbreak and crass symbols. A cracked mirror above the sink showed me a version of myself I hated.
She locked the door behind us and what followed wasn't affection. Hell, it wasn't even lust. It was something dangerous and sinister, fueled by self-loathing and delusion.
She touched me like she owned me and I let her because I didn't know who I was anymore without that attention, without someone pretending I was still worth something.
Our mouths crashed together in desperation. A sick transaction. Her hands were bruising on my back, mine on her waist as we ripped each other's clothes off. No trust, no intimacy.
Just raw need, sharpened to a knife's edge by guilt and narcissism.
"You think she'd cry," Angie hissed in my ear, nails raking down my spine, "if she knew what you let me do to you here?"
I flinched but I didn't stop. Cock and balls so heavy as I thrust into her so violently she had to cover her mouth to stop the screams.
I threw her on the sink as I rammed into her. I relished in the way her cunt squeezed around me before quickening to her release as I relentlessly pounded. It was everything my fantasy had fed me, and my orgasm hit me so hard, so overwhelming, I nearly collapsed.
Between the first lie and this moment, I had turned into a person I didn't recognize. Someone who breathed deception like it was oxygen. Someone who let himself be dragged into the dark and called it warmth.
When it was over, I sat on the toilet lid, elbows on knees, face in my hands. The stench of piss and bleach now mingled with sweat and sex. My chest heaved like I'd just escaped Hell. The truth was that my Hell had only begun.
Angie stood in front of the cracked mirror, painting her mouth red again like nothing had happened, like it hadn't meant anything.
Fuck, maybe to her it didn't. But to me? It was everything in me broken, rolled into a singular moment of regret disguised as validation.
The Old Me was abhorrent.
"This doesn't end when you say it does," she said, her voice low and deliberate. "Not when the chemistry between us is this fucking undeniable."
"I don't want this to end," I said. I was drunk on the attention, drunk on the idea that I was wanted. The way Angie looked at me? Like she couldn't get enough, like I was everything. I needed this lie. I needed something to cling to, so I could justify what I'd done.
She turned, brow cocked, a cruel little smirk tugging at her lips. "Who said it has to end? Move in with me."
I stared at the cracked tile behind her. If I looked at her, I would have have said yes in that moment.
She gave me a suggestive look and her smirk grew wider. She unlocked the door and walked out first, her laugh echoing down the corridor. I waited five more minutes before I left, knowing full well that the damage was done.
The devil had both my number and my soul, and I was too far gone to do anything about it.
Chapter 6
Idrove home from the park with the windows down. The sweat drying on my neck was a reminder of the sin I'd committed. When I stepped into the kitchen, Sloane was sitting at the table with Violet asleep on her lap, one arm curled protectively around our daughter. A plate of cold dinner sat on the counter and the ice in her tea had melted.
It was at that moment, right there in the doorway, when I realized how small I’d become. How far I’d fallen. Not just as a husband, but as a man. Even as the heat of Angie’s touch clung to my skin, I couldn’t stop seeing Sloane’s slumped shoulders, the weariness evident despite feeling the vindication I needed. Like a child throwing a tantrum, I couldn’t see that I had it all and was destroying it piece by piece from the inside.
