Ali’s eyes are wide and scared as she looks from Jack to Rachel and back again, as if unable to weigh whether she’s come to help him or her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rachel screams at Jack, needing to hear his excuse for lashing out at Ali, far more than why he’s sleeping with her.
“I…” he stutters, letting his arm drop.
“What’s going on?” Rachel asks, not knowing who she wants to answer.
“It isn’t … it isn’t what it looks like,” says Jack, stumbling back, as if in shock. Though Rachel can’t tell if it’s because she’s made an unexpected appearance or that he realized what he was about to do.
“Tell her, for fuck’s sake,” screams Ali, her voice echoing around the cave.
Jack’s jaw spasms involuntarily as he looks at Ali with such intensity that a sob catches in Rachel’s throat. She’s never seen him look at anyone the way he’s looking at her and she can feel her marriage being washed away with the tide that is lapping at her feet.
“Not like this,” he says, his voice breaking.
“How many more chances do you want me to give you?” says Ali, her voice, in contrast, strong and steady. “Either you do it, or I will.”
“I … just…，” stutters Jack. “Please … I just…”
How could Ali, who Rachel had written off as being nothing more than a silly young girl, have so much hold over Jack that she has turned him into a crumbling wreck? How has she worked her way under his skin to such an extent that he’s unable to string two words together? This isn’t her Jack; this is a different man entirely.
Despite feeling hollowed out inside, Rachel forces herself to stand tall; to be more like Ali. “Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” she says, sounding far more authoritative than she feels. She looks from Jack to Ali and back again.
“I’m sorry,” says Ali, looking at Rachel with tears in her eyes—the first time that she’s shown any regret or remorse. “I tried to stop it, honestly I did.”
It takes all of Rachel’s restraint not to launch herself at her, to tear the hair from out of her stupid head and to rip the tacky dress she’s just worn to proclaim her love for someone else, off her back. But that would make her no better than Jack and despite everything, she has to be a better person than he is.
“How long’s it been going on?” she asks, her mouth feeling as if it’s full of cotton wool.
Ali looks to Jack, but he’s turning around in circles, agitatedly raking at his hair. “At least eighteen months,” she says. “That’s why I left the company. I had to.”
Rachel’s mouth drops open. She thinks of all the things they’ve done in the past eighteen months: the words they’d exchanged, the dreams they’d shared, the love they’d made, and it all suddenly seems sullied. Like she’s been living a lie, or worse, been unknowingly immersed in someone else’s.
“Please!” shouts Jack, as if he knows he’s fast losing the chance to claw Rachel back from the precipice she finds herself clinging to. “I need to do this my way.” He looks at Ali. “Without you here.”
Ali laughs acerbically. “I don’t trust you to do it your way,” she says, lifting her dress up to avoid the lap of water that is easing its way toward her with every break of a wave. The tide is coming into the cave so rapidly that it won’t be long before they’ll have no choice but to swim out.
“Why don’t you think of Rachel in all this?” he snaps, finding his voice again. “What might be best for her?”
“Don’t you think that’s what I’ve been doing?” says Ali.
“Oh, yeah,” says Rachel sarcastically. “You’ve gone all out to do right by me.”
Holding her dress at her knees, Ali walks to Rachel. “I’m so sorry,” she says tearfully. “You have to believe me when I say I tried everything in my power to put a stop to it.”
“If you don’t get away from me,” sneers Rachel. “I swear to God…”
She watches Ali wade out of the cave and turns to Jack, whose face is sallow, devoid of color. She imagines slapping his cheek hard and the red blush it would create.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she asks, once Ali’s gone.
Jack’s manically rubbing at his head, back and forth. He goes to speak, but seems to think better of it.