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I can’t go back there again.
Not now. Not ever.
Brielle
I’m sitting on the sofa as the movie plays on the television. It’s Thursday night—date night—but we’re home. I didn’t get my email invitation this week and that hurt. Sammy is snuggled up beside me while Will is lying on the floor. Julian is sitting in his wingback chair with his book, uninterested in what we are doing.
It’s been a week since we had our fight about marriage and babies, and we haven’t discussed it since. I’m too scared to bring the subject up.
Julian has pulled away from me.; the force field is back up. His heart is locked safely back into the freezer, never to be defrosted. I know he’s scared, terrified that he’s going to be trapped in a loveless marriage again.
But that marriage would be to me, and it hurts that he doesn’t trust me enough to let himself fall.
Maybe he will. Maybe he will come to me any day now, and the two of us can sit and openly talk about it. He can explain why he feels the way he does. But until he does, there’s a huge elephant in the room, in our bed, everywhere between us.
“I’m going out with the boys tomorrow night straight from work,” he says quietly as he continues to read his book.
I turn and watch him until he looks up at me, and I raise a brow in question.
“Mother will have the children, so you can go out if you wish.”
“I don’t want to go out.”
His eyes hold mine. I just want to scream and call him a coward, but I’ll only push him further away.
“I won’t be late,” he says after a moment.
I nod and turn back to the television. The lump in my throat hurts again as I try to hold in my tears. I can’t stand this. Screaming, yelling, or anything would be better than this.
My mind goes to Alina. Is this what she dealt with? The silent treatment?
While he fucked prostitutes on the side.
Stop it.
I close my eyes in disgust. Stop thinking about her. This is different. He loves me. He wouldn’t do that to me, I know he wouldn’t.
Would he?
I kiss Sammy on the head. “I’m going to bed, baby.” I stand. “Goodnight, Will,” I say.
Julian doesn’t say anything.
“Night, Brell,” Will and Sammy call.
I walk into my room, get into the shower, and I cry.
I can’t stop thinking about Alina and worrying that we’re falling into that same pattern. He’s hardly touched me in a week, and we haven’t made love once.
He’s pulled away from me without any regret.
I scrunch my eyes together and let the tears roll down my face. My heart feels like it’s being torn out of my body in slow motion.
Maybe my fairy tale is already over.
“Come on,” I laugh as I run about outside with Tillie at the end of the driveway. It’s 4:00 p.m. and Willow is still at work while Sammy is at his little friend’s until later tonight, after dinner.
Julian came to my bed last night, and we made love. Well, not really. We basically fucked with no emotion attached to it. But I felt like he was sad, too. We laid in silence after we were finished, clinging to each other, as if hoping the other one would take back what they said last week.
