"There you are."
He looked up.
"Why did you leave?"
"Why do you think?"
"Simon."
"Don't."
"It was a stupid dare."
He said nothing.
"It meant nothing."
Still nothing.
"Everyone was joking."
He finally looked directly at me.
"Did I look like I was joking?"
I folded my arms.
"I think you're overreacting."
That was mistake number two.
Perhaps worse than the first.
Not because disagreement was forbidden.
Because instead of asking what he felt, I told him what he was allowed to feel.
Before Simon answered, headlights passed across the front window.
A car stopped outside.
I looked toward the door.
"Who's that?"
Simon stood.
"My parents."
My stomach dropped.
Margaret and Paul Maris entered less than a minute later.
Margaret still wore the navy sweater she favored for evenings at home. Paul had thrown a coat over what looked like pajama pants.
They had clearly come because they believed something serious had happened.
I became angry immediately.
"You called your parents?"
"No," Simon said.
"Carol Jenkins called Mom."
Carol had been at the party.
She was sixty-three, friends with Margaret through a local bridge club, and apparently possessed the communication efficiency of an emergency broadcast system.
Margaret looked at me.
"We heard what happened."
I felt humiliation burn through me.
"Of course you did."
"Evanthy—"
"It was a party game."
Margaret's expression hardened.
"You kissed another man."
"For a dare."
"My son's best friend."
"For a dare."
"In front of your husband."
"Yes, Margaret, I know where it happened."
Paul spoke.
He rarely involved himself in family arguments, which made his voice more effective when he did.
"You keep repeating the reason as though it changes the act."
I laughed.
"So now everyone gets to judge me?"
"No," Paul said.
"But Simon gets to decide what it means to him."
That should have made me pause.
Instead, I became defensive.
"Simon is insecure."
The room went still.
Margaret's face changed.
"Insecure."
"If he trusted me, he would understand it meant nothing."
Simon finally spoke.
"What exactly did it mean?"
"Nothing."
"Then why did you want to do it?"
"It was fun."
"Why Liam?"
"He was there."
"Would you have done it if I wasn't there?"
The question caught me.
"I don't know."
"Would you have done it if nobody was watching?"
Another question.
I hesitated.
Probably not.
That truth threatened my entire argument.
So I attacked instead.
"You know what?"
"Fine."
"You want the truth?"
"I wanted to feel alive for five minutes."
Everyone became quiet.
I continued because anger had finally opened the door to things I had not known how to say.
"I am tired of being June's mom and Simon's wife and the woman who remembers everyone's appointments."
"I am tired of being overlooked at work."
"I am tired of walking into rooms and feeling like furniture."
"I wanted to do something spontaneous."