Chapter 8 #3
“I made you breakfast,” I told her, clearing my throat when my voice came out rougher than I intended.
She shot me a deeply unimpressed look, one eyebrow arching as her gaze moved from me to the plate and back again.
“This is your grand plan? Make me breakfast?” she asked as she slid into her seat.
She picked up her fork and poked at the food before giving me a solemn nod.
“Well, I suppose that’s it, then. What choice do I have?
I’ll have to stay married to you forever and ever because you’ve made me eggs. ”
The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it.
How could she say things like that with a straight face and still believe I wasn’t hopelessly, ridiculously in love with her?
She could threaten me, mock me, roll her eyes at everything I did, and somehow my heart still managed to trip over itself every time she smiled.
“This isn’t a plan,” I assured her, settling into the chair across from her. “It’s just breakfast.”
She narrowed her eyes at the plate, then shot me one final, deeply suspicious look. “If you poison me, I’ll find a way to haunt you,” she warned, before finally digging in.
She delivered the threat with such solemn conviction that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
“Good to know,” I murmured.
I’d take a lifetime of her haunting me over a single day without her.
She ignored me and continued eating, entirely unbothered by my presence.
I couldn’t help watching her.
After agreeing to stay yesterday, she had immediately claimed the master bedroom—our bedroom—and informed me, with absolutely no room for negotiation, that I was to disappear into whichever room was farthest from her presence.
Naturally, I chose the room directly beside hers.
Close enough to hear her moving around.
Close enough to know she was there.
Close enough that if she needed me, I could reach her before she ever had to ask.
“Why the hell are you staring at me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes over her glass as she took a sip of water.
“It’s just…” I faltered, suddenly aware of how intently I’d been watching her.
I dropped my gaze to my plate before looking back at her.
“I’m glad you’re eating. I’m glad you’re here.
And last night…” I paused, searching for words that refused to come easily.
“I slept better knowing you were home. Knowing you were only a few doors away.”
I swallowed, my voice growing softer. “I kept thinking about you being somewhere else. I went to bed, and the house felt wrong. Empty.” I looked down again, then admitted, almost reluctantly, “I couldn’t stop wishing you were here.”
“It was just one night,” she said, her voice flat.
“One night too many,” I muttered before I could stop myself. “I hated being away from you.”
She chewed slowly, her eyes assessing me with a cool, unnerving focus. “Tell me something,” she said finally, setting her fork down. “How many nights did you sleep in your office?”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“And before you ask, no, I don’t remember shit,” she said, cutting me off before I could ask. “But I know you’ve been struggling with work. My guess is you used that as an excuse to camp out in your office.” She tilted her head, eyes sharp. “So, how many nights was it?”
My throat tightened.
I stared at her, searching for an answer that didn’t make me sound exactly as terrible as I suddenly felt. Nothing came.
She nodded slowly when I couldn’t form a reply. “That’s what I thought.” Her expression hardened. “You can disappear for weeks and call it necessary, but I spend one night away, and suddenly you can’t stand being without me. Do you hear how hypocritical that sounds?”
She didn’t wait for me to defend myself. She carried her plate to the kitchen, leaving me sitting there with my mouth shut and my excuses uselessly trapped behind my teeth.
She was right.
The truth of it sat heavily in my chest, impossible to push away once I’d finally been forced to look at it.
I had barely been home those last few months. Crashing at the office had felt perfectly reasonable at the time. Efficient, even. There was always more work to finish, another problem to solve, another deadline I could use to justify staying one more night.
Some weeks, I had only come home to grab a change of clothes.
I’d walk through the front door, head upstairs, take whatever I needed, and leave again before my wife had a chance to ask me to stay. I had treated our home as a place to pass through instead of a place I was supposed to share with her.
When had coming home to my wife become something I could keep postponing?
I tried to picture the last night we’d actually shared our bed, the last time I’d fallen asleep beside her with her warmth against me, the last morning I’d woken to her instead of an alarm in a dark office.
I couldn’t find it.
My chest tightened.
There had been an entire marriage happening inside those walls, and I’d been absent for so much of it that I couldn’t even remember when I’d stopped being part of it.
How could I have been so consumed by work that I stopped noticing the empty space beside me?
How could I have spent so much time telling myself I was doing everything for my wife while giving her less and less of the one thing she had actually wanted from me?
My time.
My presence.
Me.
A sharp whistle cut through my thoughts. I turned to see her standing by the door, bag slung over her shoulder. “You driving me to work, or should I go find a husband who will?”
The walk to the car passed in a haze. I couldn’t remember starting the engine, backing out of the driveway, or even pulling onto the road.
My mind didn’t fully catch up until I was already halfway down the main street, my hands steady on the wheel while my thoughts remained somewhere back at the house.
I had to get it together. I’d made more mistakes than I cared to count, but I couldn’t fix a single one if we couldn’t even have a conversation without everything falling apart.
“I was thinking—” I started, turning toward the passenger seat, only to stop dead.
It was empty.
My stomach dropped.