My heart sinks. I rub my jaw. “What do you think I should do, Barry? I’m fresh out of ideas.”
He spreads his hands. “Have you considered marriage counseling?”
I shake my head. “We don’t need it.”
He tilts his head. “Where are you sleeping again?”
I rub my jaw. “Motherfucker.”
He waits.
“Our problems aren’t gonna be solved by talking to some shrink,” I mutter. “Scratch that, we don’t have a problem. She just needs time.”
Barry shrugs. “It’s your marriage, man. But…”
“What?”
He hesitates. “Lieutenant asked me if everything’s alright with you. Said you’ve been slacking off.”
I scoff. “If she had a problem, she should’ve brought it to me.”
He raises his hands in surrender. “She doesn’t have a problem. Not yet. But if you keep going the way you’re going? Time might heal your marriage, but it sure as shit ain’t gonna be good for your job.”
I nod stiffly, jaw tight. Barry takes the hint, pushes out of the chair, and slips out of my office without another word.
The moment the door shuts, I slam the file in front of me closed and drop my head into my hands.
I haven’t been sleeping. Not really. Not in a month.
Every time I close my eyes, I get the same fucking nightmare, Lore gone. Milo gone. The entire house gutted like we never lived there. I run from room to room, yelling their names, but it’s silent. It feels real enough that when I jerk awake, heart in my throat, I have to get up and check.
I walk down the dark hall like a damn creep, crack Milo’s door open just to watch his chest rise and fall. Then I check our bedroom and watch Lore curled on her side, one hand over her belly, face soft in sleep.
And I just stand there like an asshole, staring at the life I almost blew up with one stupid, drunken decision.
Every night.
Every single night.
I drag my hands down my face and look around my office, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
Barry’s right. My job’s slipping. My marriage’s hanging by a thread. And I’m sitting here doing jack shit except counting nightmares and waiting for Lore to magically get over something without me actually doing anything.
I flip my laptop open and immediately switch to incognito.
No clue why I bother, brass can see my history anyway. But I’d rather not have ads popping up about this.
I type into Google:
‘Marriage counselors’ then, because honesty hurts, I add: ‘for cheating.’ Then: ‘Austin, Texas’
Pages of results load. None of them look real. I don’t think a website called, “save my marriage” will actually save it. Scrolling down I come across a promising one.
Orange Cove Counseling Center.
I click it.
It’s close to the house. Not so close that we’d run into someone we know, but close enough that I could swing by on my lunch break. Private office. Good reviews. Specializes in “relationship rupture repair” and “infidelity recovery.”
