She pouted and sauntered up to me, letting her hand trail over my chest. I could’ve just gotten it all over with at that moment, but she reeked of wine and I knew it would be pointless. I’d just have to tell her all over again tomorrow anyway.
“But it’s so late. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Good night, Liv.”
“Brody,” she whined and dug her fingers into my chest and arm as she pulled herself closer. She pressed her lace-covered breasts against me and breathed in my ear. “I’m so horny, Brody. I want you.” The hand on my chest dropped to my pants, and I gripped her thin wrist in my hand.
“I said, good night. You’ve taken care of yourself for years, tonight doesn’t need to be any different.” As gently as I could, I pushed her back and turned to walk toward my room.
“Why don’t you love me anymore?” I could already hear the tears starting and was determined to keep moving until she spoke again. “Is it because of Tate? Or is it because I can’t have kids—you think I’m worthless now, don’t you?”
Or maybe I’m not going to wait until tomorrow. I stopped walking when she mentioned Tate and had to grit my teeth to keep myself from lashing out at her for bringing him into this again.
“You would still love me if I could have more children, Brody, I know it.”
My head slowly shook back and forth as I turned to look at her. There was already makeup streaking down her cheeks with her tears as she hunched in on herself. “You and I both know that’s not it,” I said. “We’ve drifted too far apart, and it started long before Tate.”
“But—but it didn’t!”
Holding back a sigh, I put an arm around Olivia’s waist and led her to one of the large couches and sat down next to her. “We both know you only stayed with me to piss your parents off. Just like we know that we would have never stayed together or gotten married if you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
“No, I don’t know that!” she cried and wiped miserably at her face.
“Liv, you refused to see me. You wouldn’t let me see our son. You didn’t want to live with me . . . you and I hadn’t loved each other for a long time before we got married. It had nothing to do with Tate or you not being able to have more kids.”
“That’s not true! I love you! I do.”
“You don’t. Olivia, I want a divorce.” A loud sob left her, and her face hit her hands. “We’re both miserable,” I continued. “We can’t keep doing this to each other. Let’s just end this on good terms and go our separate ways.”
“You can’t just stop loving me all of a sudden!”
“Olivia, this isn’t sudden. How haven’t you noticed that we haven’t even been going through the motions of being married? Do you even see that I’ve been sleepwalking through the last five years of my life?”
“I don’t care—”
“And that’s just it,” I said, interrupting her. “You don’t care. You don’t care about me, you don’t care about my life, you don’t care about what I want. I want to be able to live my life, Olivia, and you and I both know you’re happier without me too, so this is the obvious thing for us to do.”
“I’ve lost everything! I lost Tate, I lost the ability to have more children . . . I can’t lose you.”
I ground my jaw at the umpteenth reminder of Tate that night and shut my eyes.
“Our baby is gone, Brody. You’ve already taken everything. Don’t take you from me too. Don’t tell me I lost you with Tate.”
Goddamn it; stop bringing up what I did! “Olivia—”
“Please, Brody. After everything you’ve done, you owe it to me to stay with me.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to hold back the tears that had begun forming. “I can’t, I—”
“I’ll die without you, Brody! Do you hear me? I. Will. Die. Do you want my death on your hands too?”
“Olivia, stop!”
“You promised you’d help me! You promised you were on my side. No one else knows what it’s like to go through this, no one else knows that I can’t deal with this pain. And you swore you were going to get me help. And now you’re just going to leave me?” she shouted. “How could you do this to me? After everything else you’ve done, Brody?!”
“I have tried, Olivia,” I said, exhaustion coating my voice. “I have tried so many times to get you help. You say you want it, but I know you don’t.”
“It’s because of this! It’s because I know once you put me