Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
DEVON
I’m losing her.
I can feel it in the way she moves through our house now—always at a distance, always one room ahead or behind. Like she's making sure we don’t share the same air for too long.
It's been two days since she confronted me about the credit card bill. I need to do something—we need to reconnect somehow.
Tonight, I find her in the living room, curled into the corner of the couch with a glass of wine and her laptop open. She's not typing, just staring at the screen like she prefers it to me.
"Hey."
She glances up. "Hey."
That's it. One word. She can barely look at me.
I cross to the couch, anyway, lowering myself onto the opposite end. The cushions feel like a canyon between us.
“Still researching?”
She closes the laptop. “Yup.”
Fuck. I know what she's researching. Me. Mila. The timeline of that night she's dissecting piece by piece.
"Jade. Can we talk? Actually talk?"
She sets her wine-glass on the coffee table with deliberate precision. "About what, Devon? How you lied to me about being with Grant? About how you spent our anniversary getting drunk with the woman who's wanted you since high school?"
"I told you—"
"You told me a lot of things." Her voice is exhausted, like she’s emotionally drained. "I don't know which ones are true anymore."
What makes this worse is that she's right, and I hate myself for making her feel this way. Making her second guess everything. I should’ve just told her about the stupid kiss, but I didn’t want her feeling like it meant something when it didn’t, didn’t want her questioning herself or letting her insecurity take over.
And now I’ve made her insecurity a hundred times worse.
"I love you," I say, even though it’s cliche and desperate. "That's true. That's always been true."
Jade laughs bitterly. "Is it?"
I stare at her. What the hell?
"How can you even ask me that?"
"How can I not?" She finally looks at me—really looks at me—and her eyes are red-rimmed, shadowed. "You chose her, Devon—you chose drinks with Mila over calling me back. You chose her hotel room over going home to your own bed. On our anniversary, I had to see you with her.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"I didn't choose her. I was drunk and stupid, and I passed out in a chair—" I try to defend myself, but she just cuts me off.
"Stop!” She holds up her hand. "I've heard this. I've heard all of this."
All I can hear is my heartbeat thumping in my ears to the beat of how fucking stupid I am. If I’d have just told her, this wouldn’t be happening.
Yeah, because she would’ve left you.
I don’t know what to do. I can't sit here and watch her pull further away while I drown in the guilt of what I'm not telling her.
So, I do the only thing I can think of.
I close the distance between us on the couch, reaching for her hand. She tenses but doesn't pull away, and I take that as permission—maybe the only permission I'll get.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, bringing her fingers to my lips. "I'm so fucking sorry, Jade."
"For what?" Her voice cracks. "What exactly are you sorry for?"
Everything. The way I'm breaking us apart one secret at a time.
But I can't say that. So, I say the only truth I can manage.
"For hurting you. For making you doubt us."
Her chin trembles. I watch her fight it—the tears, the vulnerability—and it destroys me. This woman who trusted me with everything. Who chose me when she could have had anyone.
And I'm ruining her.
"Devon..." She shakes her head, but she's not pulling away. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be around you and not wonder—"
I kiss her.
It's selfish. I know it's selfish. But I need her to feel what I can't say—that she's everything, that losing her would end me, that I would tear myself apart to undo what I've done.
She hesitates, but then she kisses me back.
It's different to how it usually is between us—there's nothing gentle about the way her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer like she's punishing me and needing me all at once.
I pour every ounce of regret and love—and desperation—into the kiss, trying to show her what my words keep failing to express.
“I’m so mad at you,” she gasps against my mouth.
"I know."
We stumble toward the stairs, our mouths still fused together, hands grasping and urgent. By the time we reach the bedroom—our bedroom, where I haven't slept in days—we're both trembling.
I lower her onto the bed, and she pulls me down with her, and for one moment, I let myself believe this can fix us. That if I worship her body the way she deserves, she'll feel how much I love her. She'll know.
"Look at me," she demands, and I do.
Her eyes are wet, stormy, and wounded. She's beautiful and broken, and it's my fault—all of it is my fault.
“Tell me you didn’t do anything with her,” she whispers.
I have to hold eye contact while I lie again, the promise that I did nothing slipping from my treacherous lips.
I fucking hate myself.
“I did nothing with her, baby.”
I hold her gaze as I move inside her, as her breath catches and her back arches. I watch the tears slip from the corners of her eyes, and I feel my throat burn with everything I'm holding back.
This isn't makeup sex or any kind of reconciliation. This is two people clinging to each other in the wreckage of what they used to be.
Jade's nails dig into my shoulders as she loses it beneath me, and I follow her over the edge moments later, burying my face in her neck to hide the way my own eyes are stinging.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, our breathing ragged.
She's crying silently. I can feel her tears dampening my chest.
"Jade—"
"Don't." Her voice is raw. "Don't say anything."
I hold her instead, stroking her hair while she cries.
This is the woman I'm destroying.
Every touch and kiss, every whispered apology—they're all built on the lie I'm still telling her. And the longer I let it go on, the worse the damage will be if it finally comes out.
Jade shifts in my arms, her breathing evening out as exhaustion claims her.
I press my lips to her forehead and stare at the ceiling.
I should tell her. Right now, while she's soft and close and might—might—forgive me.
But I'm a coward.
And cowards don't confess. They protect their lies until there's nothing left to protect.
I close my eyes and hold my wife, knowing that every second I stay silent is another nail in the coffin of our marriage.