Shame.
It burned in him like fire, spreading with every mile. He’d thought his parents’ cruelty had made him angry, but the truth was worse: he was angry because he saw himself in them. Every quiet insult Judith had ever dealt Lauren—every polite dismissal, every smothered laugh—he’d allowed it. He’d accepted it.
He gripped the steering wheel harder. “I’m the problem,” he muttered aloud, voice shaking. “I’m the goddamn problem.”
He remembered Lauren at those dinners, her smile too bright, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She’d been surviving. Surviving his parents. Surviving his quiet betrayal.
He couldn’t wait another day to tell her. He couldn’t keep the truth inside him one more night. He needed her to know.
Not that he missed her. Not that he loved her.
That he got it.
Hewas the problem.
He’d spent years trying to mute her joy, her noise, her art—when it was him that needed to be louder.
He thought of her face at Christmas, trying so hard to keep smiling while his parents picked her apart. He thought of her hands on the quilt, her voice soft and hopeful.
I’ve left blank squares for memories still to come.
He’d filled those blanks with silence. With cowardice.
Now he was going to fill them with the only thing he had left to offer—the truth.
His pulse spiked as their home came into view, lights glowing faintly through the curtains.
He didn’t think. He didn’t plan.
He needed his wife.
CHAPTER 45
Lauren
It was late—toolate for deliveries—and the pounding was so hard it rattled the door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Lauren—please—open the door.”
Tom’s voice.
She’d thought she was past the shock of missing him, but her body hadn’t gotten the memo. Her heartbeat lurched forward like it recognized something her brain refused to trust.
“Lauren.” The word broke on the last syllable.
She opened the door a few inches.
He was standing on the porch. He looked undone.
“Tom?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. No preamble. No hesitation. The words came out in a rush, raw and jagged. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She blinked.
His chest rose and fell fast. “I’m sorry for not standing up for you. For every dinner, every comment I let them make. For lying to myself that you didn’t notice, that it didn’t hurt you. God, Lauren, I just—” He broke off, shaking his head, jaw tight. “I should’ve defended you.”
