7. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
His headlights stayed in my rearview mirror the entire way home.
Every turn I made, he made. Every red light where I stopped, he stopped behind me, close enough that I could see the outline of his face in my mirror.
My phone was off, but I knew he was calling.
I could picture him in that stupid quiet car, pressing redial over and over, watching me refuse to answer.
Good. Let him feel what it’s like to reach for someone and find nothing.
The brownstone was dark when I pulled into the driveway.
I’d forgotten to leave lights on this morning because I’d been so focused on what I was going to tell him, so sure that by tonight everything would be different.
The nursery colors I’d been imagining. The names I’d started turning over in my head.
The look on his face when I said we’re going to have a baby.
I sat in the car for a moment, hands still gripping the wheel. Behind me, Wade’s Tesla pulled in, headlights cutting through the darkness. I heard his door open. His footsteps on the pavement.
I got out before he could reach me.
“Luisa. Luisa, please-”
I was already at the front door, fumbling with my keys. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t get the right one in the lock.
“Lu, just let me explain-”
The door finally opened. I stepped inside and tried to close it behind me, but he was there, his hand on the frame, his body blocking the gap.
“Don’t shut me out. Please. Just give me five minutes.”
“I don’t have five minutes for you.”
“Lu-”
He pushed through the door with that quiet insistence of his, the way he always got when he wanted a thing badly enough. When had I stopped being the thing he wanted?
“It wasn’t what it looked like.” He was already reaching for me, his hands finding my arms, trying to turn me toward him. “She needed help. That’s all. She didn’t have anyone else to ask.”
“She never has anyone else to ask.” I pulled away from him, backing into the living room. “That’s the story, isn’t it? Poor Dolores, all alone, needs Wade to save her. And you always go. You. Always. Go.”
“She’s a friend! I was teaching her a dance. That’s it.”
“Our dance.”
“It’s a waltz. It’s not-”
“It’s not our waltz?” I spun around to face him. “Are you serious right now? You asked me to teach you that dance because you wanted an excuse to hold me. You said it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for you. And you gave it to her?”
“I didn’t think-”
“No. You didn’t.”
He stood in the middle of our living room, looking wrecked and desperate and completely lost. Good. He should feel lost. Like the ground was crumbling under his feet, the way I’d felt every day for the past year.
“I love you,” he said. “I know I haven’t shown it lately, but I love you. You have to believe that.”
“I don’t have to believe anything.”
“Lu-”
“You hesitated.”
The words stopped him cold. He stared at me, confusion creasing his forehead.
“What?”
“The last time I asked if you loved me. You hesitated for three seconds, Wade. That’s how long it took you to remember you were supposed to say yes.”
“I didn’t hesitate because I don’t love you. I hesitated because I was exhausted and overwhelmed and-”
“And thinking about her?” My voice came out flat, deadly calm.
“No!” It burst out of him, too loud for the kitchen.
“Then why? Why did it take you three seconds to answer the simplest question I’ve ever asked you?”
He opened his mouth. His phone buzzed in his pocket.
And I watched him check it.
It was automatic, the way his hand moved, the way his eyes dropped to the screen, the way his whole body shifted toward the device like it was a magnet and he was made of iron. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. That’s how ingrained she was in him now.
But then he changed.
I saw it happen in real time. His face went blank. Not just expressionless, blank, like someone had reached inside him and switched off the light. The color drained from his cheeks. His jaw tightened. And when he looked up at me again, there was a look in his eyes I didn’t recognize.
“What?” The word came out flat. “What just happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Wade. What did that message say?”
“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket, but he was different now. The desperate, reaching man who’d followed me home was gone. In his place was someone cold, someone distant, someone who looked at me like I was a problem to be solved rather than a wife to be loved.
“You’re scaring me,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on. Is it her again? Is that it?”
“No. I think we need to talk.”
“We are talking.”
“No. I mean-” He ran a hand through his hair. Breathed in slow. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. Controlled. “I think we need to talk about what happens next.”
“What happens next?” I stared at him. “What does that mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
That cold feeling in my chest was spreading, creeping down into my stomach, freezing me from the inside out.
“Thinking about what?”
“About us. About whether this is working.”
“Wade-”
“You forced my hand tonight, Lu.” His voice was so calm. So reasonable. Like he was explaining a technical problem to a colleague. “The things you said, the way you reacted. It made me realize that this isn’t sustainable. We’re not sustainable.”
“Because I got upset that you were dancing with another woman?”
“Because you can’t trust me. Because every time I try to help someone, you see betrayal. Because we’ve been fighting the same fight for a year and nothing ever changes.”
“Nothing changes because you don’t change! You keep choosing her-”
“Yes.” The word hit me like a physical blow. “I do.”
The room tilted. I felt myself sway, reached out for the back of the couch to steady myself.
“What?”
“I choose her.” His voice was still flat. Still controlled. But underneath it ran a raw, terrible current with no name I knew. “Maybe I always have. Maybe I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, thinking I could have both of you in my life.”
“Wade, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’ve made my decision.”
I was going to be sick. The nausea from earlier was back, rising in my throat, mixing with the panic that was making it hard to breathe.
“You’re choosing Dolores?”
He didn’t answer. The silence said it for him.
“You’re choosing her over your wife?”
“Things aren’t the same anymore, Lu. They haven’t been the same for a long time. We should end it.”
“We should end it?”
I heard my own voice like it belonged to someone else, high and hysterical and breaking apart at the edges. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Twenty minutes ago I’d been planning how to tell him about the baby, and now-
My knees buckled.
I didn’t decide to fall. My body just stopped holding me up. One second I was standing behind the couch, and the next I was on the floor, carpet rough under my palms, tears streaming down my face.
“Lu-” He moved toward me.
“Don’t touch me!” I scrambled backward, away from his reaching hands. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”
“I didn’t want it to be like this-”
“How could you?” I was sobbing now, great ugly gasps that tore through my chest. “How could you do this to me? After everything, after the cobblestones and the boathouse and the vows we made, how could you throw all of that away for her?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry! If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be doing this!”
I pressed my hands flat against my stomach without thinking, that protective instinct I’d developed over the past twenty-four hours. The baby. Our baby. Growing inside me while he stood there telling me he’d chosen someone else.
I almost told him.
The words were right there, burning on my tongue: I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father. Please don’t do this.
But I looked at his face, that cold, closed expression that made him look like a stranger, and I knew. I knew that if I told him now, it would be a trap. A manipulation. A way to force him to stay when he’d already decided to leave.
And if he stayed because of the baby instead of because of me, I’d never survive it.
So I swallowed the words. Let them sink back down into my throat like stones.
“So we’re really throwing everything we’ve built together for her?”
“Yes.” His voice cracked on the word, just slightly. “We should end it.”
“Three years of marriage. Eight years together. Every plan we made, every dream we shared, none of it means anything to you?”
“It means everything to me. But sometimes meaning isn’t enough.”
I laughed, a broken, bitter sound that scraped my throat raw.
“What does that even mean? It means everything but you’re leaving anyway? It means everything but she means more?”
He didn’t answer.
“Say it.” I pushed myself up to my knees, then my feet, swaying slightly. “I want to hear you say it. Tell me she means more to you than I do.”
Silence.
“Tell me!”
“I can’t do this anymore.” His voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t keep hurting you.”
“Then stop hurting me! Stay! Choose me for once in your goddamn life!”
“I’m sorry, Lu.”
“Stop saying that! Stop saying you’re sorry when you’re not going to change anything!”
I was screaming now. My throat was raw and my face was soaked with tears and my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t control them. I looked at this man, this man I’d married, this man I’d loved, this man I’d been so sure would be the father of my children, and I didn’t recognize him anymore.
“How could you throw us away?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood there, watching me fall apart, with that terrible blank expression on his face. Like he was watching a car crash, seeing the impact coming and couldn’t make himself step off the road.
My wedding ring felt like it was burning my finger.
I looked down at it, the simple gold band he’d slipped on my hand three years ago, promising forever. With this ring, I thee wed. With my body, I thee worship. With all my worldly goods, I thee endow.
Lies. All of it, lies.
I pulled it off.
“Luisa-”
I threw it at him.
It hit his chest with a small, satisfying thunk and fell to the floor. He flinched like I’d shot him. The ring skittered across the hardwood, spinning once, twice, before coming to rest against the leg of the coffee table.
We both stared at it.
“I’m going to pack my things,” I said. My voice sounded dead. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out everything inside me and left only the shell. “Don’t follow me.”
I turned and walked toward the bedroom.