I sent him a text right after the call, asking him if he’d be home for dinner that night. With him, I never knew. He was always calling from the office, telling me he had to stay late because he had so much to do. He replied, telling me he would be, and the coils in my stomach slowly unwound. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe he’d actually be happy for me. Proud I achieved something on my own.
I’d stopped by the small store by our house and picked up everything I’d need, and then spent the afternoon in the kitchen. Jack loved pot roast. My mother’s recipe was the best I’d made.
When he came through the front door later that night, my heart was pounding against my chest. I met him in the hallway, reaching out for a kiss, but he brushed by me, barely noticing.
He was in a mood.
“Hey,” I said, hoping for some warmth.
“Hey.” After he slammed his briefcase down, he went straight for a beer.
I felt my nerves tangling. “How was your day?”
“Shit,” he said, adjusting his tie.
I followed him into kitchen. “I made your favorite.” The roast was resting in the oven, the scents filling the apartment.
“Cool.”
One word. A clipped tone.
I frowned. “I missed you.”
“Same.”
I sighed. This wasn’t what I planned, but I had to continue. I had to tell him. Following him to the couch, I sat next to him as he turned the TV to the sports station.
“So, I have some news.”
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t say anything.
“It’s actually really good news.”
Still nothing.
“You know that store I was telling you about? The one that sells home goods… well, they’re hiring.”
He changed the channel to another sports station.
“I applied.”
His head swiveled slowly toward, eyes glazed, as if he were trying to figure out what I’d just said.
“They loved me. Called me earlier today to tell me I can start Monday if I still want the job.”
“Wait… You got a job?” he asked, setting the remote down.
I nodded, not able to hold back the proud grin.
“Where?”
I inhaled. He hadn’t been listening. “At the home goods store a few blocks away,” I said, feeling a little deflated.
He set his beer down, his forehead creasing. “When did you do this? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I twisted my hands together. “I wanted to see if I could get the job before I told anyone.”
His eyes hardened. “Don’t you think I should have been told?”
Not backing down, I retorted, “How can I tell you when I barely see you?”
He flinched back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I met his gaze. “You know exactly what it means.”
He stood up. “No.”
The word slammed into my chest like a runaway train. “What?”
He was shaking his hands. His head. “No. You don’t need a job. I make more than enough money.”
“It isn’t about the money. It’s about—”
“No,” he said, a little more loudly.
I stood, my heart beating hard against my chest. “I’m taking the job, Jack.”
The shock that crossed his face was almost absurd. It was a job. Not another man.
“It’s him, isn’t it? He’s putting ideas into your head, isn’t he? What’s next? You going to tell me you want a divorce?”
My face scrunched, confusion worming its way through me. “Jack, what are you talking about? You sound crazy.”
I reached for him, but he yanked away from me.
“You are, aren’t you?” he said, sounding a little more delirious this time.
“No,” I said flatly, irritation growing. “And frankly, I don’t appreciate you bringing any of that into this moment. I want you to be happy for me. For finding something to do with all my spare time that makes me happy. You do want me to be happy, don’t you?”
It was like a switch was flipped in him. He replaced his scowl for a small smile. His chest deflated. He pulled me into a hug that I didn’t relax into at first. “Yes, baby. Of course I want you to be happy. I’m sorry, I just… things have been so hectic lately.”
I settled a little into his hug.
“Of course your happiness matters. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Apparently taken aback at my clipped tone, he stiffened slightly.
I extricated myself from his hug. “I have to pull the roast from the oven. If you’ll excuse me.”
He didn’t fight to keep me.
And I didn’t care.
By the time Thursday rolled around, I was lying in bed with Cole, our heated skin pressed against each other, bodies spent. It was raining outside. I’d felt it in the air all week, knowing at any moment it would fall. I tried to ignore the stirring feeling in my gut. Like something bad was on the cusp of breaking free.
He was playing with my fingers. I was nuzzling his neck, loving the scent of his cologne. The feel of his skin.
“So, what did you do this week?” he asked as he rested our hands against his chest.
“I got a job.” I stared at his fingers. They were so much larger than mine.
He perked up. “You did?”
“Yeah. It’s at a home goods store.”
I felt his lips curl up. “That’s wonderful, Corinne. When do you start?”
“Monday.” I wasn’t near as excited as I wanted to be about it. Jack had barely spoke to me since I told him. I didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand him. He wanted me to play this part of the doting housewife as if we were still stuck in the past. That wasn’t who he married, and it wasn’t who I’d let him turn me into. Not anymore.
“You don’t sound happy,” he said, rolling to face me.
“Jack… he… he wasn’t thrilled. He thought maybe you put the idea in my head.”
Shadows rolled over Cole’s gaze, but he didn’t say anything. He was that careful of my feelings, and I appreciated him for it. He had his own thoughts, but talking bad about my husband while naked with another man was wrong. The list of wrongs was steadily increasing, weighing heavily on every one of us. Blurring the views we had of ourselves and of our reservations.
“Well, I think it’s wonderful. I know how bored you get.”
I giggled. “More like stir crazy. You know, I’ve been here for over a year and I still feel like I’ve barely touched a fourth of what this city has to offer.”
He chuckled. “I can say the same.” He sat up a second later, and then stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To shower.” He reached out his hand. It was nearly time for me to go.
I smiled. He knew I loved to make love in the shower.
He took his time soaping up my body. Treasuring every inch of skin. When the soap was rinsed, he had me pinned against the wall, moving slowly inside me. He was so gentle. Almost careful as his kisses covered my face and neck. The way he gazed at me had my heart beating inside my throat.
When he was spent, he rested his head against my neck, his chest rising and falling against mine.
“Stay,” he said, pleading.
“Why?” I asked, knowing I was asking for trouble.
He pulled back, limp, but still inside me. Kissed me so sweetly, so deeply, that I felt like I was melting into him, and then he rested his forehead against mine. “Because I… I love you.”
My pulse was thrumming in my ears. My heart flapping wildly, threatening to fly away.
“I love you, Corinne. Every moment. Every day. Every hour. You’re in every thought. Every breath. I love you, and I know you love me, too. That’s why you should stay. That’s the only reason needed for you to stay.”
I kissed him, caught up in the moment, in his words, and then he carried me to his bed, pulling me against him, kissing me still.
/> “Stay,” he said again, whispering his I love yous across my body. “Stay.”
“Okay,” I said, hands in his hair. “Okay.”
Chapter 28
Corinne
The next morning, I woke with an arm across Cole’s chest.
My stomach twisted. I was so high off his words, drunk off his kisses, that what Jack would think hadn’t even crossed my mind. Never wondered if he’d be waiting up for me.
Tiptoeing around Cole’s room, I found my clothes, dressed, and then slipped out the front door after leaving him a note.
Jack was sitting on the edge of our bed when I returned home, still dressed in what he left wearing the previous morning. I waited for his rage. Held my head in shame as I sat beside him, the bed dipping a little.
“Jack, I’m—”
“I want it to end.”
“Okay,” I said, too stuck in my shame.
“For both of us. You stop seeing him, and I’ll stop seeing her.”
In shock, my gaze flew to his face. There was this ripping feeling taking over my body. Every fiber shredding in half, each piece separating itself to the side it wanted to be on. Duty versus love. Comfort versus desire. I wasn’t sure I could survive it, but the way Jack was looking at me was a harrowing plea. As if every word I said next was slippery. Oil. Something he could trip and fall in if I wasn’t careful.
He took my hand. “I won’t lose you, Corinne. And I… I forgive you… for last night. I put you in this situation. Asked too much of you. I see that now. Can you forgive me?”
I didn’t know what to think. How to feel. There he was, saying everything I wanted him to say since it all began, yet all I could think about was Cole and how this was going to hurt him. How it was hurting me.
“I don’t expect it to be easy. I know… I know you have feelings for him.”
“Jack—”
He held up his hand. “It’s okay. Like I said, I put us here. You wouldn’t have stayed the night with him if it weren’t the case. Which is why I think this is best. For us. We can… we can see that counselor you wanted to see. Make Thursdays our date night. I want to make you happy, Corinne. You deserve nothing less.”
I felt the hot sting of tears. “I’d like that,” I said, letting him pull me into a hug as I felt my world falling apart around me.
I was in love with Cole. I loved Jack.
And now… now I was fucked.
I met Cole on a Monday afternoon.
The smell of rain was in the air. A storm would erupt over my head, but I didn’t care. I was living a nightmare. A nightmare I had a hand in creating.
He was standing on the bridge where we met before, just as beautiful as he’d been that day. My heart felt like it was shriveling in on itself. My hope curling in around the edges.
He faced me when he heard my steps, a smile warming his face, unaware I was about to squash it.
“Hey,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” I admitted, staying stiff in his arms.
He knew right away. “What is it?”
I couldn’t face him. Couldn’t see through the blur of tears. “Dance with me?” I asked, wanting to feel what I felt that first day in the park, when he took me into his arms.
He began twirling me around, holding me close, his chin resting against my head.
“Remember that day?” I asked, the tears falling one after the other.
“You smelled like roses,” he recalled. I could hear the sadness in his voice. The awareness.
“There were so many possibilities that day.”
He didn’t say anything. Just kept twirling me around, his hands holding me tightly.
“I can’t… I can’t see you anymore, Cole,” I said, the words heavy, concrete.
He stilled. Pulled back. “Why?”
I swiped at the tears, but it did nothing because they continued to fall, heavy and filled with regret. “He wants to make it work.” The words felt like someone else’s story. From someone else’s lips.
He shook his head, his lips pressed into a firm line, not budging. He reached for my hand and pulled me close to him, his grip tight. “But that’s not what you want,” he said, so sure. “You love me. I know it.”
I felt like I was fraying apart as I tried to find my voice. “I do, but I have to try, Cole. He’s my husband.” I could barely breathe through the pain that was ripping me in half. Every cell in my body was writhing against me.
He shook me a little, his voice rising with the swell of anger. “A husband who doesn’t deserve you! He wanted another woman, Corinne. I’d never put you in that situation.”
“Cole, please—” My voice was breaking, shattered and hoarse.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. He pulled me closer to him, tucking me into his arms with a manic desperation. “I didn’t want to do this, but you need to know who you’re married to, Corinne.” He sucked in a breath. “He lies to you. He will continue to lie, because that’s who he is. He has an apartment with her. He doesn’t just see her on Thursday either. He spends more time—”
“Stop!” I yelled, stepping away from him as my hands squeezed my head.
He stepped back as if I’d slapped him.
“You think I don’t know?” I said, shaking from the inside out. My world falling to pieces. “I know Jack, Cole. I know when he lies. I know when he cheats. A woman knows these things.” I lowered my gaze, my voice. “I found out about the apartment a while ago, after our anniversary. It made sense then… the way she had watched him. The way he seemed to crack down the middle between us. What they have… it’s more than just an affair.
“I started distancing myself from him. Pushing him away. I don’t know if it’s because I wanted it to end, or if I was hoping he’d be the one to end it. No one wants to be the bad guy. But that’s the thing about marriage, Cole. Sometimes we can’t see when it’s falling apart. Sometimes it happens so fast we barely have time to register, to grip what we could save.
“I don’t think Jack ever thought I’d give up on him. That I’d leave him. Staying over with you was a shock awake for him. He realized then how easily I could leave. And now… now he wants to try counseling. He wants to fix what we broke.” I swiped at my eyes. Met his gaze. “I have to give him that chance.”
His face hardened, jaw clenched tight with anger. “Bullshit,” he spat. I could feel the disappointment rolling off him in thick waves. “You don’t have to do a single fucking thing you don’t want to.”
The beauty of his face had taken on sharp lines and unrecognizable angles. I’d never seen anger on his face before. It was raw, red, and dark.
I felt the walls building then, growing higher and higher. Barbed wire wrapping around the top. He was drifting away from me on a current I couldn’t follow. A current too powerful for either of us to wade through.
Silence let out a disappointed sigh.
“You’re right,” I said a moment later, my voice cut from my shattered emotions.
My soul was on its knees, grieving for my heart. I had to make Cole understand. I owed him that.
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. But this is something I do want. I want to try. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try. If you can’t respect that, I understand. I just… know that I love you. I always will.”
His anger slowly morphed into disbelief. The brilliance of his eyes dimmed, hard and hurt.
My beautiful, wonderful Cole was lost to me forever.
My heart kicked my chest, chunks falling away. I reached for him with heartache clinging to my bones, rattling inside my marrow.
He was stiff. I’d never felt this version of him. This coldness.
But it was what I asked for. What I deserved. To be shut out, the way I had to shut him out.
I felt like my lungs were fraying. My breath was ragged.
When he turned, the expression on his face—the rawness in his eyes—nearly drop
ped me to my knees. They were glazed over with hurt. Betrayal. Loss. So glacially blue I felt I was frozen in place.
It was plainly there, etched into him, this deep agonizing pain. I saw it then… what we had built. A precious love that had not yet had its chance to mature. To taste the realness of the world. It was being placed back into its box. Chained shut for eternity. Dropped into the ocean of tears I’d surely cry over him.
He attempted a smile. Brushed his hand over my cheek. “And I will always love you, Corinne. Thank you, for showing me that I could love. That hope was possible, even if you’re taking it with you when you go.”
His voice was sandpaper.
He kissed my forehead, a gentle whisper, then walked away.
From my life, and from me.
Chapter 29
Cole
My feet dragged as I headed for the kitchen.
I didn’t know what time it was. Only that it was too fucking bright, which did nothing to help the drums pounding against my skull. How much had I drunk last night? Nearly a whole bottle?
With one eye shut, I reached out for the cabinet that held the medicine above the stove. It was bare, a lone bottle laying on its side. My fingertips brushed against it, and it rolled into my palm.
It was an old bottle of Advil, left from before when my parents were alive. There was only one pill inside. It’d have to do.
I filled a glass of water from the sink. When I downed it, the fibers in my body cried out for more. I filled a second glass, but drank it slowly, not wanting to make myself sicker.
Trudging back up the stairs, I headed into my old room and laid down on the bed I’d made on the floor. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep on the mattress for fear I’d smell her in the sheets. My phone was buzzing off and on beside me, illuminating the room like a strobe light.
I grabbed it, pressed the power button until it shut off, and then rolled over.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The calls coming through would be nothing but questions. Colleagues wanting to know why I suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. Dennis… ready to tell me he told me so.