Her mouth opened, but nothing came.
He sighed. “I can’t be married to someone like this, Lauren.”
The world went very still. Very quiet.
"You can't be married to me?” she asked quietly.
“That’s not what I said,” he sounded irritated now. But itwas. It was what he’d said.
Crafting wasn’t just a hobby. It wasn’t just a phase. It wasn’t something she could “tone down” without ripping out the seams of her own being.
Tom was frowning at her. “Lo, come on. How are we supposed to raise kids if you’re still acting like one?”
Her heart felt like it tore down the middle.He couldn’t be married to her.
She could pretend. She could pretend that it wasn’t who she was. She would do that for him—God help her, she wanted to.
But she wouldn’t change, not really. So in a year, five years, ten…
They would end up right back here.
She looked at him—her husband, her home, the man she’d built her world around.
She thought of the quilt. Of how it felt when he’d put it aside.
She felt that same sick drop inside her now—the falling, the disbelief, the missed step that came from trusting someone and being rejected.
Sitting here, she felt like an intruder inside her own life. The person she was and the person he wanted her to be could never coexist.
Because the woman who made DIY wreaths and embroidered pillows and poured her heart into homemade gifts—this waswho she was.
And that was who he couldn’t be married to.
Her throat tightened. She loved him. God, she loved him. She stared at him, the man she’d stitched a life with, the man she’d chosen again and again…
And understood that the choice was no longer hers.
He had already made it.
And in that breath—in that terrible, crystalline moment—she understood.
She could shrink herself, break herself, to try to fit the shape he wanted. Or she could leave.
The pain felt clean, sharp, impossible to ignore. It was the feeling of her heart breaking.
CHAPTER 13
Tom
"I'm leaving, Tom."
The tone of her voice made the hair rise on the back of his neck.
"Leaving?" he said slowly, like the word itself didn’t fit in his mouth. "Leaving what?”
“You,” she said simply. "I'm leaving you.”
She wasn’t crying, wasn’t shouting. She looked terrifyingly composed.
