His eyes flick up at me, wary but interested.
“And,” I add, “I’ll go in with you. I won’t drop you outside like last time.”
He reminds me very seriously that he had to knock on the door himself as if he survived a natural disaster. I raise my hand and promise.
That does it. He hops off the bed and sprints to the bathroom to get dressed.
I stay where I am, hands in my lap, mind spinning.
Both Colter and Harvey understood why I ended the marriage. They never questioned it. They never made me feel guilty. But his mom and his sister… that’s been a different story entirely.
They acted like I was the unreasonable one. Like I just packed up and left because things got difficult. Chloe actually said, straight-faced, that a good wife would’ve stayed.
Stayed. As if I hadn’t tried. As if being cheated on and lied to was just a bump in the road I should’ve smiled through.
I didn’t abandon him.
Closing the door on a marriage isn’t the same thing as abandoning a person. If anything, I held him up longer than anyone else did.
Eight months ago, when he decided to celebrate being cleared by IA by getting drunk and wandering to my porch instead of going home, I didn’t turn on the sprinklers like Genesis wanted.I dragged him inside myself. I put him on the sofa and even covered him with a blanket.
The next morning, when he was sick and shaking and wouldn’t even look at me, I handed him an ultimatum.
Rehab or lose custody.
He chose rehab.
And I still stepped up. I drove him there myself. I didn’t abandon him in rehab either, I took Milo and Agnes every time they were allowed
His family doesn’t see any of that. They see the divorce papers I haven’t filed yet. They see a mother of two who said “enough” and actually meant it. To them, that’s the abandonment.
But I know better. I didn’t walk away from Patrick. I survived him. Barely.
By the time Milo’s done in the bathroom, I’ve already texted Patrick about the change of plans and packed Milo’s essentials, his school stuff, and the nightlight he refuses to sleep without. Everything he needs to travel with, the rest he has at his dad’s apartment.
Hand in hand, we make our way downstairs, then outside. Gen is bouncing Agnes on her hip while Milo chatters nonstop in her ear about the castle he has at his grandparents’. She listens like she hasn’t heard every word before.
Once the kids are buckled in the car, Gen closes the door and lowers her voice. “You want me to come?”
I shake my head and exhale. “I gotta do this sometime. Besides, go write.”
She groans like I’ve just assigned her chores. Gen wrote this romance novel, fun, escapist, exactly her personality, except she added photos and illustrations from the actual places she traveled. It was supposed to be a side project to kill time between flights, and somehow it blew up into something huge. The sales were insane. Her inbox was filled with readers demanding a sequel.
Now she’s knee-deep in book two… if she could stop procrastinating long enough to actually finish it.
“I expect three chapters by the time I get back,” I tell her, slipping into the driver’s seat.
Genesis gives me the finger… then switches it to a cheerful wave the second Milo twists around to look.
I snort under my breath, start the car, and pull away from the curb, my stomach tightening with every street that brings me closer to the people I once considered myself lucky to have.
Patrick
I hear Lore’s car before I see it, and my whole chest pulls tight like it’s been cinched with a rope. I’m leaning against my car pretending I’m relaxed, like I haven’t been pacing holes into the driveway for the last ten minutes.
Milo spots me first.
“Daddy!” he yells, practically vibrating in his seat.
