Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Diana straightened. “What’s wrong?”
I pulled out a chair opposite her and sat. “I got called to the Principal’s office this morning.”
Her expression sharpened. “Why?”
I expelled a breath. “Because a student has made an accusation.”
Diana’s eyes widened. “What kind of accusation?”
I swallowed. “He claims that I… coerced him into having sex. That I offered better grades in exchange.”
Silence.
She stared at me, open-mouthed for a moment. “But that isn’t true.” A heartbeat later, she added, “Is it?”
Hurt lanced through me.
I’ve just been blindsided, my reputation is under threat, and the one person I expected unconditional trust from…
That tiny hesitation felt like needles in my skin.
I gaped at her. “Of course it isn’t.” The words came out with a sharpness I hadn’t intended. “I’ve never done anything like that.”
Diana nodded slowly, as if filing that away. “All right.”
I blinked. “All right?”
“I believe you,” she said with a shrug.
Something in my chest loosened, although the echo of that brief hesitation lingered longer than I wanted it to.
“So who’s accused you?”
“I have no idea. Apparently, I’ll be sent more details. And there’s going to be an investigation.”
She closed the laptop with a soft click. “Have they suspended you?”
“Yes, but…” I relayed what they’d told me.
She grimaced when I mentioned protecting the student. “I can just imagine. They’ve probably offered him counselling.” Diana leaned back in her chair. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this.”
Her words took the edge off my previous irritation. “Thank you.”
She rubbed her finger over the laptop. “It’s just…”
I stilled. “What?”
Diana hesitated, as if choosing her words carefully. “It’s just… things like this make people draw their own conclusions.”
My earlier unease stirred back into existence. “What do you mean?”
She held my gaze. “Us, Kieran.”
I frowned. “What about us?”
“Our marriage. The way we are together.” She tilted her head to one side. “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it too.”
I stared at the table, unable to look her in the eye. “Noticed what?”
Diana reached across and took my hand. I jerked my head up, and she gave me a sad sort of smile. “Our sex life.”
My heartbeat quickened. “What about it?”
She bit her lip. “You mean, apart from the fact it’s non-existent?”
Heat crept up the back of my neck. “That’s not entirely—”
“When was the last time?” she asked gently.
I opened my mouth, then stopped. I didn’t know. Or rather, I did, but the fact that I had to think about it at all said enough.
Diana watched me, that same sadness etched across her face.
“We’ve been together what—fifteen years?” she said. “Married for twelve.”
I nodded.
“And in the beginning, it was fine,” she went on. “Not wildly passionate, maybe, but… good. Comfortable.”
“Yes.” Comfortable had always been the word.
Diana rested her hands on the table. “But somewhere along the way, it… stopped. And I kept telling myself it was stress, or work, or simply what happens when people settle into a routine.”
I swallowed.
“And you let me believe that,” she added, her gaze locked on mine.
“I didn’t know how to—” I began.
“How to what?”
The truth hovered there, just out of reach.
Diana leaned forwards. “Kieran,” she said, softer now, “I’ve felt for a long time that you were keeping something from me.”
I stared at her.
“And not just from me,” she added. “From yourself.”
Oh shit.
I let out a slow breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know. That’s not what this is about.” She paused. “Can I ask you something?”
I nodded, my pulse racing.
“Have you ever wanted me?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “I care about you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I opened my eyes again. “In the beginning, I thought I did.”
Diana absorbed that without flinching. “And now?”
I couldn’t answer.
Diana nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “Is it women in general, or just me?”
The breath caught in my throat. I could feel the impulse rising, impossible to push back any longer. Something in me gave way, all the half-formed thoughts, the careful avoidance, the years of not quite naming it… All of it collapsed into a single, undeniable truth.
I looked at her and finally said it.
“I’m into men.”
Diana sat very still, as though she was absorbing it. Then she let out a slow breath and leaned back in her chair.
Christ, she’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger.
Which I was. She’d never met the real Kieran, the one who’d emerged as the years went by.
“All this time?” she said quietly.
I swallowed. “I didn’t… not at the beginning.”
Her eyes sharpened. “No?”
“No,” I said quickly. “When we met, I thought I was straight. I didn’t question it. I—” I stuttered out a breath. “I liked you. You were easy to be with. We got on. It felt… right.”
“Comfortable,” she suggested.
“Yes.”
“And then?”
I hesitated.
Her gaze narrowed. “And then you woke up one day and decided you liked men?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I remonstrated.
“Then how was it, Kieran?” There it was—finally, a flicker of irritation. “Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like I’ve just been told my husband has been living a completely different life in his head for years.”
“I haven’t,” I protested sharply. I softened my voice. “I haven’t acted on anything. Not once.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I know it’s not. But you need to understand—I didn’t set out to deceive you.”
“Then explain it to me. Because right now it feels very much like I’ve been lied to.”
The words lanced through me.
I ran a hand over my face, trying to gather my thoughts.
“How long have you felt like this?”
I sighed. “A while. I can’t say exactly when.
Maybe there was a day when I was walking home, there was a guy walking towards me, and I thought he was handsome.
That was all.” Another hard swallow. “But then I started noticing more guys. When you go into a coffee shop full of people, and your attention is drawn to the men rather than the women, it’s hard not to admit the truth. ”
Diana said nothing.
“I told myself it was nothing,” I went on. “Everyone notices people. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“And then?” she asked.
“It didn’t stop.”
The room felt very still.
“It got harder to dismiss. I’d find myself… looking. Thinking. And then catching myself and shutting it down.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I was married,” I said, almost helplessly. “Because I loved you—”
Diana froze, and then it hit me.
I used the past tense.
“Did you?” she cut in. “And do you still?”
I flinched.
“I cared about you,” I corrected, the words feeling fragile. “I still do. You’re my wife. My best friend. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Care isn’t the same as love.”
I drew in a deep breath. “There are different kinds of love.”
“And you stopped feeling the romantic kind. That’s if you ever did.”
I winced at that.
Diana’s expression tightened. “So instead you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“And let it carry on.”
“Yes.”
She let out a short breath, somewhere between a laugh and something sharper. “Do you have any idea how that sounds?”
“I do now.”
“And when exactly did you realise?” she asked. “That this was more than a case of passing thoughts?”
I hesitated. “A few years ago,” I admitted. “Maybe longer. I don’t know exactly when it crossed from questioning into something more definite.”
Her eyes widened. “Years.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think I deserved to know?”
“I did,” I said quickly. “Of course I did. But by then…” I trailed off.
“By then what?”
I swallowed hard. “It felt too late.” My voice cracked a little.
Diana stared at me. “Too late?”
“Yes.” I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Because what was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry, I think I might be attracted to men’? After we’d built a life together? After we’d been married for years?”
“Yes.” I didn’t miss that flash of anger. “That is exactly what you should have said.”
“I know that now. But at the time it felt like—” I struggled for the words. “Like I’d tricked you. Like I’d married you under false pretences.”
Her expression flickered.
“I hadn’t meant to,” I added quickly. “That’s the point. I didn’t know when we got married. But by the time I did know, it felt like admitting it would make everything we’d built a lie.”
“And not admitting it didn’t?” she retorted.
I had no answer to that.
Silence stretched between us.
“I kept thinking it would go away,” I said after a moment. “Or that I could simply… ignore it. That it didn’t have to change anything.”
Diana shook her head. “But it did.”
“Yes.”
“Our marriage, for one thing,” she added.
“Yes.”
“It created distance between us. A lack of intimacy.”
I nodded.
“I thought it was me,” she said quietly.
The words hit harder than anything else.
“It wasn’t,” I said immediately. “It was never you.”
“But I didn’t know that. All I knew was that my husband didn’t seem to want me.”
Guilt twisted sharply in my chest. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “And now?”
I hesitated.
“I don’t think I’m straight,” I said carefully. “I don’t know if that makes me… bi, or—” I stopped, then pushed out a sigh. “But what I do know is that what I feel for men is stronger. Clearer. It’s not something I can ignore anymore.”
Diana absorbed that in silence. “And you swear you’ve never acted on it?”
“Never,” I said firmly. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
She studied me, then nodded once. “I believe you.” Another pause. “So where does that leave us?”
I looked at her, the answer sitting heavily between us. Neither of us spoke it.
Because we already knew.
Diana found the courage to say the quiet part out loud before I did.
“Maybe we need to call it a day.”
I stared at her. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “You’re not happy. Well, I have news for you—neither am I. So why stay together if it isn’t working for either of us? Maybe if we look elsewhere, we’ll find the happiness that’s eluded both of us.”
My heart hammered. “So what do you suggest we do?”
She drew in a deep breath. “We split. I’ll move out.”
I glared at her. “Like hell you will. No. You stay here—I’ll find a place.”
“You don’t have to,” she argued.
I took her hand in mine.
“I do. If I want to live a different kind of life, I do.”
Diana swallowed. “I know the situation at college is beyond messed up, but if it’s forced us to be honest with each other…”
I had to smile. “And there’s the Diana I know so well, the one who always finds a silver lining.” I forced a wry chuckle. “Only you could see me getting suspended as a positive outcome.”
“It’ll get sorted, I know it will.” She looked me in the eye. “Whoever this guy is, he’s lied, and they’ll work it out eventually. But until then…”
I nodded. “Until then, I get to—”
“Follow your dreams?” she proffered. “Or live out your fantasies?”
Maybe a bit of both.
While I wait for someone to take the pause button off my career and hit Play again.