“You fell off the chair,” he replied. “I think you hit your head.”

My eyes remained on him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “For everything. But I’m leaving.”

I hit the floor with a thud, wincing when my elbows connected with the linoleum. He stood and looked down at me, blinking with obvious disbelief. “You’re leaving? What does that mean?”

I eased off my back and onto one elbow. Everything I had planned to say vanished from my thoughts, and now I just searched for anything.

“I’m done with the games,” he said quietly. “Just say it.”

“I’m leaving you.”

“You are leaving me?

“I’m so sorry,” I said as I got to my feet. “The last few months, the terrible way I’ve treated you . . . I tried to forget him, to make things work between you and me.”

“You have a hell of a way of making things work.”

“I didn’t want this.”

“The affair has been an adjustment,” he said. “Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe I should be handling it differently. I’ve done a lot of thinking since you told me, though. I see there are things we could work on. I want to try. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this, but I want to try.”

“Bill,” I whispered, fidgeting in the middle of the kitchen. “I love him.”

His jaw flexed, and I read the shock in his eyes. His head tilted to the side. “You love him?”

“Yes.”

His entire body jerked. “Love? You never told me things were that far.”

“You didn’t ask,” I stated.

“I didn’t ask? It didn’t occur to me that a sensible woman like you could fall in love with someone like that.”

“It didn’t?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “I think it did occur to you, but you didn’t care enough to ask.”

He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “Of course I care,” he muttered.

“I know you do,” I said with a sigh. “I didn’t mean that.”

“And what about me?” he asked, looking directly at me. “Don’t you love me?”

I swallowed the rising lump in my throat. “It’s not that simple.”

“What’s more simple than that?” His hair flopped over his forehead, and he pushed his hands through it. He began pacing the length of the kitchen.

I drew in halting breaths. “Bill, I love you, I always will. But this isn’t working – ”

“It’s not working? I don’t understand how that’s my fault. It was working, then you slept with another man, and now it’s not working. How am I the one who gets screwed?”

“There are things,” I said slowly, “that I didn’t know I wanted. And now I see that you and I have never been right.”

“Right? You wield that word like it has magical powers. Like saying it gets you out of all sorts of shit. The houses we’ve seen weren’t ‘right.’ Having a kid now isn’t ‘right.’ Nothing is ever ‘right’ for you. Did it ever occur to you that maybe your version of right is wrong? Is it right slumming around with a swarthy jerk like David Dylan and ending a perfectly good thing for a fling? You really need to look at the facts here, Liv. You’ve always been able to do that because you’re sensible.”

“I’m not sensible. I’m scared.”

“The Liv I know is smart, practical – she doesn’t act on emotion like this.”

“I know, but maybe that’s not me. That’s who took over when my parents divorced. I’m sorry you got that version of me, the one who couldn’t love you like you deserved.” I sighed, watching him tread back and forth.

“I feel more confused now than I did all last month. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“I think one day you’ll look back, and you’ll thank me for this.”

He whirled to face me. “Thank you? Thank you for the fuck what?”

It had sounded right in my head, but as soon as I’d said it, I regretted it, so I didn’t respond.

“Look, maybe we need to take a break,” he said. “Cool off for a couple weeks or something, I don’t know. Didn’t you say that Davena and Mack did that once? You idolized Davena before she passed away, even more than your own mother. Look how in love they were, more than anyone we know, yet even they needed a break.”

I nodded. “Yes, but – ”

“I can get on board with a break, all right? They’re busting my ass at work right now. I can focus on that while you sort everything out.”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“There can’t be nothing I can do. There has to be a solution here.”

I pointed to my duffel bag by the door. “I’m leaving you, Bill.”

He stopped and looked at me. “There’s no way this can be it. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“I know it doesn’t to you, and I doubt it ever will. But I’m leaving.”

“Leaving, huh? Why can’t you just say it?”

“Say what?” I asked.

“I want you to tell me what you are doing to this marriage.”

“I did. I’m leaving.”

“No – you know what I’m asking.”

I wrung my fingers in front of me. “I’m leaving you for another – ”

“No.”

My nails bit into my palms. My heart jumped. He wanted me to recognize that in the end, I was the reason we were facing the one thing I’d spent my life hiding from. “Divorce,” I said quietly.

“This is a joke. You’re living in a fantasy, you know that?”

“I don’t really know how this works,” I said with a deep breath, “but we can talk more when you’ve had time to process this.”

His chin quivered, and I pressed my lips together. “Look at you,” he said. “You can’t even cry over this, the end of your marriage.”

I was all cried out. But my tears had been for David when I thought I’d never have him; even the night before, when he’d almost left me on this very kitchen floor. Bill was right: for some reason, I was rarely able to cry for him, in his presence, like he wanted. I couldn’t explain that, so I only blinked at him, scared that he might actually cry.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Gretchen’s.”

He gave a terse laugh. “Figures.”

“She cares about you too, but she’s my oldest friend.”

He rolled his eyes. “So you’re just going to stay on her couch? Then what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, furrowing my brows. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind, and I’d only planned as far as staying with Gretchen for the night.

He sighed heavily. “Stay here tonight. Let’s work this out.”

I thought of David, awaiting my call, pissed that he couldn’t be here. And I thought of Gretchen, likely freezing downstairs on a cold November night. And then I thought of staying the night here with Bill and how, actually, no part of me wanted to. “I should go,” I said gently. “We can talk more later.”

He shook his head at the floor. “Maybe by then you’ll realize.” He paused and swallowed audibly. “Get this . . . thing out of your system. We’ll talk in a few days.”

I flinched at the word ‘thing’ but nodded. I lifted my left hand up to my face and studied it. Bill’s grandma’s ring was beautiful, but I’d never quite felt a connection to it. I looked on it with appreciation and respect, but it didn’t make my heart spill over. It’d always felt strange, not forming an emotional attachment to my wedding ring. I touched it reverently before twisting it off my finger. I held it out to him.

He looked between the ring and my face so quickly that my heart dropped. “You’re giving me back your ring?” His voice was eerily low and calm. “You’re giving me back your damn ring?” His face became beet red, and he stalked toward me.

I backed away, tripping over a dining chair and dropping the ring. “It – it’s your grandmother’s – ”

In one quick motion, he overturned the kitchen table so it crashed against the floor. I yelped as he punched a hole in the wall. “Get out,” he snapped.

Tags: Jessica Hawkins The Cityscape Erotic
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