Chapter 9 #2
I think about how last night I asked, am I being too much? in a hot tub to a man I’d just met out of reflex. Because it’s how everybody in my normal life makes me feel. Like I’m always on the verge of embarrassing them or getting overly emotional or acting… cray cray.
I pick up a block… and put it down.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Lennon—”
“I have to go deal with the money stuff.” I stand up.
Livi makes a sound of protest at the abandoned tower and I crouch back down and build it up quickly, six blocks tall, and give her a small smile.
“All yours,” I tell her, and she beams and smacks it over immediately.
I don’t say anything else to Brianna. What else is there to say?
She’s watching me from the floor with an expression I recognize a little too well—slightly hurt and slightly baffled.
I meant to apologize now. Just like when I transgress a norm at home, with Jake.
There are all these little ways I’m supposed to react when someone offers love or comfort in a way that requires me to be smaller.
I’ve tried explaining it to Bri before. And it doesn’t land. It never lands.
Maybe because I just don’t fit it anymore.
Maybe I never did.
Jake opens the front door to our house looking like he hasn’t slept.
But before I can say anything he explodes: “My brother, Lennon?”
I suck in a breath. Then August’s eyes flash through my memory—his tattoos, his gentleness, his mouth against mine—
“I didn’t know he was your brother. I didn’t find out until your Mom showed up on my doorstep this morning.”
“You slept with him? Tell me you didn’t. We’re still married!”
“I left you yesterday,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “I told you we’re getting a divorce.”
Then the universe played a cruel joke on me. And of all the men I could have chosen on the first night of my freedom, whoopsies, I chose my husband’s brother.
And some terrible, forbidden part of me still doesn’t wish I could take it back.
“I didn’t know he was your brother, Jake. How was I suppose to know your brother lives thirty minutes from us at an RV park, much less the same RV park where Mom up and moved to without telling me.”
“You think that matters? Did you fuck him?”
“Jake!” I look around. “Are we really doing this on the front stoop?”
That gets his attention, like I knew it would. Appearances above all else. He takes several steps back, and I cross over the threshold into what used to be my foyer.
Well, I guess it’s technically still half my foyer, or it will be once we work out the divorce stuff.
The house feels strange. Like a museum of the life I was living until yesterday afternoon—the neutral sectional, the inoffensive art, the rug I’ve always hated.
My coffee table, the only thing that ever felt like mine after I hefted it into the trunk from where it was left on the side of the road on trash pickup day, sits exactly where it was when I left.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” I ask. “Your brother.”
“Why the hell are we still talking about him?” He throws his hands up. “Were you unfaithful or not?”
My jaw goes agape again. “I wasn’t unfaithful because I told you I was leaving you. I told you I want a divorce and I meant it. Whatever happened after that is none of your business.”
He turns away from me and hunches over, hands at his eyes. “Oh my god. I should never have recommended that shithole RV park to your mother when she came here last year.”
“When was my mom here?” I ask, bewildered. Just how many secrets has he been keeping from me?
I might be a lot of things, but I’ve always been scrupulously honest and forthcoming.
Jake waves a hand, back still to me. “When she got evicted last year.”
“She got evicted! Why didn’t you tell me!”
He whips back around to me, eyes accusatory. “That’s hardly the point now. You fucked my brother!”
“Well I didn’t know he was your brother!” I throw my hands in the air.
“It’s messed up that you could walk out on our marriage of nine years and fuck anybody, don’t you get that? How could you do that to me? To us?”
I lift my hands in a stop gesture, if only to help calm myself down. Calm down, Lennon. He’s just hurt right now.
He has a right to his feelings.
And I have a right to be able to afford a roof over my head.
“Can we talk about the bank accounts,” I say, pivoting.
He has the grace to look uncomfortable.
“I need access to my money, Jake. It’s my money too. I have nothing right now. I can’t buy groceries. Or even check into a hotel.”
“Well then, come back home where you belong.”
“Jake, I—”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll find it in my heart to forgive your sins. I already talked to Pastor Sean about couples counseling and he said he’ll find space to fit us in.”
Pastor Sean? He’s talked to Pastor Sean and is ready to forgive me?
Rage at his audacity lights through me.
I stop and take a breath. Stay calm or it will just shut down the conversation because I’m getting too emotional.
I take another breath so I don’t lose my shit.
“We were always best friends first,” I try. “Before everything else. And I want us to be able to do this the right way. Like two people who actually care about each other.”
I look at him, pleading. “We had a good marriage. I still care about you. So please, as your friend, I’m asking. Unfreeze the accounts.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
Then: “You could just come home.”
“Jake—”
“I’m not saying forever. Just— Come home, and we can talk about everything properly. If you need space, or whatever, fine. I’ll give you that. But I don’t think you should be out there alone right now.”
His voice is so reasonable. It’s the voice he uses when he’s being very patient with me. “You’ve had a huge shock and you’re not thinking clearly. If you just come home, we can figure out—”
“I am thinking clearly,” I say, temper boiling just under the surface.
“I know you think that.”
I breathe.
Oh my god. This is how it happens, isn’t it?
Every time, and usually, so smoothly I don’t even realize it’s happening until it’s too late.
The reframing, gently repositioning reality with you’re not thinking clearly instead of I disagree with your thinking.
Until my own perception of reality becomes a symptom of something rather than a valid data point.
Holy shit, I’ve been in this hall of mirrors for nine years and I’m only just starting to understand what the hell is going on.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Neither of us should be doing anything rash right now. Making big decisions. Dating or—”
He pauses. “Let’s just agree that for the next year, we both take space. No outside… er, relationships. Let’s just take some time to think while we get ourselves together. And be celibate.”
I look at him.
He’s nodding slowly, like this is a reasonable thing he’s offering me.
His face is open and sad and genuine.
This is the thing about Jake that I’ve never known how to explain to anyone—