She looked down at the ripped paper in her hands. A tear slipped out and landed on it before she could swipe it away.
Everything made a terrible kind of sense now.
The way his parents looked at her decorations every Christmas—very festive, how industrious—with barely concealed contempt. The way Tom had never once defended her, never once told them to stop, just sat there while they made their cutting remarks.
She lifted her head and looked at her husband, blinking through traitorous tears that refused to stay inside, stay hidden.
He agreed with them.
He'dalwaysagreed with them.
She'd spent five years of marriage making him handmade gifts, decorating their home with love and care and devotion, pouring herself into every craft project and homemade gesture, and all this time—all this time—he'd thought it was “cringe”.
“Cringe,” she repeated, her voice flat. Distant. Like it belonged to someone else. Another tear slid hotly down her cheek.
She’d decorated and crafted and poured herself into making this day special, making their home warm, making his family comfortable. She’d smiled through Judith’s contempt and Richard’s weighted pauses and Tom’s silence—his damning, cowardly silence.
And now he wanted to tell her it was all embarrassing?
Thatshewas embarrassing?
She thought under the numbness would be sadness. Grief. Shame.
But instead it was white-hot rage.
It burned away the numbness, the shock, every bit of careful control. Something inside her—something she’d been holding together all night—finally cracked.
She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand to be near him, not here, not in this house she’d tried so hard to make theirs. Not in the ruins of her perfect Christmas dreams.
The rage surged, wild and uncontrollable, filling every corner of her—too much to swallow, too much to keep inside.
“Get out.”
Tom blinked at her. “What?”
“Get out of my house.”
Tom took a step back, palms raised. “Okay, whoa. Calm down. You’re tired, you’re?—”
“Get out!” Tears streaked freely now, hot and furious, spilling faster the angrier she became.
Lauren had never shouted at Tom before. Never been anything but sweet and accommodating.
The anger surprised her—how good it felt, how alive it made her.
“Lauren, you’re being?—”
This was the man she’d married. The man she’d given her heart.
And tonight he’d taken that stupid heart of hers and crushed it under his foot. Right in front of her. Right in front of everyone.
Anger and anguish tangled together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. The crushing realization that she’d spent so many years loving someone who thought she was gauche and cringe and embarrassing.
“I made that for you. I poured myself into it.” She pointed at the folded quilt on the side table. Her hand was shaking. “And you wrote me a check. A fucking check, Tom.”
“Lauren—”
Fresh tears—sharp, unstoppable—blurred her vision until he became nothing but a smear of shape and color.
