That wasn’t fucking happening.
I blew out a breath and stared up at the ceiling.
Nate wasn’t asleep. I could tell by his breathing pattern.
Fuck me, I hated the distance between us.
The kids had started noticing too. At least Dylan and Hallie. I caught Dylan watching us sometimes, and Hallie asked us last week why we were fighting so much lately.
If only she knew. We weren’t those parents who shielded the kids from every single argument, but it went without saying we spared them from the yelling and full-blown fights.
My eyes welled up the second I heard Nathan sniffle, and I threw caution to the wind. I rolled over to him and gathered him in my arms.
Thank fuck, he hugged me back for all he was worth.
“I love you so much.” My voice cracked, and I screwed my eyes shut and choked up.
He sniffled again and nodded against my neck. “Me too,” he croaked. “What’re we gonna do?”
I don’t know.
I don’t fucking know.
I inched back to wipe at my cheeks, and I had to sit up. I had to think. We had to come up with a solution, because I couldn’t live without him.
Nate sat up too, and he flicked on the light on his bedside table.
It broke me to see him in tears.
Fuck, it terrified me.
So did the pressure building up. I rubbed at my chest and wanted to escape it with every fiber of my being.
“What would you do if the roles were reversed?” he asked hoarsely. “I’m genuinely asking.”
I sniffled.
Unfortunately, I’d run out of denial, and lies had never worked.
“What you’re doing now,” I admitted.
He nodded once, and another tear rolled down his cheek. “What would your next step be?”
My vision became too blurry. “I…I don’t know, Nate. I don’t know.”
Our lives had been entwined for eighteen years, and I couldn’t see a way out, even for solutions and alternatives. Everything we did impacted the others in the family. He worked, I worked, we had activities, we drove the kids around across town, we had chores, we had errands, we had Lily’s doctor’s appointments, we had Mikey’s anxiety… If I took one step to the side, it would tug at the others too. If we broke up, more than two hearts would be shattered. If we pretended, we’d die a slow death. So…what my next step would be was impossible to answer.
“If you were me, what would you do?” I asked.
He exhaled a humorless laugh, but he had heartbreak written all over him. “I would fuckingtry, Ash. That’s what’s so fucking frustrating—you won’t even try to meet someone to see if you get along. You talk about fears of crossing emotional lines with someone we don’t even know exists. You paint these worst-case scenarios and—what if none of that happens? What if you—or we—meet someone and everything falls into place? Maybe we’ll care for him the perfect amount. Maybe he’ll want exactly what he’s getting from us. We have so many friends who’ve explored other types of relationships?—”
“So, it’s all on me,” I stated. And yeah, I got angry. Because he locked me in further. I was trapped in a corner, and whichever direction I walked would be wrong. “I’m supposed to risk everything we’ve built so thatyoucan calm the fuck down.”
He smashed his lips together, and all traces of sorrow were replaced by absolutely nothing. It was that emptiness all over again. He was shutting down.
“Forget it,” he muttered and left the bed.
“No. No, don’t fucking dismiss me like that.” I got out of bed too, and I couldn’t believe him. “You know what would actually fix this mess? If you’d just let me choose what I wanna do with my life. And I choose you. I choose our family. Fuck kink and all that fucking bullshit. I’m out.” I widened my arms. “Fuck it all. I’ll leave the community tomorrow. Consider me vanilla from now on. And trust me, I’d spend the rest of my life happy.”
