Chapter 6
“Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m making a list.”
Quinn raises an eyebrow. “A list of what?”
“A list of all the reasons to stay in this marriage… or to leave.”
She exhales hard, crossing her arms. “You can’t decide the fate of your marriage with a list.”
“Why not? I make every big decision that way. Pros and cons. Why not this?”
“Because it’s… you just don’t do that. This isn’t about what car to buy or which job to take.”
“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then she says, “Therapy. Talking. Figuring out whether you still love him.”
“Not good enough,” I say, putting down my empty glass.
“Okay then,” she mutters. “Let’s hear the cons.”
“He doesn’t like doing laundry.”
“Don’t you have a housekeeper?”
“Fine.” I start listing on my fingers. “He cheated on me. His mother still hates me. He doesn’t like spending time with me. Alone, I mean. He’s ashamed of me. He gives the bare minimum to our relationship.”
Quinn falls quiet, her lips pressed into a line. She doesn’t argue, doesn’t defend him. Just waits.
I look down at my hand, fingers still mid-count. “And I’m tired,” I say. “I’m so tired of begging for his attention, of the little scraps he throws my way.”
“You know you trained him for that,” Quinn says.
I blink. “Trained him for what?”
“Giving the bare minimum.”
“What are you talking about?”
She looks at me steadily. “You’re usually so strong. At work, with the boys. Even with me. Remember that douchebag I was dating? The one who kept asking me to cook for him?”
“Yeah,” I say, and despite everything, a tiny smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “You were like, ‘He’s just joking. Homemade food is healthy food.’ And I said, ‘He can make his own damn healthy food.’”
She snorts. “Exactly. And I did dump him. Because you saw it before I did. You always see it, except with Aiden. When it comes to him, all that strength just... disappears. You turn into someone else. Someone who bends backwards so far, I worry one day you’ll just snap.
” She pauses, not angry, not condescending.
Just steady. “You treat him like royalty. Like you’re some 1950s housewife and he’s the head of the household. And you have to serve him.”
She’s not judging. Not exactly. It’s more like she’s holding up a mirror. And for the first time, I’m actually looking.
“How come you never said this before?” I ask.
“I did,” she says. “You told me to stay out of your relationship.”
Right.
I take a slow, deep breath, sifting through thoughts that have been buried for years. “When Aiden first asked me out… I was shocked. Completely stunned.”
Quinn tilts her head. “Why?”
“Because he was Aiden.” The words come out too fast, too full. “He was the hottest guy in school. Tall, smart, charming. And somehow also a total nerd. God, he was a hot nerd.”
She smiles, but it’s faint. It doesn’t stay long.
“I felt like I’d won something,” I say softly. “Like I was chosen. All the girls liked him, but he wanted me. And that meant something. It made me feel… seen.”
Quinn stays quiet, listening.
“I’d never felt that before. Not truly. My parents had just left, and I was completely lost. Aiden… he grounded me. He was the first person who made me feel safe.”
I laugh, but it catches on something raw. “God. I sound so pathetic.”
Quinn doesn’t hesitate. Her voice is low but firm, too certain for comfort. “You don’t. You sound like someone whose parents abandoned them. And who transferred all those feelings onto the first person who didn’t.”
I freeze.
“What?”
She leans back, her tone casual, but her eyes are locked on mine to make sure I’m listening.
“Your parents had just left. You were vulnerable, lost, and at exactly that moment Aiden showed up. He gave you attention. He showed interest. That filled the ache inside of you. So, you did everything you could to make sure he didn’t leave you. ”
I blink, feeling a knot twist in my stomach. “Wow. Those psychology classes are really working out for you.”
She doesn't smile. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, considering me, and I know she’s not saying it to be cruel.
She’s saying it because she’s been on the other side of healing.
She knows how to look at things and dissect them, she’s done the work.
Quinn’s a retired army vet who was medically discharged.
She joined a VA group, when she came back and the counsellor there really helped her.
So much, she went back to school to get a degree in psychology. ”
“If you were paying me,” she says with a grin, “I’d slow down.”
I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me. I’m not sure if it’s from relief or disbelief.
The silence settles back around us for a moment, but there’s something heavier in the air now, something I can’t ignore. I’m still processing what she just said when my voice comes out shaky.
“You know… everyone thought I got pregnant on purpose.”
Quinn doesn’t miss a beat. She looks over at me, eyes wide, and shakes her head. “No.”
I blink at her, feeling the words still lodged in my throat. I shouldn’t have brought it up, shouldn’t be dredging up years of rumours and whispers that never seemed to die. But something in me needs it said out loud, needs it witnessed.
“I got into the same college as Aiden,” I say quietly. “I had a college fund. Why would I throw all that away for something I already had?”
Quinn snorts gently, setting her wineglass down with a soft clink. “People love to create drama. Gives them something to talk about at dinner. Makes them feel better about their own messes.”
I let the silence settle, the weight of everything we’ve said building like sediment. After a long beat, I ask the question that’s been tightening in my chest for a while. “Do you really think couples therapy works?”
“It works if you do the steps,” she says plainly.
“Even if you two don’t stay together, it’ll help.
A therapist can help you both understand your dynamic, figure out how to communicate without setting each other on fire.
And if you decide to split, therapy will help you co-parent without dragging the kids through hell. ”
I glance at her, surprised by the practicality of it. Quinn doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but she’s not harsh either. Just… honest.
She continues, softer now, “And maybe, if you’re ready, they can help you with the abandonment stuff. It’s buried deep, but it’s there. I see it every time you try to act like everything’s fine when it’s obviously not.”
I look down at my painted nails, silver to match the dress. I don’t say anything for a long while, because there’s too much to unpack. But eventually, I whisper, “Yeah. Maybe I’m finally ready to talk about it.”
Quinn doesn’t respond with words. She just leans in, rests her head lightly against mine, and lets the quiet stretch, like an answer all on its own.
We decide to head to bed after that. It’s nearly morning.
The sky outside is beginning to pale at the edges, soft grey creeping into the corners of the living room.
I can’t tell if I’m exhausted or wired. Probably both.
A million thoughts race through my head, slamming into each other like waves.
Abandonment issues. Do I really have them?
The words echo, and I try them on like a coat that doesn’t quite fit but also doesn’t feel unfamiliar. Maybe I do.
I’m the third child in a family that only ever wanted two. My parents were nearly forty when I was born. My siblings were already halfway grown. They had done their job. They had raised the children they intended to raise.
I was the accident. The surprise. The mistake no one planned for.
It was told to me like a joke, like a charming little anecdote they could toss out at dinner parties or during holidays.
My mom would laugh and say it with her wine glass raised, her eyes already on someone else.
“I had no idea I was pregnant. Thought it was menopause. By the time we found out, it was too late. So, we had another baby.”
The first time I heard it; I excused myself to cry in the bathroom. Quiet, fast tears I wiped away before anyone noticed. I was eleven.
The tenth time I heard it, I smiled and pretended it didn’t matter. Pretended I’d grown out of caring. That was easier than letting them see they still had the power to gut me without even meaning to.
I didn’t break until they forgot my sixteenth birthday.
Not forgot to call. Forgot it existed. No gift. No card. No mention. I came downstairs and the kitchen was empty, no balloons, no pancakes, no anything. My name didn’t even come up. I waited until dinner, thinking maybe they were planning something, maybe they were just late. Boy was I wrong.
I blew up at them, said all the things I’d been holding in.
The next day they told me I was moving in with grandma in Texas, just for a little while, said they’d be back to visit after their trip.
That trip turned into a year. That year turned into forever.
They sold the house and started traveling.
One country after the next. Cruises. Airbnbs.
Beachfront views and food blogs and Instagram-worthy sunsets.
They never came back. Not until I didn’t need them anymore.
Everything in between just disappeared with them, along with any illusion I still had that I mattered. And now, lying in bed in the quiet hours before sunrise, I wonder how I ever thought I was immune to abandonment. Of course I have issues. I was raised on them.
I still remember that first day at the new school. New district. New everything. I walked in clutching a binder that wasn’t mine, wearing a sweater two sizes too big. My grandma said it would make me look older. It didn’t. It made me look swallowed.
I was the weird new girl who showed up in the middle of the semester, right when everyone already had their friend groups and inside jokes and cafeteria seating arrangements.
People didn’t bother to be subtle. They whispered as I passed.
Some turned to stare. I heard the word charity case once, muttered behind a locker door.
Another time, someone asked if I was “the one with the parents who ran off to Greece.”
I thought I’d hate every minute of high school. And for a while, I did.
Then Aiden looked at me.
I don’t even know if he meant to. He was just there one day in biology, sitting next to me with his dark hair falling into his eyes and his notebook full of formulas I couldn’t understand.
He was smart. Stupid smart. And somehow, he was also one of the hottest guys in school.
Not the loud, cocky kind. Quiet. Funny. A little shy.
When he asked me out, I said yes so fast I tripped over the word. I felt chosen. Not the accident. Not the afterthought. Chosen.
And that feeling, it filled something I hadn’t even realized was empty.
That’s the part that hurts the most now. Not the lie. Not even the betrayal. It’s that the one person I thought saw me didn’t really see me at all.
I turn toward the wall, the pillow cool against my cheek.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come.
Just the memory of my mother’s voice in the kitchen, laughing about the baby they didn’t want, and the man who made me feel wanted, for a while, before turning into someone who lied so easily, I started questioning whether I ever knew him at all.
Maybe Quinn’s right. Maybe it’s time to talk about it. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending the past didn’t leave its mark.
Maybe I’m finally ready to see it.
All of it.