31. Luke
CHAPTER 31
Luke
“What the hell was that?” I yell once I see Gigi’s sneakers, knowing that she’s home.
I slam the front door to our apartment closed. Kai jumps at the sound. I’m pretty sure he’d want to be anywhere but here. He looks like he’s ready for the sofa to swallow him whole. I feel bad for my friend. He’s been treated to a front-row seat of this shitshow. I only hope he takes some solace in knowing that his relationship wasn’t the only one that was breaking down.
“What was what?” Kai mumbles.
My eyes are not on him, though. They’re pinned on the mother of my child who just waltzed out of her own goddamn checkup with my kids. She’s walking out of the nursery with a baby monitor pretending like I’m not here.
“Gigi, why the fuck did you leave?”
“And that’s my cue to skedaddle out of here.” Kai takes his half-eaten bowl of cereal from the coffee table and bolts to his own room.
“Sorry, man,” I huff out just as he’s closing the door, a hand on my hip and the other one on the back of my baseball cap.
He shoots me an I get it, you’ve heard me fight with Zoey a gazillion times look, and leaves us to it.
“You hijacked my appointment,” Gigi accuses the second we don’t have a witness anymore.
“I asked her a question, Gi. One fucking question. And given the state you are in, don’t you think I should be worried?”
“You don’t have the right.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gigi’s nostrils flare. “I. Am. Not. Depressed,” she says, pointing at her own chest. She enunciates every word, and it seems like it pains her every time the next one leaves her mouth. “I’m doing the best I can, but you’re just waiting for me to mess up at every turn! Do you see me complain when you go to work or write your thesis? No. So leave me the fuck be.”
Whoa. Where in the world is this coming from?
Rolling my eyes would probably not go down well. Raising my voice is probably even worse of a tactic. Reminding her that I need to actually go to my shift at The Wilted Flower will probably send me to an early grave. I take a calming breath and think carefully about how I’m going to play this. “I do not wait for you to mess up, Gi,” I say in the gentlest tone possible; you’d think I was shushing Ethan and Gwen to sleep.
Gigi doesn’t return the sentiment. “You’re always breathing down my neck and lurking around, making sure I don’t mess up with the twins. I’ve fucking noticed, Luke!”
I’d laugh at the irony that the moment my wife finally chooses to open up to me, I’m being yelled at. But this shit is too depressing for me to find humor in.
“That’s not true and you know it.” I take tentative steps toward her and put my hands on her biceps. My heart breaks like it always does when she flinches at the touch. “I’m not worried about them. You’re doing a kick-ass job. I’m worried about you .”
“Well, you don’t need to be. I’m doing just fine.”
Gigi lets go of me and heads to our room. I hear a scoff when I start following her. After throwing the baby monitor on the bed, she opens our closet and pulls out a container that we keep in there for storage.
“Look…” I pause as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “How about we call your mom to come over for a weekend? She can watch the twins or we can drop them off in Kinsdale Springs. I bet Becca would love it. Let’s go somewhere. I need a break from my thesis and I think you could use a breather, too. We can…reconnect. I just want to help you.”
I’m not about to say the word sex and dig a hole for myself. She’d get the wrong idea, especially after Dr. Patel just gave us the go ahead. I’m smart enough to know that suggesting we bang it out will definitely detonate a bomb, but I’m running out of ideas. And quite frankly, I’m tired of being so helpless not knowing how to cheer her up. Maybe locking us in a cabin in the woods will force her to open up to me and get our groove back.
“ Sure , you want to help me,” she scoffs. “Just like you did when I called you multiple times from this very room about to give birth to your children.”
Guilt is gobbling me up. I really did that, yeah. I really went to a fucking party after my shift was over. Not my proudest moment. You only get one story to tell of your child’s birth. That’s the narrative for Gwen and Ethan.
“What can I do to make it up to you?”
She sighs. As if she’s trying to calm herself down, she exhales three breaths. Gigi stops rummaging for whatever it was she was looking for in the big container and turns to me. I’m scared of what I’m seeing in her eyes. Whatever she’s thinking, it seems final. Resolute.
“I want to start sleeping in Ethan and Gwen’s room.” I think the walls are closing in on me. “I think it’s for the best.”
I can’t tell you when we actually started drifting apart. Only that it was my fault and that it happened somewhere along her pregnancy and boiled over when I didn’t show up during the birth. But even when we were barely speaking, even last night, I always took comfort in the fact that once she was sleeping, I was able to hold her close and hear her breathing next to me. I relished the fact that although we might not be in a great spot, we always slept in one bed. It’s the one last thing holding us together as a couple.
“No. You can’t do that.” My answer is quick. “I’ll do whatever. I’ll quit my job at The Wilted Flower. I’ll defer my thesis. Anything but that.” The words sound like a plea from a desperate man, because that is what I am.
In my head, I’m counting how many days left the house has in escrow until I can actually stop working and focus on Gigi. Would she even want that or would she think I was breathing down her neck? A sad smile forms on my face when realization hits me. I’m grasping at straws and offering anything I can to give her. Not many considering the fact I have fucking nothing. The only thing I can offer her, the only thing I could’ve offered her , was my time. And I used it elsewhere when she needed it the most.
“I can’t deal with this anymore, Luke,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
“Being in the same room as me? I’ll stop the hovering, Gi. Please.”
“I don’t want to do anything I’m going to regret later.”
“What does that even mean?”
Gigi looks at me with heartbreak in her eyes. The exact same expression I saw when we went to Andrew’s funeral. The one she had on her face when she found out about Zach. A replica of how she looked when I found her after the birth of the twins.
“I have to be the best version of me for Ethan and Gwen, and every time I’m around you, I’m not. My parents stayed together for me, and I was miserable because of their constant fighting. I don’t want to do that to them.”
“Then let’s not fight anymore. Just let me in, Gi.” A plea I already asked her when we first started dating and she was jumpy about us being stepsiblings. It worked then, but by the way she’s biting the inside of her left cheek and won’t meet my gaze, I already know it won’t be effective this time around.
“I can’t. If you want me to be happy. You’d let me do this. You’d let me sleep in their room.”
“Alright. Yeah, okay.” Despite wanting to break down, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. If I push further, she might ask to move out, and that’s not a gamble I’m willing to risk because I’d fucking lose.
When I finally figure out what Gigi was looking for in the container—the fucking crumpled-up air mattress—I start reevaluating the milestones in my life.
At twelve, I lost my mom and my other relatives. At fourteen, I started cleaning up after my dad. At eighteen, I became valedictorian and the first in my immediate family to go to college, with a full ride, at that. At twenty, I lost Andrew. A few months ago, I married Gigi. On Valentine's Day, I became a father. I always thought I was ahead of the curve with my accomplishments and tragedies. I guess it’s time to add another one. At twenty-two, my wife stopped sharing the marital bed with me.
What happened to you, Luke?