“Happy birthday, Kate,” he said with his sleep-roughened voice. His fingers surprised me by lightly running down my hip. “How did you sleep?”
How did I sleep? It was probably better if I didn’t answer that question. It would only confuse both of us. Instead, I dropped my hand over my mouth and mumbled, “I need to brush my teeth.”
“Me too,” I could hear the grin in his voice. “But we’ve been married for almost eight years, Katie. Can’t it wait another minute?”
Still hiding my mouth, I narrowed my eyes and demanded, “Why?”
“We should talk.”
“Why?”
His low laugh vibrated in his chest. “Last night…”
“Was a mis-”
The tension that rocketed through his body was so strong that I fell silent before he could cut me off. “Don’t say it.”
“Nick-”
“Goddamn, Kate” he muttered. “Are you kidding me?”
I scrambled to sitting, yanking the covers with me. We were both starkly naked and I flushed from head to toe, realizing I was about to launch into an argument with him while I wasn’t even wearing underwear.
There was something wrong with my mouth that it just couldn’t shut up and be quiet.
But I couldn’t listen to what he had to say either. I couldn’t go through that just because my boobs were everywhere.
“We’re in the middle of a divorce!” I pointed out. “We have mediation in three days, Nick! What were we thinking?”
“Maybe we thought the divorce was a stupid idea. Maybe we thought we couldn’t keep our hands off each other!”
I sucked in a gasping breath and swayed with dizziness. I couldn’t… I couldn’t grasp his words. I couldn’t make them concrete thoughts and ideas in my head. They danced in the air outside of my reach, taunting me... laughing at me.
“Is that what you think?” I asked breathlessly. For a second I thought I might faint. I shook my head, desperate to find my senses. “Do you think the divorce is a stupid idea?”
His shoulders fell with defeat. “It was your idea, I… I just…”
My emotions took a sickening twist and my head spun again. “You’re blaming me?” Hot tears pushed against my lashes. “This is my fault?”
“I’m not blaming you,” he stated firmly. “I’m just trying to think. God, Kate, there are times when I think you hate me. When I think you would do anything to get rid of me. And then… then there’s last night. And all of the other times like it. I have never been more alive than when I’m with you.”
I sat up straighter. “Nick, you’re still blaming me. I’m the reason we’re getting a divorce. I’m the reason we don’t work! I’m the reason your life is miserable or not miserable or I don’t know what! Was last night all my fault too?”
He abruptly sat up. The blanket fell to his lap, hiding his important bits but exposing inches of smooth, muscled skin. His tousled chestnut hair fell over his forehead as he leaned into me. He had never been more beautiful, an angry Adonis rampaging for vengeance.
“I’m not blaming you for everything. I’m… I’m trying to make sense of this. And I need you to figure out what the hell you want. Is it me, Kate? Or is it this?” His arm flung wide, gesturing at the room. “Without me?”
“We’re in the middle of a divorce,” I repeated, but this time it was broken. This time it held the years of pain and hurt and heartache. “We’re in the middle of a divorce.”
He jumped from the bed as if it burned him to share the same space as me. “You’ve made that abundantly clear.” He gave me his back and naked bum and tore into the closet. I watched in horror as he opened drawers, then slammed them closed.
Tears streaked down my face, wetting the sheets I held tightly around my torso. “What are you doing?”
“Going home,” he growled. “Then I’m going to shower. Then I’m going to work.” His eyes flashed to mine, searing me from where he yanked on old running shorts. “What are you doing?”
“Nick,” I sobbed. He waited. He stood there in his shorts and tousled hair, his jaw ticking with anger and pain and scars that I gave him, scars that I ripped open, and he waited for me to say what it was I wanted to say. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I winced with frustration. “For this.” I waved at the room. “For the divorce.” I sniffled back a flood of tears. “For last night.”
He stalked into the room, his feet moving with determination and his body so filled with tension I felt it vibrating off him in waves. He hovered over the edge of the bed. I could smell him. I could almost touch him. His voice pitched low and serious. “I’m not sorry,” he declared. “Not for any of it.”
He gave me one more scorching glare, then turned around and left. His loud footsteps took the stairs at a clipped pace. There was silence for a minute and I could picture him yanking on the rest of his clothes. Then the door opened and slammed behind him.
I was alone- truly alone. And all I wanted to do was chase him down and drag him back to my room. I wanted to lock him in here until these feelings went away, until this fissure in my heart stopped tearing me apart.
I broke down and cried after that. I cried for a very long time. Then I called into work, explaining about my dog, but not about my husband.
Then I lay down again and cried all the way through my birthday.
Eventually, the vet called. Annie made it through the night. She was going to be okay.
But even Annie’s good news couldn’t soften the blow to my heart or the eclipsing truth that I’d made a very big mistake.
If only I could figure out which of my mistakes was the right one to regret.
Last night?
Or the divorce…?
Chapter Twenty-Three
30. I can’t let him go.
Three days later, on the morning of our next mediation, I prayed for the flu.
When I did not immediately start puking, I prayed for an earthquake. When that didn’t work, I prayed for a tornado. Then an alien invasion.
And finally, a zombie plague.
Then I decided I should probably stop wishing thousands of people had to die just so I could skip seeing Nick again.
It wasn’t that I wanted thousands of people to die or a zombie pandemic to sweep the globe. Not really. I just thought, maybe it was more favorable than coming face-to-face with a man that was so pissed off at me, I felt like my entire house needed cleansing.
I pulled up Google on my phone. Was it possible to hire a witch doctor to hoodoo the shit out of my house and at the same time give me a non-life-threatening trip to the emergency room?
Chicago area witch doctors.
My phone rang, changing the screen to Kara’s name. I answered with a sigh. “Hey.”
“You sound glum.”
I decided it was better to go with the truth. “The only witch doctors Google pulled up are on LinkedIn. I swore to myself I would never get a LinkedIn profile. I don’t care how many emails they send me a day.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she laughed. “You’re officially crazy.”
“I’m not crazy,” I argued. “I just want the flu or maybe malaria. Typhoid would be fine.”
There were thirty seconds of complete silence before Kara recovered. “Please don’t bring typhoid to school with you. I’m not sure if our health plan covers typhoid.”
“If I find the right witch doctor, you’re not going to have to worry about a thing. It will be an isolated incident. I just decided that I don’t really want to kill thousands of people.”
“Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“As your therapist, I’m going to need you to separate yourself from your delusions and tell me five real things that happened in your life this morning.”
Surprised laughter bubbled up inside me and I started to feel just the tiniest bit better. “Unfortunately you’re not my therapist. Also, does that work with your students?”