Clay's life had dipped to another low point. Ellie knew about Trina, and she was furious, but not about the actual affair...rather, about how sloppily he'd handled it. Disgust had overtaken her face ever since she'd found out, and the fact that her disgust was directed at his sloppiness in accomplishing his infidelity rather than at the infidelity itself hurt his feelings. He realized he didn't have the right to have hurt feelings, but that didn't prevent them from happening.

To make matters worse, Dylan now knew that Clay had told Ellie not to tell him about Katie, all thanks to Ellie, and now Dylan had stopped all communication with Clay again. Dylan had texted him, "Thanks for fucking keeping another secret from me," and then when Clay had asked him what he meant, he told him that Ellie had revealed everything. He hadn't responded to any texts since.

And the cherry on the fucking cake was that the arsonist had now struck six times, and Clay couldn't help thinking he would be the next target. Driving by Phillip's blackened office building made him sweat, and he felt extremely uneasy each night, wondering if someone was lighting his own building on fire.

Ellie had told him she'd made plans for them to have dinner with Heidi VanWinkle and her husband. Clay didn't want to go. They were just continuing to pretend everything was alright when it wasn't, and he hated the idea of going into some strangers' home and acting like he and his wife were a happy family when she had secretly coerced him into an affair.

Clay made a decision. He approached Ellie as she was getting ready, more ready than she ever cared to get for his benefit. Ellie wanted to carry on like everything was normal, but everything was not normal, and Clay couldn't continue to pretend.

"When are we gonna talk about all this?" It had been over a week since he'd found out she'd long known about his affair with Trina, and they had both avoided the topic.

"About all what?" she asked, carefully brushing mascara on her lashes.

He raised his voice. "You know what, Ellie. We can't continue like this, and you know it."

She looked at him, shocked. "Why are you yelling at me when you are the one who was in the wrong?"

"I might have been in the wrong, Ellie, but you didn't even care. Does our relationship even matter to you?"

Ellie's eyes darted toward their open door, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. "Of course it matters to me. We have a son together."

"Then you need to start treating it like it matters to you. You need to start treating me like I matter to you."

Ellie turned her body to face him, a look of worry overtaking her expression. Suddenly, she started crying, and she melted into Clay like a boneless ragdoll, holding on to him for support. "You do matter to me. You do. Our family matters to me. Please! Understand that!"

He welcomed her affection, hugging her tightly and kissing her head. He hated seeing her cry, but at the same time, he loved it. He wanted this. He wanted to know that he mattered to her.

They fell to the floor and continued to hug like that, before she said, "We're going to be late. We need to go over to Heidi's soon? Can we continue this later?"

He touched her face, feeling much better about their situation. "Yes. Okay. But we need to have a real talk about this later."

Ellie nodded, mascara-stained tear tracks sticky on her cheeks. "Of course."