I pushed a stray hair from my face with my forearm and turned to him. “What?”
He unfolded the newspaper, shaking it out. “She has three different places to show us. Sounds optimistic, too.”
To see more houses? We hadn’t discussed that. His tone left no room for argument, but after the week I’d had, Ireallywasn’t in the mood. “I thought you told your sister we’d visit, though.”
“On Sunday, yes.” He grinned. “It’ll be a productive weekend.”
That, it would. One with no time for me to decompress from work. I moved the current batch of pancakes to a platter and started a new one. “I wish you’d checked with me,” I said. “I have plans with Lucy.”
“She’ll understand. We have to prioritize these things if we’re going to get any momentum. We’ve already rescheduled once, remember?” He took a seat at the kitchen table with his newspaper, scanning the headlines. “If we’re going to start trying for a baby, we need to get going on the house. At this point, time’s not on our side.”
My shoulders sagged with the weight of the news. Had he not heard anything I’d said over the weekend? Couldn’t he see that I was already compromising by going off birth control? I needed time to adjust, not another excruciating car ride with Jeanine. “About that . . .”
“About what?” he asked, not bothering to hide the challenge in his voice.
I glanced back at him. “Maybe it would be a good idea to get settled in a house before we start thinking about a baby.”
He resumed reading the front page. “It takes some women months for birth control to wear off,” he muttered. “By that time, we could potentially be in a new place.”
My throat closed.Months?“No,” I said, struggling to get the words out. “No baby until we’ve found a home.”
He glanced up at me. I waited for him to react, uncertain of which way he’d go, but he only gestured behind me. “Liv, the pancakes.”
Liv, the pancakes? LIV, THE PANCAKES? Are you completely fucking oblivious, Bill?
Here I was, pleading with him to understand that I was more than scared about moving on to this next part of our life. I wasresistant—unsure if I wanted it at all. But all he cared about was that I might burn his pancakes?
He turned back to theTribune, and after a moment of reading, he chuckled.
Frustration simmered inside me. I’d told him over and over I wasn’t ready. I needed to make him hear menowor he never would. And no—not because he was oblivious. Because he didn’twantto hear me.
I turned away from the pancakes to face him. “I amnotgoing off birth control,” I said.
He licked his finger and flipped the page. “Hmm?”
“And I cheated on you.”
It took a moment until his head shot up. “What did you say?”
Oh, fuck.
I’d meant to put my foot down, not blow up my marriage on this specific morning, no matter how gray and shitty it was. The gravity of my spontaneous confession hit me fast and hard. Panic flooded me, liquefying my muscles. I lowered my eyes, darting them over the linoleum floor. My words hung in the air, thick and palpable between us.
“Hey,” Bill called. “What’d you say?”
I looked up and shook my head, a silent beg that he wouldn’t make me repeat it.
It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m not ready.
But he waited and waited, staring at me until I couldn’t stand the silence another second. “I-I slept with someone.”
“When?” he cried, shooting up from the table. “Who?”
“It’s not important who,” I said. “I did it, and that’s it.” The smell of burning batter filled the kitchen, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from him.
He blindly fell back into his chair. “No,” he said. “This is some twisted way of trying to get out of the birth control thing. Isn’t it?”
If only.I shook my head at the floor and shrugged my shoulders—not to diminish the moment, but because even though I’d set this conversation in motion, I felt helpless to where it was headed.
