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9. She Asked for Space

She Asked for Space

Gwen

“No! Gwen!” Toby shot off the bed, his face whiter than the towel wrapped around his waist. “I’m not leaving! We need to talk about this! We can work this out!” The words spewed out of him in a desperate rush.

“Get dressed and get the hell out!” I marched into the wardrobe and yanked open a drawer. Any drawer. Footsteps bounded after me. “Get out!” A handful of underwear was easy enough to grab. Mine, his, it didn’t matter.

“No! Christ—” He dodged the pile of fabric hurtling at his face. “Will you calm down?”

I scrunched another pile in my fist. “Calm down?” My head turned slowly, and I pinned him with a glare so cold he wobbled back a step.

“When should I act calm, Toby? Tell me. Was it when that idiot slammed into my car with our son strapped in the back? Or was it when I was on the side of the road with no idea what to do and with no one there to help me?”

“Gwen, I’m so sorry I didn’t answer my phone.”

I ignored the pitiful way his shoulder slumped against the wall and charged on.

“Or was I supposed to act calm when I found out you’d blown us off to go to a party without even bothering to let me know you’d be home late?

Or how about when I saw a picture of that girl’s lips on your face?

Or read her post about how much you love going down on her—”

“She said what?” His cheeks heated with anger. “That’s a lie! I never—”

“Are those the times I’m supposed to act calm? Tell me, Toby.”

“I screwed up, Gwen. I know I did, but…” The emotion choking his voice forced him to pause. “It was only a kiss.”

I clenched my fists but kept them pinned to my sides. “Just a kiss?” He didn’t seriously expect me to believe that? “Even though you had a slumber party at your girlfriend’s place? I hope she changed her My Little Pony sheets before you desecrated them.”

“I was at Ian’s!”

“Sure you were.”

“I was!”

Anger exploded through my veins, but I pulled the reins tight to keep my tone even.

“Everyone saw the photo. The guys you hang out with at the gym gave a big thumbs-up to you for being kissed by another woman. You humiliated me. You mocked the last shred of dignity I have left.” An ache bloomed deep in my chest, and I could only stare at the floor as even more pained words tumbled out.

“As if I hadn’t lost everything already… ”

“We should have fought that,” he said. “Your career—”

I steamrolled over his attempt to change the subject. “If I don’t stand up for myself, no one else will. You left me to rot on the bridge because you prioritized that damn pick-me girl again and again!”

“I didn’t prioritize her! Nothing’s going on between me and Kay—”

“ Kay .” I laughed. That nickname again. I loathed hearing it on his lips. “Do you have any other affectionate names for your assistant you want to share? Sweetheart? Baby?”

Frustrated, Toby’s gaze lifted to the ceiling, and he dragged in a deep breath. “I call Kayleigh by a nickname, just like Ian’s always been Coop. If it bothers you—”

I barked a laugh.

He quickly reconsidered his words. “Clearly, it bothers you. No more, okay? I won’t ever make the mistake of calling her a nickname again. Gwen, we can work this out—”

“Like hell we can. I warned you, Toby. You’re so busy at the clinic that you don’t respond to any of my messages or pictures, but you always make time for her. You ignored me but went out with her for coffee and lunch every day.”

Toby’s gaze dropped. He said nothing.

“At the Christmas party, she fawned all over you like a lovesick teenager. I warned you then that the lines were blurring and she liked you as much more than just her boss.”

“Honestly, I didn’t see it. I thought you were overreacting. Why the hell would anyone be looking at me? I’m married.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I was so blind to everything that was happening until…”

“Until… what?”

“Please,” Toby almost begged. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

“You know me better than anyone. You know I hate not having the answers. I’d rather hear every ugly detail than waste my life tied up in knots, imagining a thousand scenarios about what happened. If you care about me at all—”

“I love you.”

I rolled my eyes. Like those hollow words still meant something. “Then tell me everything.” I wasn’t backing down. I needed to know.

“Everything?” He swallowed. “Honestly, I don’t remember everything that happened. I drank way too much, and a lot of the night is kind of hazy… Like I was there, but not there.”

“How convenient,” I said, shoving past him and heading for the door.

“Stop!” Broad shoulders blocked the doorway. “Okay. Okay .” He exhaled, shaking his head. “Here’s what I remember. I was one of the first to get to Kayleigh’s place after work. I helped her set up. She introduced me to some of her friends, and every last one of them giggled at me like I was…”

“Her boyfriend.”

He scowled but ignored the taunt and continued with his bullcrap version of what happened. “There was a cake, but she wouldn’t let me have a piece until she’d taken about a thousand photos.”

“A crucial detail.”

“I worked through lunch yesterday. I would’ve pushed my grandma out of the way to stuff some of that cake in my mouth. I was running on fumes by six o’clock.”

“And booze.”

Toby sighed, but he didn’t deny it. “Drinking was a stupid decision. Ian got bored after an hour and started egging everyone on to do some whiskey shots. It was like the first year of dental school all over again, except I’m thirty now and even worse at handling booze than I was back then.

I spent a good part of the night sitting on the bathroom floor trying not to puke my guts up. ”

“And Kayleigh?”

He shrugged. “She hovered around me all night. I thought she was worried because I was a bit drunk… But… When I was getting ready to leave, she started getting…handsy. She was talking about, um… about how…” His gaze lifted, pleading with me to let him off the hook without saying more.

“Gwen, you’ll shish kabob me right through the balls. ”

I folded my arms. “All the more reason to say it.” Finally, the truth was coming out.

He raked a hand through his damp hair, stalling for more time. My foot tapped. He wasn’t weaseling out of this.

“Kayleigh reminded me how unhappy I’ve been the last few months,” he said. “And about how you and I—Christ, Gwen—I’m not blaming you. I know I’m a huge part of it too, but you know things haven’t been good between us.”

The betrayal stung. Toby had told Kayleigh things hadn’t been good between us. The idea of him sharing our most intimate problems cut even deeper than his confession of kissing her.

I stared at him in disbelief. “You talked about our relationship with some nothing twenty-one-year-old who works for you?”

Toby grimaced, but again, there was no denial.

“I’m stuck with Kayleigh in a treatment room for hours every day.

She started noticing that I came to work tired sometimes.

She asked questions I shouldn’t have answered.

” He shook his head, eyes on the ceiling as if he were questioning the universe why he’d acted so stupidly.

“I think I grumbled once or twice about spending the night on the couch. I guess she joined the dots.”

My life had already been ripped out from under my feet, and now I was being buried alive underneath the shattered ruins of what was left. There was a chasm in my chest. I couldn’t speak. The shock stole the last bit of strength keeping me upright, and I sagged against the wall, exhausted.

Toby’s mouth speared down. He pushed away from the door, ready to come to me, but I held up my palm to stop him. I didn’t want him to wrap me in one of the hugs that used to make everything better. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

He eased back a step. “Gwen, I’m so sorry.

For everything. Telling Kayleigh what I did.

Going to the party. Not being there for you.

Kissing her. If it means anything, I stopped the kiss almost as quickly as I started it.

I hated it. All I could think about was how much I missed you— us —and what we used to have. ”

Even when I thought I couldn’t plummet any lower, I was wrong. I tumbled further down into the cold black pit of his betrayal. “What we used to have?”

“Gwen, you’re not… you …anymore.” He sighed. “You haven’t been for a long time.”

“Of course I’m not the same! I’m running this whole household on my own with no help! You live at work! I have a baby!” The laugh that barked out of me was bitter. “You can’t seriously be trying to blame me for what you did—”

“Never. And it’s not because of Noah, either.

I know we didn’t plan on him coming so soon, but he’s here, and he’s beyond our wildest dreams.” Toby paused, his brain ticking over what he should say next.

“Something changed between us before that. You don’t like to talk about it…

but honestly…nothing’s been right since you lost your job. ”

His words were another sharp sting. We never talked about that day.

The way my career ended after a spineless group of men cowered behind emails scorched all the way to my soul.

Firing me over my pregnancy had been an excuse—a more palatable smokescreen than the fact they were accepting bribes from the mob, I suppose.

I’d walked out of that building with my integrity intact but nothing else.

“At first, I thought it was the money you were worried about,” Toby continued.

“We’ve got the trust, but I know the clinic isn’t turning the profit we thought it would be by now.

You started pulling away, and I started putting in more hours…

taking on more patients…” He sighed. “I didn’t know what else to do. ”

“Prioritizing your twenty-one-year-old assistant seems like the logical choice.”

Toby’s shoulders sagged. “How badly have I screwed this up?”

“It’s all the way screwed up.”

“I can fix it.” He flashed me a lopsided smile. “I’m not good for much, but you know I’m good at fixing things.”

My first instinct was to softly urge him to stop putting himself down.

He was terrific at so many things, and it had never mattered to me that he wasn’t the smartest man in the room.

He had a big heart. A contagious smile. He kept trying when anyone else would’ve given up, and he was loyal almost to a fault… except when it came to our marriage.

I stood, silent, hoping I could dig out a flicker of hope from the dark hollow in my chest. But beyond the anger, past the sting of his betrayal, there was nothing.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “We were good together once upon a time, but I won’t be second best to that girl or anyone else.”

“You’re not. You never were—”

“You cheated, Toby! You were with her, and the entire world knows. She’s posting about what you did—”

“She’s lying, Gwen!”

“Her lipstick was on you in places it never should be! Over and over, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and convinced myself I was the problem. That I was reading too much into everything and projecting my own fears on you. But I can’t ignore the evidence when it’s staring me in the face. I won’t .”

Toby’s gaze refused to budge from the carpet. He nodded. A sniffle and a gulped breath later, he scrubbed a hand over his nose. A part of me wanted to fold, but the stronger part of me stood taller.

“We’ll work something out for Noah,” I added, strangely calm. “I’ll never stop you from being part of his life—”

“No! Please don’t ask me to leave, Gwen. Please .”

“I need space.”

“Gwen…no!” His desperate pleas followed me as I elbowed past him. “Please! I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ll sleep on the floor in the fucking garage. Do your worst, but please don’t ask me to leave! I can’t live without you. I’ve woken up next to you every single morning since we moved in together.”

My hand curled around the doorknob. “Except this morning.” I turned, my voice calm, but inside, my heart quietly tore down the middle.

“I’ll show you more compassion than you showed me.

Have the rest of the afternoon with Noah.

You know I’ll do everything to make sure you’re still a part of his life.

But at six o’clock, you leave this house, and you don’t come back. ”

Toby had no more chances to promise me the world. I slipped through the bedroom door and disappeared down the stairs, the bittersweet ending to foolish teenage dreams.

My marriage was over.