Chapter 4 Abbie #3
"Then it'll be something else. There's always something else. There's always one more trip, one more meeting, one more fire that only you can put out."
"The company needs me right now. It's not going to need me like this forever."
"What about what I need? Does that factor in anywhere, or am I just supposed to wait patiently until the company decides to give you back?"
"You're not waiting for the company. You're waiting for me. And I'm trying."
"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're choosing. Every single day, you're making a choice between being there and being here, and you keep choosing there."
"I'm not choosing against you. I'm choosing for us. Everything I'm doing is for us."
"I don't want you to do things for us. I want you to be here with us. With me. I want ordinary Tuesday nights where we watch terrible television and fall asleep on the couch. I want Saturday mornings where we don't have anywhere to be. I want my husband back."
"You have me. I'm right here."
"You're here and you're already thinking about the flight you're going to catch. You're here and you're already gone."
"That's not true."
"Then put your phone down."
"My phone is down."
"Your phone is on the nightstand with the screen facing up so you can see if it lights up. That's not down. That's waiting."
"You're right. Okay. You're right about the phone."
"I don't want to be right about the phone.
I want to be wrong. I want you to prove me wrong about all of it.
I want to wake up tomorrow and have you still be here, and I want to go to sleep tomorrow night and have you still be here, and I want that to be more important to you than whatever crisis is happening in Lisbon. "
"The crisis is real. The client schedules, the timeline, the investors, it's not made up."
"I never said it was made up. I said you keep choosing it over me."
"I'm not... I don't know how to do both. I don't know how to be here the way you want me to be and also keep the expansion moving."
"Maybe you could ask me. Maybe you could actually talk to me about what's happening instead of just disappearing and expecting me to understand."
"I tell you what's happening."
"You tell me logistics. Flight times and meeting schedules and maybe we'll do dinner Thursday if nothing catches fire. You don't tell me what you're thinking. You don't tell me how you're feeling. You don't treat me like I'm your partner in any of this."
"You are my partner. You're the only partner I want."
"Then act like it. For five minutes, act like I'm more important than a meeting in Portugal."
"You are more important. You're the most important thing in my life."
"I don't feel important. I feel like an afterthought. I feel like the thing you come back to when you've finished with everything else."
His jaw works.
"I don't know what to say. I don't know how to fix this right now, tonight."
"I'm not asking you to fix it tonight. I'm asking you to hear it. I'm asking you to understand that I'm not okay, and that you being gone all the time is part of why I'm not okay."
"I hear you. I do."
"Do you? Because hearing me and actually changing something are two different things."
"I know. And I'm sorry."
I should tell him about the screenshots. I should tell him right now, while we're being honest, while the walls are down.
This is real, I tell myself. The screenshots are noise.
I settle back against his chest, and he wraps his arm around me, and I let myself believe it.
The alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m. Gray silences it immediately, but I'm already awake, have been awake for the last twenty minutes listening to him breathe. He sits up slowly, carefully, like he's trying not to disturb me.
"I know you're awake," he says.
"I know you know."
He huffs a laugh, soft in the pre-dawn darkness. "Go back to sleep."
"Can't."
"Try."
He gathers his clothes and checks his phone.
"Two weeks," he says, pausing at the edge of the bed. He's dressed now, tie in hand, bag over his shoulder. "I know I said no promises, but—"
"Gray."
"Two weeks." He leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead that feels like goodbye and hello and everything in between. "Then it's done."
You said that last Tuesday, I don't say. You said it before that, too. You've been saying it for months, and every time, something gets in the way.
"The custard tarts are on the counter," he says. "Don't eat them all at once."
"I make no promises."
He smiles, but it's already distracted, his mind clearly jumping ahead to flights and meetings and Portuguese bureaucracy. "I'll call you when I land."
"Okay."
He kisses me once more and leaves. The door clicks shut.
Two more weeks.
My phone buzzes. I reach for it. But it's Wren, asking if I want coffee later. I reply yes and go to the window.
Gray's town car idles at the curb, exhaust curling white in the cool air. And in the back seat, I can see her through the tinted window as the interior light flicks on, is Delaney. Already there. Already waiting.
The door closes behind my husband. The car pulls away, red taillights disappearing around the curve of the hill.