"Do you even know how humiliating that was? Waiting around for you... how low I felt?"
I didn’t go because then I might have to admit the truth, and if it's out loud, what if that makes it come true? What if I speak it into existence, what if I have to admit that you dying is my greatest fucking fear, and I don't know if I'll survive it?
I had known about the appointment, of course I did—she had put it in the calendar, she had told me that morning, and I do listen to her, every word from her mouth. I had run out of excuses to get her to reschedule.
I removed it from the shop calendar when I got in that morning, so Aubree wouldn't ask about it.
Wendy stressed to me that shecouldn'treschedule, and by the time it rolled around, I couldn't bring myself to go. I couldn't walk into that appointment that she had so painstakingly set up and lie to her in front of a therapist.
She had made the appointment with such great intentions,because she wanted to fight for us, and I couldn't find it in me to make a mockery of it.
I decided not to go, and when she got home, I played stupid. I knew where she was, but I asked her anyway to help gain some sort of plausible deniability.
So goddamn wrong and cruel, and I am still so fucking ashamed of myself for it.
Pathetic. Weak. Useless.
I thought... I don't even know what I thought. I wasn't really planning for the future anymore at that point. I was living second to second.
I won't go to the therapy appointment, and that will solve the problem for now. Wendy will get over it like she's gotten over the other times I've been absent, she'll smooth it over with the boys, she'll understand, and that will be that. I'll worry about the next thing when it comes.
All I was focused on was myself, my selfish fear.
I don't answer the question, and she sighs.
"Answer me this. Did you purposefully miss it?"
The shame is a vice grip around my throat, squeezing tighter and tighter, stealing my voice away.
I nod. Just once.
Her entire face collapses, and I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. The disappointment, the heartbreak, the utter devastation on her face that I've put there threatens to drown me.
Wendy is silent for a couple of long moments, breathing heavily like she's run a long distance.
No more tears fall, but her shoulders shake like she's weeping. She raises her hands to her eyes and presses the palms in, breathing deep through her nose and out her mouth.
The lack of a ring on her finger hits like a punch.
Not able to take it anymore, I take one step toward her, but she quickly drops her hands, arctic eyes locked onto mine.
"Okay," she sniffs, roughly grabbing a tissue from the box we keep on the coffee table. She dabs at her eyes and takes deepbreaths. "So there's nothing left for us, but you still need to be a father. That's nonnegotiable."
"Baby—"
"Youcannotcheck out anymore. I won't allow it, do you hear me?"
I don't respond. I can't. Everything is moving too fast and too slow.
"Wendy..."
"You will not miss any more of Liam's basketball games. You will not miss any more of Noah's art shows. You will not treat them, the children you helped create, like they're nothing. Do you understand? When Liam talks about basketball, you will engage and ask questions. When Noah shows you his art, you will praise it like he's Picasso. Because, Atlas? I'm fucking done with my sons' hearts being broken by their father."
She storms right up to me and gets in my face, and through gritted teeth, she hisses. "You will not be my mother, Atlas. You will not be uninterested and mean. I will not allow it."
All the air is knocked from my lungs at that statement, my eyes going wide and my hand going to my chest.
She stares at me, her green eyes on fire, her mouth a mutinous line, all maternal fire and fury.
