AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was such a simple response that offered a believable explanation. None of the girls even thought to question me.
That’s when Margot announced, “So, it’s settled, then. We’ll talk to our husbands about it, and we’ll plan another trip together for this time next year. It’s going to be a blast.”
“And if you think you’re going to get any resistance, I’m highly suggesting you take charge and use any means necessary to convince them,” Thea suggested, a twinkle in her eyes.
While I knew that Thea’s suggestion was meant to be lighthearted and fun, it was anything but that for me. It stung.
I mean, I understood how they were all feeling. Everyone was obviously here for Zac and Talia, but it didn’t change the fact that it was also an opportunity for the rest of the couples to give their relationships the quality time and attention they needed to survive.
I wanted that for them, because I was all too familiar with what could happen if a marriage didn’t get that.
It put me in a very unique mindset at that moment. As the conversation shifted to talk of the wedding and Talia’s upcoming honeymoon—all of us jealous that she’d be heading off for another ten days in another paradise with her new husband while we all had to go back to work—I was only half paying attention.
I thought I knew what I wanted.
Six months ago, I felt confident, even if scared, about approaching Johnny and telling him I wanted a divorce. We’d been struggling for months, the two of us constantly seeming as though we were on completely different pages. It wasn’t to say that the concept of divorce was easy to deal with. It wasn’t. But I’d hadn’t found myself starting to question if it had been a mistake.
Being here for the last few days with him, all of my confidence I had about the decision had gone out the window. The things he’d said, the sweet words he’d spoken, and the way he’d been treating me had me suddenly unsure just how adamant I was about the divorce.
Or maybe that wasn’t it.
I had to be smart. I was feeling the way I was, because just like my friends were with their husbands, I was spending copious amounts of time with Johnny. There was no work, no routine. Nothing mundane and ordinary about each day that we were here.
I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that any of the problems we had were going to disappear once we got home. In fact, I suspected they’d all be right there, waiting to greet us at the front door, when we returned to Dogwood.
Despite being able to recognize that there was no hope of reconciliation and that this was all just as Johnny had kept referring to it as—a façade—I couldn’t manage to ignore the overwhelming sense of longing that I felt.
Longing.
Yearning for him.
My husband.
The last few days had shown me nothing, if not the fact that this was all I had wanted. Not the fancy trip or luxurious resort or even all of the fun activities. It was about the time.
That was all I’d needed from the start. Time with Johnny, where we both put the work down and set aside any of life’s challenges, simply for us to reconnect with one another and remind ourselves how lucky we were to have each other.
Time to appreciate one another.
Time to love each other.
I made it through the rest of the spa day with my friends, but there was no question that I’d done it wishing things had been different. I did it wanting Johnny, missing what we used to have, and wishing that I had been feeling the same as my friends about this whole trip.
By the time our spa day was over, and we made our way back to our villas, I felt exhausted. Maybe I hadn’t done anything particularly strenuous today, but there was no question that the emotional turmoil I’d been in all day had taken its toll on me.
If nothing else, I was grateful for the fact that everyone was taking the night off. Of course, that didn’t mean that everyone was planning to stay cooped up inside. Each couple might make special plans for dinner, or perhaps in Thea’s case, she might initiate another round of intimacy with Colt. I didn’t know what their plans would be, but I was grateful that I’d simply be able to return to the villa, climb into bed, and allow myself to succumb to the exhaustion.
But it seemed that not everything was going to be smooth sailing for me.
I opened the door to the villa, expecting I’d be able to make a beeline for the bedroom before Johnny returned from fishing with the guys. I was wrong.
As it turned out, Johnny was already back, and he hadn’t tucked himself away in the bedroom like I had planned to.
Nope.
He was sitting on the couch in the living room, the television on in front of him.
The moment I stepped inside, he snapped his head in my direction. As I closed the door behind me, I noticed a strange look in his expression. Part of me had wondered if his day had been anything like mine. Did he struggle, the same as me, not to share the truth with our friends?
