After My Husband Cheated, I Fell for My Younger Trainer Chapter 09
Ethan was waiting to confront me outside the aquatic center.
When Kyle and I walked out, Ethan was leaning against his car with a cigarette between his fingers.
Several cigarette butts were scattered at his feet.
The moment he saw Kyle’s hand resting on my lower back, his eyes darkened.
He crossed the distance in a few furious strides and knocked Kyle’s hand away.
“Get your hand off her.”
Kyle took a step back, glanced down at his hand, and laughed.
“I’ve touched her in a lot more places than that when you weren’t around.”
The air between them turned razor-sharp.
Ethan raised a hand to grab Kyle by the collar, but I stepped between them.
“Ethan.”
He looked at me, his eyes red with exhaustion and rage.
“You’re defending him?”
My voice remained flat.
“I’m not letting you cause a scene in public.”
The words hit a nerve.
“A scene? You think the way you’re carrying on with him looks any better?”
Kyle shifted my bag into his other hand and said lazily, “What’s humiliating isn’t that someone else cares
about her. It’s that you have a wife and still keep a mistress on the side.”
Ethan rounded on him.
“You knew she had a husband, and you still went after her?”
The smile gradually disappeared from Kyle’s face.
“I knew.”
Kyle straightened. He was younger and powerfully built, and he did not give an inch beneath Ethan’s glare.
“But when you had your arms around Lily, why didn’t you remember Erin was your wife?”
Ethan did not answer immediately.
Kyle stepped closer.
“Where were you when her depression was at its worst?”
The color drained from Ethan’s face.
“Where were you when she wandered through the rain alone at night because she couldn’t bear to go home?
When she didn’t even want to live?”
My fingers curled tightly at my sides.
I had never told Ethan about those days.
There had been no point in telling him.
He would only have accused me of putting on an act for sympathy.
But Kyle remembered.
He remembered my umbrella hanging crooked in the wind, my soaked shoes, and the numbness in my eyes
as I barely reacted to anything.
He remembered how violently I had shaken the first time I entered the pool, clutching his hand because I
could barely stand.
Ethan turned toward me, his voice hoarse.
“Why didn’t you tell me back then?”
I looked at him.
“I did.”
He froze.
“My pill bottle was right there on the coffee table. Did you ever notice it?”
His lips trembled.
“I…”
“I lost almost twenty pounds, and you asked whether I was dieting.”
His eyes reddened.
“Erin ”
It was far too late for him to say my name as if it still meant something.
I no longer expected anything from him.
Ethan kept staring at me.
“Come home with me.”
Those words used to work on me every time.
No matter how badly he hurt me, if he told me to come home, I would follow him.
But this time, I shook my head.
“Go home without me. I have plans.”
Ethan looked as though he had not understood.
“What did you say?”
I repeated myself. “I have plans.”
Kyle stood behind me and softened his voice.
“If Erin wants to go with you, she will. If she doesn’t, I’ll drive her.”
Tears suddenly spilled down Ethan’s face.
It was the first time I had ever seen him cry.
In the ten years I had known him, he had always been cold, always certain he was the one in control.
But as I looked at his reddened eyes, I felt no urge to comfort him.
Now, his tears only felt bitterly ironic.
Kyle was unusually quiet as he drove me home.
Two blocks passed before he finally spoke.
“What if he really changes?”
I turned toward him.
“Are you afraid?”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“Yes”
He admitted it immediately.
“I’m afraid you’ve been with him for so many years that all he has to do is look miserable, and you’ll change
your mind.”
I watched the city lights slide past the window.
“I won’t.”
He said nothing.
I continued, “When someone doesn’t care about you, continuing to care about them only makes you suffer. It took me three years to accept that. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
The car stopped at a red light.
Kyle reached over, took my hand, and rested it on his knee.
“Good.”
Then he added quietly, “Otherwise, I’d be too jealous to think straight.”
I smiled.
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at pretending to be innocent?”
He glanced at me.
“I can’t keep that act up for long around you.”
The next morning, shouting erupted downstairs.
I walked onto the balcony and saw Lily standing at the entrance to the apartment building.
She clutched her stomach and sobbed so violently she could barely stand.
More and more people gathered around her.
She did not speak loudly, but her voice was clear enough for everyone to hear.
“I’m pregnant with Ethan’s child. I only want to see him. Why won’t Erin let me see him?”
Standing on the balcony, I suddenly smiled.
In the past, something like this would have made me completely lose control.
Now, it was simply evidence that would make the divorce easier.
