“Are you serious?!” I bellow. “Is that how you saw that go down? You wouldn’t talk to me or look at me. I begged you to see someone. I begged you to see someone with me. Those babies were just as much mine and I was allowed to be hurt over losing them too. You may have physically felt the loss but I felt it just as much emotionally and it wasn’t fucking fair that I wasn’t allowed to grieve.”
“No one said—”
“No. I wasn’t. It was all about you. I was so focused on keeping you going that I had to push my feelings aside, which I could do, if you fucking appreciated that. If you fucking appreciated that for months, I kept our marriage going when you checked the fuck out of it,” I tell her. “I fucked someone else, and I am sorry, so fucking sorry, you have no idea how much. But you closed your heart off to me. TO ME, Olivia. In sickness and health. Till death do us part. You forgot our fucking vows first, Liv. You turned your back on me when I NEEDED YOU.”
“I didn’t!” The tears are streaming down her face. I’m not sure what will come out of this argument, but we need to get everything out. There is no holding back if we want to move forward.
And I desperately wanted to move forward from this.
“I’m sick of you running or shutting down on me every time things get hard. Goddammit, you’re my wife and I want to take care of you. But fuck, there are two people in this marriage, Olivia.”
“So this is all my fault? I’m a shitty wife because of how I dealt with our miscarriages?”
“No,” I tell her, my voice calmer than it was before. “I would never say that. You were doing the best you could, but we both made mistakes. You hurt me too, Olivia.”
“And that excuses what you did?”
“No,” I tell her honestly. “It doesn’t. And it’s something I’ll regret forever. But will you regret leaving me? Because living with regret is tough, Olivia. Trust me when I say that. It’s a pain that is so deep in your soul that you can’t ever be free from it. You fall asleep with it, wake up with it, and then it haunts your every waking second. It changes the way you see yourself in the mirror. The way you interact with other people. The way you talk to yourself. It’s a lonely, self-deprecating feeling that preys on your mind and your heart and it never goes away.”
She bites her bottom lip. “I’d rather feel regret than wonder what you’re doing or who you’re with every time you leave our apartment. That will make me crazy. And I can’t spend the rest of my life questioning you.”
I shake my head. “You know me, Olivia. You know it wouldn’t be like that.”
“I thought I did. The fact that you were capable of cheating on me means you’re capable of doing it again.”
“Don’t spew that once a cheater, always a cheater bullshit at me, Olivia, because I don’t buy it and neither do you. You know how I feel about you and us.”
She puts her hands over her eyes. “Oh my God. I’m not denying that you love me, and between the two of us I’m not the liar,” she sneers. “So I’ll admit that I love you too, but it’s not enough. I don’t trust you, and that’s just as important.”
“Can’t I gain your trust back?”
“That’s what I thought you were doing! Despite the fact that you couldn’t remember, I was letting you back in. I was learning to trust you again. But as soon as you’re tested, you fail! You fall right back into these old behaviors.”
“I told you the truth about Amanda from the start, I never lied to you about that. I never tried to hide it.”
“Again with the semantics! It’s a betrayal of my trust either way.”
I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the wall behind me. “Well, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind about me and this.” I shake my head, not wanting to grovel anymore. I have a headache and a heartache and I just want to sleep this fucking day off. I can feel myself getting frustrated at this maddening woman who I still love with every fiber of my being and the last thing I want to do is say something I can’t take back.
“I have.”
“Sleep on it,” I tell her. “We can talk when you’re sober and thinking clearly.”
“Drunk words are sober thoughts, Benn
ett.”
“Then you’ll have no problem telling me this when you’re sober,” I tell her as I make my way out of the bedroom and into the room she’d slept alone all those months in. I know she hadn’t slept in our marital bed alone since the night I moved out, but I’m going to force her into it tonight.
I barely slept all night.
At some point, I sobered up, and with that sobriety brought clarity, pain, and the heartbreak that I was anticipating. After tossing and turning for the majority of the night, I finally get up, preparing myself for this final showdown with Bennett.
There is no denying that I love him. I will always love him and maybe he could eventually earn my trust back. But that day is not today. I need space. And maybe this is why he kept it from me. Maybe he knew all along I would need space.
Maybe I did too.
I’m struggling to make sense of my feelings for Bennett, but that means I can’t be around him. I can’t let our sexual chemistry or the feelings I have for him cloud my judgment. I can’t let the space between my legs control our narrative, and for that I need him gone.