33. Lizzie
THIRTY-THREE
LIZZIE
I wasn’t one for drinking by myself, but the first thing I did when I got home was rinse out one of the mugs I’d left in the sink this morning, then fill it to the brim with white wine. I chugged half of it down and spluttered over the sink, my eyes watering as I dumped the rest of the drink down the drain and sucked in a deep breath.
I didn’t cry. It felt like I was living in a funhouse, where the world was distorted and nothing was where it should be. The shock must have kept the tears at bay.
It wasn’t that we got caught. That wasn’t ideal, but getting caught kissing Sean wasn’t the end of the world.
No, what made me feel like the sun had just gone out was that he’d called it a mistake. Without even hesitating, he’d told Aaron that kissing me was a mistake.
That I was a mistake.
I wasn’t the wonderful, magical, mystical woman he’d pretended I was. I wasn’t a woman worthy of love and devotion. I wasn’t fucking special .
I was a mistake.
My chest was an empty pit, a crater. I stared at the wine splatter in the bottom of my sink and tried to breathe through the pain. When I closed my eyes, I heard Sean’s voice. I saw my brother’s disgust. My mother’s disappointment.
I never deserved to find love again. I was never supposed to get a second chance—not to them. I was just Lizzie, who scurried around making everyone’s life easier. And for Sean, I was just some sort of plaything, a distraction.
I should’ve stuck to being the family babysitter and then done what was expected and adopted twenty-seven cats once my kids grew up and moved out.
When my doorbell rang, I didn’t realize I’d walked toward the front door until my hand was on the knob. I was moving through a dream, and as I pulled the door open, I wasn’t even surprised to see Sean standing on my stoop.
“Can I come in?” he asked, his eyes feverish.
“No.”
He sucked in a breath and dipped his chin. “Yeah. Okay. I—I’m sorry, Lizzie. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“For what to happen?” My voice was flat. It would’ve been impossible for me to put any sort of emotion into it, because nothing made sense.
I actually thought I loved this man? The man who stood beside me and instead of protecting me from my brother’s anger, had stepped aside and let me take the brunt of the blame?
He’d done exactly what my ex-husband did. He protected himself while leaving me out in the cold. I’d been such a fool to think he was different. To think I deserved better.
Better didn’t exist. Not for me.
“I didn’t mean for us to get caught like that.”
“Well, you said it yourself. It was a mistake.”
Devastation etched itself into his features. “Lizzie?—”
“I think you should leave, Sean.”
“Lizzie, I care about you. I’m not—that wasn’t?—”
“I spent a long time married to a man who used me as cannon fodder,” I told him. “I made myself small to make his life easier. I still do it. I still let people walk all over me in the name of keeping the peace and being the glue that holds the family together.” I shook my head. “I’m done, Sean. I just realized what I mean to my family, what I mean to you, and it’s a whole lot less than I thought. I’m not going to let another man treat me the way my ex-husband did. You used me, just like everyone else does.”
His lips parted, but nothing came out. I closed the door slowly, and maybe a part of me was hoping he’d stop me, that he’d say something to make it all better, but he just stared at me with those blue-green eyes and that stupid handsome face, and he let me close the door without putting up a fight at all.
I told myself it was better this way. When the dam broke and I finally started crying, I was glad it happened when I was alone.