Speak (Fairview #2)
1. Grayson
1
GRAYSON
“ Y ou never look at me like that.”
The damning realization, which I had planned to keep locked inside my mind, hangs in the cavern of space between Brian and I, seeping into the lush leather of the bench seat in the back of the blacked out town car he insisted we take to his firm’s annual Christmas party. He claimed we needed a driver because he knew the drinks would be free flowing and he wanted to partake without worrying about how we were going to get home, but now, as I take in the vast amount of space between my body and his, I can’t help but feel like distance was the point.
Like he wanted me near, but not close.
That’s been the theme of the night. Us in the same room but never talking, never touching, barely speaking. Me, on the margins of conversation and at the back of his mind while all of his attention and affection went to her.
Noelle Caspen.
Just the thought of her name sends old hurts and insecurities shimmering down my spine, awaking memories of being a love sick teenager watching the boy she loved publicly give another girl things he only ever deigned to gift her in private. I’ve worked hard to let go of those days, to forgive Brian for being the type of shallow kid who was ashamed of liking the bigger girl, to heal the part of myself that was so desperate for love she accepted scraps of it.
On any given day, I’d confidently say that I’ve moved past all of that, but today it couldn’t feel further from the truth. And how could it when I’ve just been subjected to hours of watching my husband of six years look at his high school sweetheart like she hung the fucking moon while acting like I don’t exist at all? How could it when there’s so much distance between us and the car is quiet, but he still doesn’t hear me when I speak?
All at once, anger swells inside of me, and I no longer want to keep the realization to myself. I want it out in the open. I want acknowledgment and answers and a fucking apology.
“Brian.”
His head snaps up, and eyes that are a cross between gray and green find my face for what feels like the first time since we left our home earlier this evening. Annoyance flickers in his irises as they bounce between me and the phone in his hand.
“What is it, Grayson?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“No.”
Once again, his attention shifts, returning to the open text thread on his lit screen. Noelle’s name is at the top of it. Feeling bolder than usual, I slide across the seat and take the phone from him, locking it before I toss it over my shoulder.
Brian’s jaw clenches, outrage rippling underneath clean shaven chestnut skin. “If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask for it. There’s no need to resort to childish antics.”
The reprimand lands where they always do: right in the center of my chest, stealing the bit of confidence I just had. I feel it leave me in a slow, painful leak that’s quieted by the sound of an apology where there should be an argument. Where there should be words that tell him I shouldn’t have to ask for his attention when he just demonstrated how freely he can give it to her.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, tears gathering in my eyes because I’m embarrassed at having gone to such great lengths to get him to tune into a conversation about my insecurities and his perceived slights. Because that’s all it was, right? My warped perception and insecurities layered on top of a moment between old friends who haven’t seen each other in years.
He nods and holds out his hand. “Thank you. Now give me back my phone.”
Reaching behind me, I grab the phone at the exact moment another message comes through. I don’t mean to look, but my eyes still snag on the name and the previewed content of the message on the screen. There are several messages, the last of which is just THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU!!!! in all caps. My fingers hover over the screen, prepared to unlock the phone and figure out exactly what Noelle is thanking him for, but Brian is too quick. He pulls the phone out of my grasp and pockets it, throwing me a withering gaze from between furrowed brows.
“Were you seriously going to read my messages? That’s a huge invasion of privacy,” he scoffs.
“What is she thanking you for?” I ask, ignoring the statement that smacks of hypocrisy.
“What?”
“Noelle. In her last message to you, she said thank you. What did you do for her?”
Brian sighs hard and brushes lint that’s not there off of his pants. “Her business is in danger of going under. I offered to help her out.”
As a lawyer, Brian has always prided himself on being a strategic communicator, saying what needs to be said and only that. Giving as little information as possible while making the person he’s speaking to feel like they’ve gotten every morsel necessary to fuel their understanding. Most of the time, it takes me hours, or sometimes even days, to untangle the web of his phrasing and garner true meaning, but tonight, understanding dawns on me with startling clarity.
While we were waiting in line for drinks—Brian and Noelle in front of me with his hand at the small of her back and my heart in my throat—Noelle droned on and on about the troubled clothing line she’s been trying to launch for three years now. Brian hung on her every word, all sympathy and understanding while she talked about the difficulties of finding designers who wouldn’t take issue with her stamping her name and face on their hard work.
That was the image in my mind a few minutes ago when it occurred to me that he never looks at me the way he looks at Noelle. When I realized that in all the years of us knowing each other he never once listened as intently to me when I wanted to share the wins or losses as it related to Elysian—the plus size clothing brand I started in college and gave up at the height of its success because he said the stress of running a business was stopping me from getting pregnant. When it dawned on me that among the long list of things Brian has offered me regarding my business and dreams—criticism, discouragement, flat out refusal to support me when I said just last month that I wanted to quit my job as a personal assistant to chef and restauranter, Jaxon Daniels, to revive the brand—help has never been one of them.
“How?”
“For the love of God, Grayson,” he groans. “Please speak in complete sentences.”
“How did you help her, Brian?” I grit out. “What assistance did you provide her with that was enough to garner not one but three thank yous and a ridiculous amount of exclamation points?”
“Exclamation points? Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?”
Another reprimand. But this one doesn’t have the same effect as the last because knowing Brian has given Noelle support he’s denied me has brought the boldness back. This time it’s bolstered by an anger I never allow myself to fully access with Brian because I’m always skeptical of its validity and don’t want to be accused of overreacting. This time any worries about that are overridden by the need to, for once, feel my feelings as they are, no filtering or minimizing.
“No, but I know that this is exactly how you sound when you’re deflecting. Tell me what you did for her, Brian. Tell me how you went out of your way to make her dreams come true after spending nearly a decade shitting all over mine.”
Fury lines every word so they fall off of my tongue and land like heavy lashes across the side of his face, caressing the throbbing muscle telegraphing his annoyance and demanding me to stop. Only, I can’t stop because I want to know. No, I need to know because the part of me that’s always just accepted that Brian comes from a long line of lawyers and other traditional careers and doesn’t understand or value creativity, needs to know if it’s actually creativity that’s been disregarded and devalued by my life partner or just me.
Brian shakes his head. “I won’t talk to you when you’re like this. You know that.”
“You’re right. I do know. I know you hate it when I question you, when I refuse to comply, when I dare to have a thought or opinion that’s contrary to yours. You hate when I push you, when I challenge you, when I want something you haven’t given me permission to want or need something you don’t feel ready to give. You—” I pause, catching my breath and swiping away angry, frustrated tears as another realization hits me. It’s a simple truth really, but perhaps the most heartbreaking of the night. “ You don’t like me .”
I shudder as the words leave me. The frigid, bleak reality settling around my shoulders as Brian rolls his eyes. “You’re my wife, Grayson, of course I like you.”
“No, you don’t. You like the version of me you’ve trained me to be. The meek and quiet girl who’s just grateful to have her life linked with yours, who agrees with whatever you say and gives up everything to make you happy. But that’s not me, Brian. That person only exists around you. Have you ever realized that?”
Probably not because I’m just now realizing it myself. Just now allowing myself to acknowledge the disparity between who I am with him and who I am with and to everyone else.
He brings one hand up to his face, using his thumb and forefinger to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Let’s table this subject for tonight. We’ve both had too much to drink.”
“I’m sober as a judge, and I want to talk now.”
It’s rare for me to bring the pushy, bold, take no bullshit, side of me out around Brian, but I’m glad that she’s here now, owning this moment, guiding me through this terrifying conversation that I know will end badly.
“Fine.” Brian shifts in his seat, angling his body towards me. We’re only a few minutes from home, and I can’t shake the feeling that we’re going to return to the house we’ve shared for six years a completely different couple than when we left it. “You want to talk? Let’s talk. Noelle’s business was in trouble, so I stepped in to help her. She needed a cash infusion, so I wired her the funds and promised to set her up with some of my contacts to help her get things back on track. The text messages that have you in such an uproar were simply her thanking me for helping her out. Now, if helping a friend in need makes me some kind of monster in your eyes, then I guess I’m a monster.”
With his monologue finished, he leans back against the door and crosses his arms, wide eyes imploring me to continue this line of questioning now that he’s painted himself out to be the victim in all of this. I cross my arms too, mirroring his posture.
“I don’t think that makes you a monster, Brian.” A smug smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, and I know he thinks he’s got me. I let him sit with that lie for a second longer before I destroy it with my words. “You’re a monster for a million different reasons. You’re a monster for helping your friend out and refusing to support your wife in her pursuit of the same endeavor.”
“Noelle actually has a business plan. You have an expired website domain, social media accounts you haven’t touched in years, and an email list that’s gone cold.”
My gut clenches at the ugliness of his words, but I don’t let it stop me from responding. “You’re a monster for talking me into giving up a business I loved and then throwing its carcass in my face as some kind of proof for why your ex-girlfriend is more deserving of your support and resources than I am.”
“You agreed to give up the business so we could start a family, Grayson. Don’t make it seem like it was all my idea.”
“You’re a monster for insisting that stress from the business is the reason I was struggling to get pregnant, even though the fertility doctor told you months prior that your low sperm count was the actual culprit.”
His eyes narrow into slits and his mouth drops open like he wants to say something, but no words come out.
“Brian, you’re a monster because you married me when you knew I wasn’t who you wanted, because you made it your mission to crush me under the weight of your expectations and punished me for turning into dust. You’re a monster because you have never liked me, which means you could never really love me. Not in how I deserve.”
The quiet whine of the brakes and a subtle jerk of the car lets me know that we’ve made it to our destination, and just as I suspected, Brian and I are not returning home the same people we were before. And maybe the change is just with me, but that’s enough. It’s enough to shake the foundation of who we are, enough to send me flying out of the car and into the house, straight to my closet where I pack a small bag of essentials while Brian follows me around and tries to talk me out of going.
He makes his final plea when I’m standing on the threshold of the front door, keys in hand, fear on one shoulder, hope on the other, and a lightness in my heart that makes no sense considering I’m about to walk away from the supposed love of my life.
“Do you actually think this little tantrum is going to work, Grayson? You think you’re going to force my hand and make me take the money back from Noelle?” He reaches up and grips my chin, forcing me to look at him, to watch the ugly sneer curling his lips. “You think you’re going to last a single day out there in the world without me? I give it a week, and then you’ll be back. You’re going to come crawling back to me.”
And with that, he releases me, stepping back to study my face and posture, to see if his words have done anything to curb my desire to walk out the door and leave him behind. His shoulders sag a bit when he realizes they haven’t, and for the first time tonight I smile an actual smile.
“No, Brian, I don’t think I will.”