She went on and on about how the ceremony was going to be in Vegas, how they’d booked a celebrity for a guest speaker, and how she just couldn’t wait to lounge in a rooftop pool; all the nominees were entitled to the five star treatment, which included having their own penthouse suite.

Although I was extremely happy for her, I was also slightly jealous. Helen was thirty nine years old too, but unlike me, she seemed to have it all together: She had her own law firm, traveled somewhere new and exciting every month, and the stories she told me about her sex life made me wish I’d had more experience before tying myself down to Ryan.

As a matter of fact, anytime Helen, Sandra, and I had a ‘girls’ night,’ she always overwhelmed us with salacious stories about her newest lover. At first, I thought she was just doing it to brag, but after a while I realized that she was doing me a favor. She was making me see how pathetic my nonexistent sex life was, trying to help me get in tune with something called an “inner goddess.”

But, since I refused to date, I relied on vibrating friends to get the job done: They were effective, easy, and I didn’t have to worry about them cheating on me.

Once I was off the phone with Helen, I decided to do some work. I started looking over my associates’ latest slogan submissions and proposed ad ideas. I read through three of them and shut the folder, making an immediate break for my car.

I’m going to need some serious wine to get through this today...

I rushed over to the grocery store and made my way to the magazine section. I figured I would buy yet another set of magazines to show my associates the difference between good advertisements and bad advertisements.

I picked up InStyle, Vogue, Us Weekly, and stilled once I caught a magazine with “Divorce Edition” scrawled across its cover.

I picked it up and flipped through the pages, shaking my head at the stupid advice the so-called “experienced divorcées” were giving: “Forgive him and let it go! That’s the easy part!” “Try to schedule time for yourself to cry in private!” “Travel alone and see the world as soon as the ink on the papers dries!”

Any woman who was cheated on and says her self-esteem wasn’t crushed is a goddamn liar...

I stopped reading the “How I Kept My Esteem Intact After the Affair” article and sauntered down the spices aisle.

Pepper...Bay leaves...Parsley...Paprika...Paprika? Ryan’s favorite...

I picked up the paprika and froze. I was supposed to brush the thought of him away as soon as he entered my mind. I was supposed to say, “The collapse of my marriage was not my fault,” take a deep breath, and move on to doing something else.

That didn’t work today.

I felt a soft lump rise up my throat and choked back a sob. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a happy memory, but only the worst one came...

I was trembling, shaking so violently I wasn’t sure how I was standing up straight. I was in my kitchen, staring at Ryan, watching him pick up the incriminating photos off the floor.

“Claire...” He picked up the last one and sighed. “Can we please talk about this?”

“About what?” I hissed.

“About what you...about me having an affair.”

“Oh yes! My husband fucking my best friend! For over a year! Let’s discuss that, shall we?”

“You don’t have to be so loud, Claire. I’m trying to—”

“I can be as loud as I want! You’re having an affair with Amanda! She was my maid of honor for Christ’s sake! I don’t even know where to start, Ryan! How could you?”

“Our daughters are upstairs. We—”

“Our daughters? Our daughters! Don’t try to act like you suddenly give a damn about this family! You weren’t thinking about any of us when your dick was buried in—”

“Enough!” He began to cry and walked over to me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...I messed up and—”

“You messed up?” I felt my heart constrict.

“Yes...I messed up and I’m—”

“Ryan...” I put my hand over my chest to prevent my heart from jumping out. “Messing up is picking the girls up late from school. Messing up is leaving the chicken in the oven for too long. Messing up is forgetting our anniversary—which is in two weeks, by the way. Cheating on me? Sleeping with my best friend? That’s fucked up. And it’s unforgivable. How long has it really been going on?”

He sighed and I slowly backed away from our cutlery set.

“Hello? Ryan! How long has it been going on?”

“Claire, listen to me—”

“Tell me! Tell me right now!” I looked away from his eyes because deep down I didn’t really want to know.

“I’ve always had feelings for Amanda...”

My heart gave out and crumbled inside my chest. My knees buckled and my body slumped down to the floor.

He continued, “I had feelings for her but I never acted on them because...” He sat down on the floor. “Because I was in love with you. I never intended to act on those feelings, but last January we were both drinking and one thing led to another and—”

“And you had sex?”

“Yes...And I—”

“Where?”

“Where, what?”

I took a deep breath. “Where did you have sex that time? Where was this happening?”

He avoided my eyes. “Here...You were out of town at that Parker Brothers conference...And I know that I should’ve stopped that day. I should’ve told you, but I couldn’t. I honestly didn’t know how to break it to you because it was more than just sex between us. It was—”

“Are you the father of her baby?” I needed to hear him say it.

He didn’t answer.

“Are you the father of her baby?!” I screamed.

“Yes.” His voice cracked. “I...I’m so sorry you had to find out this way and that I put you through this...I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust again. I’ll have to pay her child support, but I’ll let her go. I’ll go to counseling and we can—”

“Are you in love with her?”

“Claire, don’t—”

“Answer me! Are you in love with her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Of course I love you, Claire. I—”

“Are you in love with me?”

His silence was the loudest answer he’d given all night. His lack of words unraveled me and forced me to break down right in front of him.

He began talking over my cries, saying words of some kind, but all I could hear was the roaring of blood in my ears, the literal shattering of my heart.

I curled into the fetal position and cried my eyes out. I kept saying, “Get away from me, it’s over,” but he wrapped his cold arms around me and refused to let me go.

I wanted to believe that we could get through this together, that he could fall in love with me again and we could put this affair behind us. But as his clammy fingers caressed my shoulders, I realized that I didn’t trust him anymore. And I didn’t want to hurt myself even more by having to learn how to trust him again.

In the morning, with the one shred of dignity I had left, I calmly told him that I wanted a divorce.

“The collapse of my marriage was not my fault.” I exhaled and opened my eyes.

I felt my phone vibrating and held it up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Mom, I need some Pop-Tarts.”

“Caroline, you have a car and a part-time job. Go to the store and buy them yourself.”

“I spent my last check on an iPod! Besides, Ashley said you were at the grocery store and I can’t do my work without Pop-tarts. Can you get some for me and drop them off at the library? Please?”

Sometimes, I swore that my daughters weren’t related to me. They couldn’t be. At sixteen years old, they had all the book smarts in the world, but their common sense IQ was probably negative.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.” She sighed. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Let me call you back mom! The ice cream truck is coming up the street! I have to get an Elmo-sicle!”