Need to Know by Karen Cleveland

years.
Viv, there’s something I need to tell you.
And you just say it.”
    He walks over, perches on the armrest of the couch. The dish towel’s slung over his shoulder. “I’ve wanted to. God, Viv, you don’t think I’ve wanted to? I’ve come close so many times. But then what? Then I see the look in your eyes, the one I’m seeing now. Betrayed, hurt beyond belief. I dreaded that. And I was terrified. What would you do? Take the kids and run? I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t lose the kids. You and the kids”—his voice cracks—“are everything to me. Everything.”
    I say nothing. Finally he speaks again. “I love you, Vivian.” I stare at him, that look on his face that seems so sincere, and in my mind it’s ten years ago. A month after we’d met, a month of seeing each other practically every day. He was walking me home after dark; I can see us on the street outside my apartment, the trees on either side rustling in the breeze, the streetlights casting a soft glow. His arm was around my waist, our gait slow and in sync. He’d just laughed at something I said, something I’ve long since forgotten. “I love you, Viv,” he said, and then he went quiet. Both of us did. The night was suddenly so still. I saw the color creep to his cheeks. He hadn’t meant to say it. It had just slipped out, and that made it all the more tender, because it was unfiltered, and he must have really meant it. I thought sure he’d try to backtrack.
I love your jokes, Viv. I love spending time with you.
Something like that. But he didn’t. He stopped, faced me, pulled me close. “I love you, Vivian. I really do.”
    I look down now. I’m holding the sippy cup so tightly my knuckles are white. I can barely choke out the next words. “How could you have brought kids into this?”
    “Because I wanted a life with you. I wanted you to have everything you’d ever dreamed of.”
    “But you had to have known that one day—”
    “No,” he interrupts. His voice is firm. “I didn’t. I truly believed that I could do this until you retired. Until I retired. And then I could be free from them.”
    I’m quiet. He’s quiet. The whole house is unnervingly quiet.
    “They’d have let me stay,” he says softly. “It’s happened before. I could’ve lived out the rest of my life and died and no one would’ve ever known.”
    Could’ve. Would’ve.
The tense is jarring. He knows we can’t just pretend this didn’t happen, that I didn’t learn about this. He knows I have to turn him in.
    He gives me a weak smile. “If only you weren’t so good at your job.”
    The words make my stomach turn. If I hadn’t pushed for that algorithm, none of this would have happened. I bring the sippy cup into the kitchen, unscrew the top, put both pieces on the top rack of the dishwasher. He’s watching me, silent. I close the dishwasher and lean on the counter.
    He walks into the kitchen and stands behind me. Tentatively, like he’s not sure what I’ll do, how I’ll react. I’m not sure, either. But I don’t move. I let him take a step closer, put his hands on my shoulders, slide them down to my hips, until he’s holding me close. My body softens into the familiar embrace, and when I squeeze my eyes shut, a single tear escapes from each one.
    In my mind I’m back on that street outside my apartment. Leaning into his kiss, pressing against him, wanting more. Stumbling into the building, up the stairs. Feeling his touch, seeing the look in his eyes, the hunger that was there. And afterward, lying together on tangled sheets, intertwined. Waking up in his arms, watching as his eyes opened and he took in my presence; the slow smile that spread across his face. All of that was real. It had to be.
    “What am I supposed to do now?” I say quietly. A rhetorical question, really. Voiced to my best friend, the one I’ve always turned to, relied on. My partner. My rock.
    Or maybe it’s a lifeline.
Get me out of this. Tell me what to do to