Glass Houses

The cat watched me with yellow eyes that seemed to know everything, perched on the windowsill like a judgment in fur. I should have trusted him.

"You're going to find out anyway," Marcus had said two nights ago, staring into his whiskey like it might offer answers. "I work for a private intelligence firm now." He said it casually, the way someone mentions they've started gardening or taken up tennis.

I stared at him. "You're a spy?"

"Corporate espionage." He swirled his glass. "It's boring, actually. Mostly following people, taking photos of documents at hotels. Just... bear with me, okay? The money's good."

I should have asked more questions. Instead I'd nodded, accepting this new reality like I accepted his irregular hours, his sudden need for privacy, his insistence on keeping his phone face-down whenever I walked into the room.

Now, sitting by the water's edge at Seal Beach, watching the Pacific gray and endless before me, I understood. The cat had been trying to tell me for months — the way she hissed at Marcus's coat when he came home smelling of unfamiliar perfumes and cheap hotels. The way she knocked his phone off the table whenever he left it unguarded.

My own iPhone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Sarah, my sister: "Found something. Call me."

I'd hired a forensic analyst last week, a woman who found what I couldn't bring myself to look for myself. Marcus wasn't just spying on corporations. He'd been hired to spy on me — six months before we even met, gathering intelligence for my father's company, watching me through cameras I never noticed, tracking my movements through my own devices.

Then he'd married his target. Then fallen in love with her. Then decided to confess.

The cat padded across the sand and sat beside me, pressing her warm body against my leg. Some choices bear their own weight in the end. I watched the water until the sun began to set, burning gold across the horizon, and pressed delete on the message from Sarah. I didn't need to know what she'd found.

Some truths are better left unspoken, even when they're already known. Especially when you're not sure you're ready to stop pretending you don't already know them.