Chapter 12 Not Sleeping
NOT SLEEPING
ASHLEY
Later that night, after helping Mom tuck the boys into their bunks and listening to their overlapping bedtime stories—“Hulk vs. Thor: The Final Battle,” revised aggressively by Max—she shoos me away with a tired smile.
“Go find your husband, sweetheart. I’ve got them.”
Your husband.
My stomach lurches, because someday—soon—she’s going to learn the truth. And she’s going to be so disappointed.
But not tonight.
“Thanks, Mom.”
I linger in the hallway outside her and the boys’ shared cabin, just for a second. It’s quiet now that Max and Blakey have been put to bed, but if I strain a little, I can barely make out the sound of hushed conversation and their boyish giggles. Not sleeping yet, but safe. Happy.
I walk away. Up a flight of stairs, and then down the long corridor to our suite.
When I open the door, the scent shifts immediately—blue jasmine, clean and cool, hotel-perfect.
The door closes behind me with a quiet click.
All around, the ship hums. Distant music drifts in through the balcony door. Laughter. The sounds of celebration floating up from somewhere below—everyone else enjoying their happily-ever-after.
But in here… Beckett is standing near the sofa bed, already pulled out.
Wearing those gray sweatpants.
He’s had them since college—soft and worn thin at the knees, dangerously familiar in all the wrong places. I’ve seen him in them hundreds of times, maybe a thousand.
They represent lazy Sunday mornings. Coffee. Cartoons. The boys tumbling into bed with us while we pretended to sleep.
Now, they just look... intimate.
I stop.
Completely still, because I’ve forgotten what’s supposed to come next.
This room is meant for romance. A king-sized bed. Soft lighting. An elite retreat.
I feel—caught, somehow. In this moment that feels suspended in time, both too dreamlike and too real.
When his phone starts buzzing, I’m not angry. I’m relieved.
“Better get that,” I say and then turn around, yanking open a drawer with a little more force than necessary.
Just because we’re splitting up doesn’t mean he stopped being gorgeous. And that is so not fair.
“Hey,” I hear him answer, stepping outside. “Are you kidding me?” His voice cuts off when he closes the sliding glass door.
With shaky hands, I grab the cotton shorts and plain T-shirt I packed and escape to the bathroom like it’s a lifeboat.
Inside, I crank the shower hot enough to sting and step under the spray. The ship’s hum fades beneath the rush of water in my ears, steam curling around me.
I’m doing the right thing, for me, for the boys.
This is the last thing I wanted, but I—we—need more than what he’s willing to give.
Darn you, Beckett.
I tilt my head up to face the shower head, eyes shut tight, and pretend there aren’t tears mixing in with the hot water. For a minute—just one—I let myself not hold it together.
Then I straighten, wipe my face, and soap up. Shampoo. Conditioner.
I’m not going soft. Just acknowledging and mourning our situation for what it is.
He isn’t going to change my mind.
When I finally step back into the room, hair damp and skin pink from the heat, the lights are low. Beckett’s on the pullout, one arm slung over his eyes, breathing steady but not the slow and deep rhythm he gets when he’s actually out.
Good. Perfect. Everything is fine, but instead of plugging in my phone, or tidying up the room, or even making the effort to dry my hair, I crawl into bed and flick the lights off.
Maybe a half hour goes by, and I’m still staring up at the ceiling, wide awake.
Somewhere down the hall, someone laughs—too loud, too carefree. A door thumps shut in the next cabin. Footsteps pass. Normal happy people having fun.
From across the room I hear every movement Beckett makes. The mattress creaking when he rolls over. He exhales, slow and controlled.
He’s not asleep. I know that as surely as I know I’m not.
We lie there anyway, wrapped in silence—the kind that used to feel comfortable.
Now it presses in on all sides, thick and airless, while the rest of the ship celebrates just beyond the walls.
Then his voice, soft in the dark. “Ash… can’t we just—”
“I’ve tried,” I say before he can finish.
He’s quiet for a beat, and I can feel him turn his head toward me. “When?”
“Every day this past year,” I whisper. “When you stopped talking to me. When you started coming home late. When you’d sit at the table, right across from me, and still feel… gone.”
The silence stretches. I think maybe that’s it—maybe he’ll let it end there. But then his voice comes again, low, persuasive.
“You know I still love you, right?” he says. “I know I’ve been distant, but it wasn’t about us. It’s just—life got complicated. Work. Pressure. And I’m trying to fix things before…”
He shifts, sitting up a little. I can picture his face even in the dark—the earnest expression, the faint tilt of his head he uses when he’s trying to win someone over.
“I miss you, Ash. The way things used to be. The way you used to look at me. We can get that back. We can start over. I’ve made some… mistakes, I know. But, this cruise—it can be a reset. Just give me a chance, babe. It might be… Please. You won’t regret it.”
He’s good. Too good.
And for a heartbeat, I want to give in—to the steadiness in his voice, the version of him standing right in front of me.
I want to believe that flicker of hope.
But I know him. And I know myself.
I know that if I let this keep going—if I let him believe there’s still room to try—I won’t make it through this week intact. I’ll start hoping again. Waiting again. Losing myself again.
“I’ve already given you so many chances,” I say quietly. “I can’t… I can’t anymore.”
He exhales, sharp and unguarded, and suddenly, it feels like the walls in the cabin are closing in on me.
“I used to know who I was,” I go on, because I need him to understand this part, at least. “But this past year—when I felt you slipping away—I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I hated the person I was becoming. Angry. Anxious. Always waiting for you to come home. To come… back.”
My throat tightens. “I can’t live like that again.”
He doesn’t move. Just says my name, softly. “Ash—”
And I know—if I don’t end it now, I won’t be able to later.
So I say the one thing that will stop him.
The one thing I need to believe if I’m gonna survive this.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
The words fall between us like glass shattering.
All the sounds I’d been hearing a few minutes ago seem to have been sucked out of the air.
Then there’s the rustle of fabric, the soft scrape of a drawer. A pause. And the door opening.
It’s the same pattern, the same quiet retreat. Somewhere along the line, he stopped fighting with me.
He stopped fighting for me.