“Yup.”
“Okay,” she says, drawing out the last syllable. She drinks the rest of her milkshake, slurping the last few inches from the glass like a little kid. “There. I’ve given you a few seconds. Now you can start all over.”
Glancing at the clock, I settle my purse on my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t take half days, Elin. What’s wrong?”
The somberness in her voice is enough to break me, but I don’t want to do that in front of Ruby. I don’t even want to do it at all in public because the first breakdown—because I’m sure there will be more than one—should be somewhere private so I can just ugly snot down my face. That can get disgusting. I know because it looked exactly like that last night when I looked in the mirror.
I watched myself cry. It’s not the first time I’ve done that. But it is the first time I felt calm instead of being frantic. Quite possibly, it was closure settling over me.
For a brief moment in the hallway of the home we once shared, we were us. The old us. The people that promised so many things to one another. But once we pulled back, that moment was over.
I didn’t want to see the secrets in his eyes. The questions on my tongue were so dirty, so insane to consider that it felt like a slap in the face. The sting of abandonment was so piercing that I just couldn’t imagine it ever completely going away.
The foundation of a marriage is love. The walls of a shared life are built with trust, loyalty, and respect. Once those are torn down, there’s nothing left standing.
I love him, but that’s clearly not enough.
It took everything I had to make the call this morning, including vomiting my breakfast in the toilet first. But it had to be done. I need to see what options there are and what I can afford.
Lindsay watches my hand tremble as I pick up my drink and refuse to look her in the eye.
“Elin?”
“I have an appointment.”
“With?”
“Eric Parker.”
Her hand flies to her mouth and she pulls me to her with the other. I push away because hugging my best friend before I do the deed will inevitably have me walking in the attorney’s office with wet cheeks.
“Why, Elin? Did something happen?”
“I’m just going in to see what my options are. I probably can’t afford to file anything anyway.”
“Jiggs said—”
“I don’t care what my brother said,” I say, turning towards the door. She follows behind me, her hand on my shoulder. “Do you know how mentally fucked up this is making me?”
“I can’t imagine,” she whispers.
“It’s like a special form of torture and the longer I let it go, the murkier it’s going to get.”
“I get that, but . . .”
A sob roots itself at the base of my throat. When I look at her, the tears blur her face. “He’s going to break my heart. I know it,” I sniffle, trying desperately to compose myself. I shake my head, warning her not to try to hug me. “We can have sex, but we can’t talk. He tried to talk, but I don’t want to hear what he has to say.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m too weak, Linds. What if I just break and then things go bad and I’m back to square one?”
“You don’t know that is what will happen,” she implores.
“You’re right. But I need to know my options. I need to feel like there’s a plan, some way out if I choose to listen to him and it doesn’t work out. Right now, I’m just in this never-ending swirl of confusion and I can’t do it anymore. I need something to ground me that isn’t related to him.”
“Well, I disagree with this. For the record.”
“Noted.”
Pulling the door open, the light makes me squint. Lindsay’s lip quivers, and I have to look away before my walls collapse and I’m a heaping mess on the sidewalk.
“I need to go or I’m going to be late,” I tell her.
Sighing, Lindsay walks the two doors down the sidewalk to Blown and disappears inside. I remember hanging out in there with her, planning dinners and nights out with our guys, like my world was untouchable. How foolish.
I’d give anything to close my eyes and be transported six months back. To walking in the house and having Ty there, the kitchen a mess from his attempt at fixing lunch, the television on entirely too loud.
“Stop,” I mutter to myself, turning abruptly to head to my car. I jump when I almost collide with a hard body.
“Mrs. Whitt, I’m sorry!” Dustin Montgomery is standing in front of me, a wide grin on his face. His brown hair is cut short, his blue eyes shining.