Chapter 5: The Video Keeps Spreading
By nine o'clock that evening, the video had forty-seven thousand views.
Brittany sat in the living room with her laptop open, watching the number climb.
She had asked her friend Renata to take it down three times.
Renata had read the messages and not responded.
At nine-fifteen, Renata posted a second comment under the video:
*I had no idea about any of this.
I'm genuinely horrified.
Taking the video down now.*
The video came down.
But screenshots were already everywhere.
The comment thread had been copied to three separate Facebook groups.
Two local Nashville news blogs had picked up the story.
One of them had found Daniel Carter's restaurant group website and linked it.
His booking line was reportedly overwhelmed.
Brittany closed the laptop.
She heard Marcus upstairs.
Drawers opening.
Closing.
A suitcase zipper.
She went to the bottom of the stairs.
"Marcus."
Nothing.
"Marcus, please come down and talk to me."
He appeared at the top of the stairs with a weekend bag in his hand.
He came down slowly, not looking at her until he was at the bottom.
"I'm going to stay at my brother's," he said.
"For how long?"
"I don't know yet."
"Marcus, you can't just leave.
We need to talk through this.
I know what I did was wrong.
I know that.
But everything that came after — our life, this house, what we built — that's real.
That's still real."
He looked at her.
Not unkindly.
That was what made it so hard.
"I believe you that it's real to you," he said.
"But I've spent fourteen years believing I knew you.
Fourteen years thinking that if something this serious existed in your past, you would have told me." He picked up his keys from the console table by the door.
"You had a hundred chances to tell me, Brittany.
You never took one."
"I was afraid of losing you."
"You should have been more afraid of what happens when I find out from someone else."
He opened the front door.
"Don't call me tonight," he said.
Not harshly.
Tired.
"I need to think."
The door closed behind him.
Brittany stood in the hallway for a long time.
Then she went back to the kitchen, sat at the table where the envelope still lay, and picked up the letter for the first time.
She read all two pages.
Then she turned to the last paragraph, which she hadn't seen before because Marcus had been holding that part down.
There was a final line at the bottom of the second page, below the law firm's contact information.
It read:
*Mrs.
Collins — this letter was sent to your husband as a courtesy.
The formal version has been sent to the Nashville Scholarship Ethics Board, who have reopened the 2009 complaint file.
You may wish to seek legal counsel.*
It was signed: *Daniel Carter.*
Brittany set the letter down.
She picked up her phone and called her own lawyer.
He didn't answer.
She left a message.
Then she sat very still and listened to the house, which was the quietest it had been in years, and realized that the worst part wasn't the ethics board, or the video, or the forty-seven thousand views.
The worst part was that somewhere across the city, Marcus was sitting in his brother's guest room, and he wasn't calling her.
Her phone lit up.
Unknown number.
She answered without thinking.
"Mrs.
Collins?" A woman's voice.
Calm and professional.
May you like
"This is Claire Weston from the Nashville Ethics Board.
We'd like to schedule a conversation at your earliest convenience."
