One minute, this perfect, wonderful woman is yours, and the next moment she's gone.
There's nothing you can do to stop it—no amount of love, no amount of vigilance, no amount of strength or money or sacrifice can save her if the universe wants to take her from you.
That's the truth I've been trying to swallow for the past year, ever since my sister-in-law died.
And now I face the even more horrifying truth that my wife wants to divorce me because I've been a shit dad and a shit husband for the past year.
It's even worse because it's not that she's stopped loving me, it's because I created a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm terrified to lose her, and I'm losing her anyway.
I stare at my wife, sitting in the dim light of our living room, looking like a goddamn vision of beautiful fury, and I want to fall to my knees and beg and plead.
Isn't it funny?
I've spent the last year purposefully removing myself from my family and now I want to sink myself under her skin, hold on, and not let go.
But how can I tell her the truth of why I've been so absent, when naming it would make it real?
"Sit, Atlas," Wendy snaps again, pointing to the chair across from her like I'm a disobedient dog. Her voice cuts through the air, sharp and commanding. "We need to talk."
I don't move toward the chair, I shake the papers clutched in my hand. I'm an animal backed into a corner, so my voice comes out as a desperate, fearful snarl.
"Wendy, what is this?"
She looks at me and... laughs.
Not her humor-filled belly laugh that I adore, not even that sexy chuckle that unmakes me when I rasp that she just killedme after riding me during sex.
This sounds empty, no warmth, no humor—nothing.
"You've said more words to me just now than you've said to me inmonths."
That lands like a kick to my stomach, because I do remember the last words I spoke to her, vicious and mean. Right after she was just trying to comfort me, after she pulled me out of my night terror, not realizing she was the star of it.
With shaky legs, I walk over to the chair and sit down. My heart tightens when I see her left hand. She's not wearing her wedding ring.
How long has she not been wearing it? I glance down at my own left hand, ringless because of my job. Instead our wedding date is there in Roman numerals.
The grease and oil on them have muddied the numbers, making them indecipherable.
"You blindsided me," I rasp, the words scraping their way out of my throat. "You didn't even talk to me about this before you filed. Why?"
She tilts her head.
"And how does it feel?" she whispers.
"What?"
"How. Does. It. Feel?" She bites out, enunciating each word. "To be left in the dark. To be shut out. To have a decision made for you. How does it feel, Atlas?"
My fingers curl and crush the papers in my hands even more, smearing even more oil on the legal papers. Ibarelyresisted the urge to tear them apart on the ride home, knowing it wouldn’t make them any less real.
"And talk to you... when? Do I need to track you down on the weekends with Trace at whatever house you're working at? Do I need to corner you in the office at the garage? Even if I did track you down, you wouldn't listen. You haven't listened to me for awhole fucking year!"
"Wendy—" I start, moving to rise from my seat and drop to my knees in front of her.
"Ah!" She holds up a finger, stopping me before I can move. "I'm not done, Atlas. You will have your turn when I'm done. I need you to listen to me."
Closing my mouth, I nod. I owe her this much.
