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Jason stood across from me, his hands in his jeans’ pockets, his dark eyes glinting with a hard edge. “Well? What did you decide? How badly do you want to fix this? Because I’m telling you, I can’t live with a dead fish anymore. You don’t care about me. You haven’t for a long time. And you want Calla to live with both her parents, so you tell me. What are you going to do about it?”
I gripped the edge of the counter. “Jason, please,” I whispered. My heart had been in bleeding tatters for a month. For a month, I had been imagining him in her arms, him finding his pleasure with someone else. With someone more capable than me. Someone prettier than I was. He had come home to give us a chance, but I didn’t understand what he wanted.
“Please what?” he snapped. He staggered a little. Drunk. Jason didn’t get drunk, but I’d heard him over the phone several times that month. He seemed to be healing his wounds, whatever they were, by numbing them.
I didn’t have that luxury. Calla was barely two. She needed me. I rubbed the spot over my heart, trying to soothe the stabbing pain that had been there since his confession that he’d been unfaithful. “What do you want from me, Jason? I do love you. I love you so much. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry you don’t feel—” I swallowed. “I know since Calla was born, I haven’t been as sexual, but I do love you. I’ve given you everything I have.”
He snorted, one hand leaving his pocket to rub his nose. “Fuck that. It’s bullshit. You aren’t attracted to me anymore. Admit it.”
My heart hurt so bad I thought it would burst. “Of course I am,” I whispered.
“Then prove it.” His dark eyes went shadow black. “Show me how much it means to you, Laur.”
“H-how?”
“Take off your clothes,” Jason said, taking a seat in the worn kitchen chair. “You always make me turn the light off, right? You don’t want to look at me. So, prove it. Show me that you care. Show me you’ve changed.”
I swallowed hard. Choked on tears. “Jason. That’s… that’s not how things work.”
“For you,” he yelled so loud, I jumped. “It’s always about what you want, Laur. What if I want to look at my wife? You say you love me. You say you trust me. Fucking prove it.”
“Okay,” I said quickly, holding out a hand. The other grasped the hem of my T-shirt. “Okay. I-I really do love you, Jason. I promise. I’m sorry you’ve felt that way.”
Jason leaned back in his chair, waiting.
I undressed. Layer by layer, his eyes devoured me. It didn’t feel the same way it had when we’d been in college. The strip teases and the fun we’d had together. This was different. But he was still my husband. I could make it feel the same. I just had to try harder.
Finally, I stood in front of him, naked, in our kitchen. And Jason laughed. Bent over, breathless, erratically, he laughed.
I gasped for air.
Choked.
“Laurel,” a voice broke through my waking dream. But I knew I wouldn’t come out of it. Not for anything.
I could feel my lungs constricting against the pain of his cruelty. He just laughed, shaking his head, and then finally, catching my gaze with his unfeeling eyes, he rubbed himself over his pants.
Gasping sobs tore through me.
“Laurel! Breathe. Breathe, sweetheart.”
“You look fucking pathetic, Laur. What kind of bitch does that? Look at my dick. I’m not even hard.” He laughed again, standing and pushing his chair away from him. “Fucking pointless.”
I couldn’t draw air. Black dotted my vision.
“Laurel!” a familiar voice snapped through the air. “Breathe, dammit!”
Then I was on the ground. Alone. My sobs tore through me like claws through flesh. I was falling apart. Ripping into ribbons of bleeding sorrow. I had failed. He had left me again, this time angrily, disgusted with me, fed up with everything about me. I had no worth to him, so what good could I be to anyone?
“Laurel, please wake up,” Lachlan’s voice darted through the dream with a plea.
The sound of my crying started as a muffled background noise, and slowly, surely, I felt my mind crawl out of the memory with tired limbs.
“Deep breaths,” Lachlan said, but the end of the word broke gruffly. His arms were around me and he held me tight against his chest. “That’s it, sweetie. Just breathe. It’s over. I’m here.”
Light streaked across my vision, and then my awareness returned. The side lamp in Lachlan’s bedroom had been turned on. I sat in the middle of his bed, wrapped in his arms with my cheeks covered in dampness.
No,I thought with dawning horror.My alarms. I didn’t charge my phone. They never went off.I leaned into the sobs again, embarrassed, horrified that I’d fallen into the memory. My wounds tore open with fresh blood I wished would dry up with the rest of my heart. I didn’t want to feel. I was so tired. So exhausted from it all.
