For the rest of the morning, Marcus followed me from room to room, apologizing. His story had calcified into something almost clean — one affair, one angry woman, one terrible mistake that was already over. By noon, he’d said sorry so many times the word had stopped meaning anything.
I kept thinking about two words.
Only Olivia.
That’s what the message had said. If he tells you it’s only Olivia.
Not if he mentions Olivia. Not if he brings up a woman named Olivia.
Only.
At 5:42 in the afternoon, I left the house.
Marcus asked where I was going.
“I need space,” I said.
The address was a coffee shop twenty minutes away. Quiet, off a side street, the kind of place that doesn’t have a line.
A woman near the back stood up when I walked in.
Beside her sat six other women.
Every single one of them was looking directly at me.
