15. Jules
— ? —
Jules
He comes in slowly and carefully, as if he’s not sure he’s really allowed.
“You can lie on the bed,” I say. “If you want. It’s a big bed.”
He moves to the other side and lies down on top of the covers, fully dressed. He keeps as much distance between us as the mattress allows.
We lie there in the dark, not touching and not talking.
“Why did you let me in?” he asks finally.
“Because I can’t sleep. And you sitting out there breathing loudly isn’t helping.”
“I don’t breathe loudly.”
“You absolutely do. You breathe like someone who’s trying very hard not to fall asleep.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I am trying very hard not to fall asleep.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid you’ll have a nightmare and I won’t hear you.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“What do I do?” I ask. “When I have them.”
“You scream my name. Every time.”
I close my eyes. I didn’t realize I did that.
“Jules.” His voice is quiet. “I need to tell you about the calls.”
“What calls?”
“I’ve been carrying them with me since the fire. The calls you made from that bathroom are still on my phone. I look at them every day.”
I go still.
“Eleven calls,” he continues. “You were trapped in there, calling for help, calling for me, again and again, and I never picked up.”
“Your phone was on the conference table.”
“I know. But I could have had it on me. I could have kept it in my pocket instead of leaving it on the table. I could have been reachable.”
“You couldn’t have known there would be a fire.”
“No. But I should have been reachable anyway. You’re my wife. You should always be able to reach me.”
I can hear his breathing in the dark, slow and controlled, as though he’s choosing each breath deliberately.
“I’m never deleting them,” he says. “They remind me what I almost lost, and what I almost threw away because I couldn’t be bothered to listen to you.”
“Harry…”
“I need to apologize. Really apologize, for all of it.”
“You’ve apologized before.”
“Not properly.” He takes a breath. “Part of me knew about everything you complained about. Every incident. The gala seating chart. The messages she ‘forgot’ to pass on. Your birthday last year, when she called with an emergency and I was an hour late to your party.”
I stare at the ceiling.
“Part of me knew,” he continues. “Every time you brought one of those things up, there was a part of me that knew you were right, and I looked away from it. I made excuses. I told myself she was just insecure. I told myself you were overreacting. I made you feel crazy for seeing what was right in front of your face.”
“Why?”
“Because admitting the truth would have meant acting on it. And I couldn’t figure out how to let go of her without letting go of the only person who remembered what my life was like before I had anything.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“I know it’s not. Nothing excuses what I did.
Nothing excuses two years of choosing her feelings over yours, of dismissing your concerns, of making you doubt your own judgment.
” His voice is rough. “I’m not asking you to forgive me.
I’m asking you to understand that I see it now, all of it, and I’m sorry. ”
I push myself up against the headboard.
“You see it now,” I say. “All of it. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Yes.”
“Because of the fire. Because I almost died. That’s what it took for you to see what I’d been telling you for two years.”
He’s quiet.
“Do you have any idea what it was like?” I’m not shouting.
My voice is low and steady, and it’s full of a rage I’ve been carrying for months.
“Being called jealous. Being told I was overreacting. Being dismissed with a smile every time I tried to tell you that this woman was trying to destroy our marriage.”
“Jules…”
“I went to that gala. I spent a week finding the perfect dress. I got my hair done. I was so excited to be there with you, to show everyone that we were happy, that we were solid.” I take a breath.
“And then I found my place card next to a woman you used to sleep with, right across the table from where you were sitting with Avery.”
He doesn’t say a word.
“Part of you knew then too. I saw it on your face when I found you. You knew what she’d done, and you made excuses for her anyway.”
He doesn’t argue.
“I stopped bringing things up,” I continue.
“After a while I stopped telling you when she did things, because I knew exactly how the conversation would end. You would explain. You would minimize. You would tell me she didn’t mean it, that she was insecure, that I should be more understanding.
And I would walk away feeling like I was losing my mind. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to answer a question.” I turn to face him in the dark. “Would you have ever seen it without the fire? If I hadn’t almost died in that bathroom, would you ever have believed me?”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I want to say yes. I want to tell you I would have figured it out eventually. But I don’t know if that’s true.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
The honesty makes me angrier. I want him to lie, to give me a reason to stay furious, to prove that he hasn’t really changed.
“I hate that you needed a fire,” I say. “I hate that I had to almost die for you to listen to me. I hate that you had all the evidence you needed for two years and you chose to ignore it.”
“I hate it too.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“I know it doesn’t.”
I lie back down and stare at the ceiling. My hands are shaking.
“I’m not done being angry at you,” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be done being angry at you.”
He still doesn’t say anything. He just lies there in the dark and takes it, without defending himself and without asking for more than I can give.
We stay that way for a long time before I speak again.
“I believe you,” I say finally.
He goes still beside me.
“I believe you about the fire,” I continue. “I believe you didn’t know I was inside. I believe you were looking for me. I believe everything you’ve told me about that day.”
“But?”
“But I don’t believe you’ll change. You’ve made promises before, Harry. You’ve apologized before. And then Avery would need you, and I’d be right back where I started, waiting and hoping and watching you choose her over me.”
“That won’t happen again.”
“You’ve said that before.”
He doesn’t have an answer for that, and we’re silent for a long time.
“What would it take?” he asks. “For you to believe me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do at this point. I don’t know how to trust someone who spent two years teaching me that I couldn’t.”
He doesn’t argue, and he doesn’t try to convince me. He lets it stand.
I’m still angry when I fall asleep.
***
I wake up wrapped around him.
His heartbeat is the first thing I register. It’s steady under my ear, slow and strong, and I can feel it against my cheek through the cotton of his shirt.
His hand is on my back. He isn’t holding me. It’s just resting there, warm and heavy between my shoulder blades, as if he’s been awake for a while and didn’t want to move and disturb me.
His shirt is soft under my cheek. It smells like him, like sleep and skin and the laundry detergent I picked out two years ago because I liked how it smelled on him.
My good leg is tangled with his. At some point in the night I threw it across him and pulled him closer, and my hand is fisted in his shirt as if I was afraid he’d leave.
I’ve had exactly one decent stretch of sleep since the fire, and that was in a hospital bed with my bandaged hand on this man’s chest. Every other night I’ve woken up at least once, gasping and reaching for anything to hold onto, and then I’ve lain in the dark counting the hours until dawn.
Last night I slept deeply and dreamlessly, because he was here.
I am furious with myself.
I am furious that my body still wants him and still reaches for him, and still feels safe with him even when my mind knows better. I am furious that I can’t control this and can’t will myself to stop needing him.
He’s hard against my hip. I can feel it, his body responding to mine even in sleep.
I should pull away and put distance between us and remind us both what this is.
For a few more seconds, I don’t move.
Then I start to pull away.
“Five more minutes,” he says, and his voice is rough with sleep. “Just five more minutes.”
I should say no. I should get up and start the day and act as if last night never happened.
I stay where I am.
Five minutes becomes ten, and ten becomes fifteen. His hand finds mine on his chest, and his fingers lace through mine.
Then I pull away and sit up.
“That was a slip,” I say.
He doesn’t argue.
He sits up slowly and swings his legs off the bed, and the mattress shifts as his weight leaves it.
“I’ll make coffee,” he says.
“I can make my own.”
“I know you can.”
He stands and moves toward the door. He doesn’t look back and he doesn’t push, and he doesn’t try to stretch the moment out. He leaves the door open behind him.
I hear his footsteps in the hallway, moving toward the kitchen, and then the familiar gurgle and hiss of the coffee maker starting up.
I lie back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling.
The room feels bigger and emptier without him in it, and the sheets where he was lying are still warm.
I should be relieved that he’s gone. I should be glad to have a moment to collect myself before I have to face him again.
The room just feels cold.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I reach for it automatically, expecting a text from my sister or a notification from my Kindle. It’s a message from a number I don’t recognize.
I open it, and my breath catches.
It’s a photo of Harry and Avery with their heads bent close together and his hand on her arm. It’s old, from before we were married, judging by his hair, but my stomach still turns.
Below the photo there’s a message: Ask him who he was on the phone with on your anniversary night.
She thinks I don’t know about that call. I lay there awake for every second of it.
I can’t look away from it.
Another text arrives with another photo, and then another. There’s Harry and Avery at a company event, and Harry and Avery at the children’s home, and more of the two of them after that.
And then: He’ll always choose me. You’re just too stupid to see it.
My hands are shaking.
Every instinct tells me to hide this and deal with it on my own, the way I’ve always dealt with everything. He never believed me before, and showing him will just lead to more excuses and more explanations and more reasons why I should give Avery the benefit of the doubt.
But I’m done hiding.
“Harry.”
He’s in the doorway in seconds, with a mug in his hand. I hold the phone out to him.
“Look at this.”
He sets the mug down and scrolls through the photos with the phone still in my hand, and his face goes hard as he reads the texts.
Then he picks up his own phone and dials the number, and puts it on speaker.
It rings twice.
Then a voice answers, sweet and hopeful.
“Harry?”