Mariah’s deep, dark secret just came to light on Young & Restless and the implications are signficant. In fact, it may mean losing her marriage to Tessa for good!

After weeks of bizarre behavior and intermittent tears amid a pervasive sense of hopelessness, Young & Restless viewers finally got some specific insight into the supposedly horrific incident that occured when Mariah got drunk on her business trip… and we have to say that we co-sign her characterization of the event.

We can even understand Mariah wanting to distance herself from Tessa and Aria, having asked her wife for a formal separation, and feeling a need to protect them from the possible consequences of what she’s done… cause they’d be dire indeed!

Gradually, through flashbacks, a story has unfolded of Mariah dealing with the burden of her guilt over Ian Ward coming back into folks’ lives in Genoa City by getting blotto drunk. What began as a tour through the mini-bar in her hotel room, soon led to her imbibing in the establishment’s lounge bar. We know she met a man there… a man around Ian’s age. A man who, in flashbacks, began to give off the same creepy, cult-y vibes as did Ward.

But it wasn’t until the most recent flashback that our worst fears were confirmed. Young & Restless told us, without telling us or showing us how it all played out, that one thing led to another, Mariah and the man took the party back to a hotel room, and… she smothered him with a pillow. The very one she’s holding while shaking uncontrollably in her memories.

Presumably, creepy cult-y guy put the moves on her and his predatory vibe, along with her inebriated state, caused her to flashback to Ian in her mind. If our hunch is correct, she killed the man not only to stop him from attacking her, but because she suddenly began believing he was Ward, which made him the target of all of her decades of bottled up feelings.

If she fled the scene in a panic and has remained in a state of fight or flight, Mariah probably hasn’t yet realized that she might be able to claim self-defense. Instead, she’s pushing everyone away in a bid to protect them from becoming accessories to murder.

Can Mariah and Tessa survive this? Of course… but only if she comes clean, and only if she does so before Tessa moves on. The preview teases Tessa asking for a permanent separation and she’s been leaning heaviliy on Daniel for support, which means Mariah is rapidly running out of time.