Chapter 4 Now
Now
James’s sniveling has worn my patience thin.
I get to my feet, the imprint of my body still on the covers.
The clock tells me I haven’t been lying there, staring at the ceiling, wondering about the disintegration of my marriage, my life, for long.
But it has felt like an age. Not quite my life flashing before my eyes, but the life James and I might have shared suddenly bleaching out like film left lying in the sun.
Now I find myself creeping into the corridor.
A gentle, rhythmic buzzing hums into the soles of my feet.
The party downstairs is too loud. I should do something, turn the music down.
The neighbors. We’ve just made nice with them and made this neighborhood feel like our own.
It’s wild that we’re even going ahead with this belated housewarming, but when James fled to hide in his parents’ home, I warned him I wouldn’t cancel.
He could show up, face me, and save face, or I could tell all our friends what he’d done.
At least it sounds like the guests downstairs are having a good time, distracted. No one should disturb us.
When I open the door to our bedroom, I find James curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed, sobbing his little heart out.
The tips of his ears have gone pink, and he looks like a little pig awaiting the butcher’s knife.
Like he knows just how much danger he’s in.
He catches my eye and, well, not quite straightens up, but rocks up into a seated fetal position.
“Please, I just—” He pauses to choke out a sob. “I’m so sorry. I love you. You know that.”
My hands clench into fists and unclench. It feels like a rope is pressing itself against the soft flesh of my neck. When he proposed, he promised that together, we’d forget the ways in which our families have disappointed us. Be each other’s chosen family. But what kind of family would choose this?
“If you loved me,” I say, “then how could you do this to me?”
He shakes his head, hugs his knees to his chest. “I don’t know. Really, I don’t. It’s the worst thing I could have done.”
“Yes,” I say, closing the door behind me. “Yes, it is.”