Chapter 1 #2
She’d never been hurt by Aiden before. Not like this.
If she’d tried to script the end of her marriage, she’d have written a husband lying and denying, and Aiden hadn’t done that.
He’d admitted to cheating. To lying. But somehow, the admittance of guilt – the way he’d done it — had completely bypassed real accountability.
There had been an underlying insistence that he knew they both wanted out.
That was a lie. Such a lie.
But it was like he couldn’t fully accept how wrong he was.
How badly he’d hurt her.
He’d made it so the two women he felt accountable to were going to move across the country so that he could be free to do whatever he wanted.
This man that she had built her life around had demolished it on purpose. Was trying to absolve himself by making sure nobody was around for him to feel accountable to them. He didn’t want to look at the devastation that he had created.
She barely slept, and when she and Cara got into the car, it was early. They were silent until they got coffee and donuts at the general store down the road. Then Marlowe took a bite of her donut, brushing cinnamon and sugar off her shirt as she spoke.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Fair,” Cara said. “Very fair.”
That lasted for ten miles.
“He kept trying to say that we were both unhappy. And I guess… We were moving because we wanted to try to change some things. Because we wanted to… reinvigorate things, I guess? But… That to me wasn’t broken.
That wasn’t something bad. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with needing to work at finding a better place for us.
I thought that we were taking a step into something different and something that would bring us closer.
I thought that was what he wanted, too. But he kept acting like he was doing both of us a favor. ”
“Because he’s passive,” Cara said, her tone sage.
“I don’t think he’s –”
She couldn’t finish the sentence, though, because Cara’s comment had hit on a truth Marlowe had never closely examined before.
It made her look at all the different work that she had arranged for the two of them over the course of the last decade and a half, of the interviews that she had done with Cody ahead of taking this job, which she had also found.
Had Aiden ever been invested in it? Or had he been getting dragged along?
Or had it been an elaborate plot to make cutting ties with her easier? Had he known, all along, that Marlowe would be making that journey alone? Turning the separation into something inevitable, as they’d packed all their things, ended their lease, left the job…
A passive-aggressive ending of a marriage, if ever there was one.
“I never… I never noticed how passive he was before. I just thought I was the more particular one. Like I thought because I needed certain things and wanted them done a certain way he…let me because it made me happy. I thought it was us being partners, but you’re right.”
“He’s my brother. No matter how angry I am at him, I love him.
But I can also see him clearly. He’s passive, and he doesn’t like hard things.
” Marlowe opened her mouth to say that no one liked hard things, but Cara continued.
“He never could’ve stayed here to take care of our mom.
He wouldn’t have wanted to make all the decisions.
If you had come back to take care of her, it would’ve been you, Marlowe, it wouldn’t have been him.
Also, he would never have been able to stand it.
Because he can’t deal with life getting that heavy.
Not that I enjoyed it, but you’ll notice he made sure to be too busy to visit our mom all that much in the last year.
When she really didn’t know him anymore, when…
when things were too… rough. But he was happy to leave it to me. ”
Guilt gouged Marlowe in the chest. “Cara, I’m sorry. I should’ve –”
“You’re not responsible for making my man-child of a brother behave himself.” Cara sighed. “At least you didn’t have kids with him.”
That guilt that had gouged her earlier twisted like a knife in her chest, blooming into a whole different kind of pain.
Marlowe wanted kids. She’d wanted them years ago, and he hadn’t been ready. Having kids with the wrong person was bad and she knew that, but she couldn’t find the gratitude that she’d dodged that bullet right now.
Not now that she was starting over.
She had no idea how long it would take for her to feel ready to have kids with a different guy, or if…
A different guy. She couldn’t even imagine it. The very idea of being pushed into the dating pool made her want to melt down.
“Oh God, I don’t want to be single,” she said, pressing her head against the window of the car.
“It’s not that bad,” Cara said.
“I’m sorry. I know… I didn’t mean…”
“I know. And you guys have been together for a long time. But maybe it’s the beginning of something good for you.”
“Assuming I don’t get fired on sight.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Did you actually talk to him on the phone?”
She shook her head. “No. I talked to… I think it was his brother. He was nice.”
“Really? I mean, I knew… I knew that he had siblings, but I just assumed that they were as stony as he is. He was like talking to a sheer rock face. Very few words. Very direct.”
“Well, if he’s that direct, then you’ll know exactly where you stand the minute that you show up.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure that I can handle that. I already had to listen to my husband tell me that our marriage is over and that he has a girlfriend. I think my truth limit is somewhat overfilled.”
“Well, there’s always being pathetic.”
“What?”
“You’ve driven across the whole country. Your husband just left you. Be pathetic.”
Marlowe looked out the window and mused on that. She was allergic to being pathetic. But quite apart from anything else, she didn’t think that Cody Grayson was going to be particularly sympathetic, no matter how pitiful she seemed.