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In fact, I pretended it wasn’t even real for the first month.
I didn’t think I was capable of compartmentalizing like that. But it turned out fear, denial, and a sprinkle of PTSD really created the perfect environment in which to delude yourself.
Plus, it wasn’t going to stick.
Itneverstuck.
The data was on my side.
Better to just wait for nature to take its course. I wouldn’t be surprised when it did. More importantly, I wouldn’t be devastated when it did.
Every time I went to the bathroom, I prepared for blood. Every morning I woke up, I braced for telltale cramps.
Fuck, every time Kip and I had sex—which was a lot—I half expected to soak the mattress through. Ideally, I wouldn’t be having sex. It was irresponsible, and if I did soak the mattress with blood, it would likely quell any and all attraction between us.
“You fucked me into a miscarriage.”
Yeah, that’d do it.
I shouldn’t evenwantsex with everything I was expecting. The other times, I hadn’t lethimtouch me—something he was furious about. I had absolutely no desire for sex and did not want to be touched.
With Kip, it was different. I wasn’t in control of my desire. The second our eyes met, our lips touched, everything else melted away. It was the one time I got to escape my body.
Suffice it to say, we had a lot of sex.
But I was… distant. In my own head. On edge. Skittish Kip noticed it, but he didn’t say anything. Why would he? We might’ve been married on paper, but in reality, we were fuck buddies.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
My bestie, on the other hand, noticed.
Luckily for me, she’d just had a baby, so she was kind of busy. It wasn’t weird that I wasn’t getting wine drunk at her house every night because she had a newborn. And because I had a husband who I apparently needed to spend time with in order to make our marriage believable. Hence the month-long grace period.
But now she was out of the newborn fog.
“Something’s going on,” she said the second we finished the morning rush.
Fuck.
I busied myself with arranging a cupcake display.
Tina was banging away at the coffee machine, but I saw the knowing smirk on her face. She was not in a newborn fog. In her mid-fifties, she was past her childbearing years and sharp as a tack.
Tina noticed everything, so I knew she’d noticed I was off. But Tina was not one to pry. She would listen as you spilled your guts to her, offer sage, no-bullshit wisdom without judgment. But she would wait for you to come to her.
“Nothing is going on,” I told Nora, focusing on the cupcakes, even though the sickly sweet smell of frosting and chocolate was making my stomach turn.
Normally I loved the scents of the bakery, Nora being a fucking magician with a wooden spoon and a mixer. It took enormous willpower not to stuff my face daily. Not that I minded wearing a few extra pounds here and there—women were meant to have some meat on their bones.
“Bullshit,” Nora shot back, putting her hand on her hip.
Double fuck.
I couldn’t keep toying with the cupcakes unless I wanted to vomit all over them.
Reluctantly, I turned to face my best friend.
Unfortunately, I had her full attention.
