The night he’d whispered that loving her was the easiest thing he’d ever done.
And then she thought of Tom telling herI can’t be married to someone like this, Lauren.
Lauren pressed her hands to her eyes. Just twenty minutes, she promised herself. Twenty minutes to break. To feel it. To let the loss bleed out.
Then she’d wash her face, make coffee, and start again.
She deserved better. She knew that. Better than being looked down on. Better than being tolerated.
She sat in the wreckage of tinsel and tissue paper. She’d thought her marriage was based on respect, she’d thought Tom would always stand beside her.
She’d been a fool.
Her mother'sface filled the screen, sun-bright and beaming. Behind her, Lauren could see palm trees and brilliant blue sky—so different from the gray December cold outside her window.
"Sweetheart!" Linda's voice was warm and slightly too loud, the way it always was on video calls. "We're in port! Can you see us? Can you hear us?"
"I can hear you, Mom." Lauren tried to make her smile reach her eyes. "You look so tan!"
Her father's face appeared over her mother's shoulder, his baseball cap askew, his cheeks pink with sun. "The weather is incredible. Eighty degrees!"
"That sounds amazing." Lauren's voice came out steadier than she felt.
"Where's Tom?" Gerald asked.
Lauren's throat went tight. "He's... not here right now."
"Honey." Her mother's voice had gone soft. "What's wrong?"
And just like that, Lauren's careful composure crumbled.
“I’ve left him,” she said, the words tumbling out. "Tom and I… we had a fight on Christmas and I threw him out and now we're—we're separated."
"Oh, sweetheart." Her mother's face filled with concern. "Tell us what happened."
So Lauren did. The check, the necklace on Mia's throat. Tom calling her Christmas crafts cringe. Tom telling her that he couldn’t be married to someone like her. All of it came spilling out while her parents listened with matching expressions of distress.
"That boy is an idiot,” her father said when she'd finished.
"Gerald," her mother chided, but her eyes were flashing.
"And his parents." Gerald's face was getting redder. "I've always tried to be polite about those people, but they've looked down their noses at you since day one. And Tom just sits there and lets them."
Lauren pressed her hand over her mouth. She'd never heard her father speak badly about Tom's family before.
"Where is he now?" her mother asked gently.
Lauren grimaced. "He's staying at your house. I was going to but he insisted I stay here. He took your spare keys.”
Her parents exchanged one of those married-couple looks.
"Well," her mother said carefully. "At least he had the sense to make sure you kept the house he built for you."
“Plus, it makes it much more convenient for me when we get back and I need to find him and break his legs,” her father said.
Even as that made her laugh, Lauren felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks.
"We should come home," her father said abruptly. "We should cut the cruise short and come home."
