Brianna began to tremble while her sister Vanessa asked her to say it wasn’t true. Austin opened the box and revealed the gold watch with the blue dial sitting on the dark velvet.
“That watch belongs to Julian Vance,” Austin said, and the name landed in the room like a heavy blow. Brianna took a step back toward the door and claimed it was not his, but her father’s face had already hardened.
“He was here in this house last night,” Austin said firmly. “You told me you were in bed while I was standing right there listening to you.”
Brianna started to cry messy tears while Austin asked her how long the affair had been going on. She lowered her head and whispered that it had been five months.
Her mother let out a broken sound while her sisters covered their mouths in shock. Austin felt like something inside him had just broken because five months meant hundreds of lies and shared dinners while she was hiding another life.
Brianna desperately claimed she was going to finish it because Julian never left his wife as he promised. “I was going to break up with him, I swear,” she cried.
“Before or after bringing him to our house?” Austin asked, and the question was worse than a shout because there was no escape from it.
Her father stood up abruptly and asked if she really brought that man into her husband’s home. Brianna jumped at the sound of his voice and whispered “Yes” while her father looked away in disgust.
“I called everyone this morning because I did not want to live inside a false narrative anymore,” Austin said to the room. “I am not going to sugarcoat what happened to protect an image that no longer exists.”
Brianna asked if he just wanted to humiliate her, and Austin took a long time to reply. “No, I wanted to find my wife asleep when I got home, and I wanted what we had to be real,” he said sadly.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope containing the divorce papers before leaving it next to the watch. He told her he was not going to bargain with tears or compete with late excuses because the marriage was over.
Austin picked up his keys and apologized to the guests for bringing them into the disaster. He walked toward the door and did not turn around as he heard Brianna’s ragged breathing and her mother’s sobs behind him.