Her eyes bulge wider. Her hands drop to her stomach, and I’m a little afraid she’s going to get sick and barf on everyone below. “That’s why your grandparents were worried about me not wanting you to be on the police force.”
I’d been hoping she wouldn’t catch onto that. “Yes.”
“Oh …” She breathes, which is a good sign. It will keep her knees from buckling and her body from toppling over the edge into Thad’s waiting arms. “I thought your family was excited to meet me because I was the first woman you’d taken home. I was way off.”
No wonder she’s having trouble taking this in. I wish I’d better set up her expectations, but it’s not as though I didn’t try to scare her away. “Yeah. Sorry about that.” At least Gemma knew and approved of my career coming into this. No shock there.
She bites her lip. “Did you consider changing careers?”
I snort at the suggestion and at hearing it from Gemma’s lips. “I did. Like an idiot.”
Her eyebrows pinch together.
I guess my response sounds a little harsh. She’ll want to know that I’m able to make sacrifices, but the issue was never based on my commitment level. “Once the whole defund-the-police thing happened, I realized her problem with my job was never about me or my safety.” The thought still makes me want to beat up my punching bag. I was out there, risking my life to defend the city, having friends and coworkers quit for their safety, and all the time being ripped apart in the media for something other people did. While my wife only cared about how it made her look.
Gemma tilts her head away, her eyes skeptical. “How do you know it wasn’t about your safety?”
I look past her to the cemetery across the street. I don’t want to have to bury a relationship, yet I feel so helpless to save it. Again. “I overheard Amber talking with Thad. She asked him to convince me to apply to work with him.” Pent-up fury curls my fingers into fists. I still wish I would have punched him when he’d approached me to try. “She told him that she wanted to quit her job to become an influencer on social media, but she couldn’t do that with me still working for the police force.”
I lift my gaze to Gemma to measure her empathy. Her eyes are as cloudy as the sky at the Oregon Coast. There’s a storm coming, but will the tears rain down for me or for herself?
I’ll finish saying what I have to say. Then there might be nothing left to say other than goodbye. “After I confronted Amber about talking to Thad, she gave me an ultimatum. She said if I didn’t quit the force, our marriage was over.”
Gemma slides her hands over her head and holds back the loose hairs that escaped her braid. “You didn’t quit?”
I shrug. “I didn’t become a police officer for the image. Or the power. Or even a hero complex. I did it to prevent other moms from following in the footsteps of my mother. I did it to protect kids from the pain I went through.”
“I know.” She reaches a hand to my forearm, and the gentle touch waters my parched soul. We are still connected. There is still hope.
I can’t help it. I close my eyes in relief. “I figured that if our marriage depended on giving up my passion and purpose to make her look good, then it wasn’t much of a relationship to begin with. I suggested a separation, not realizing she would move on to someone else rather than work on us.”
There’s still a line between her eyebrows.
I rest my hand on top of hers to comfort her the way she comforted me.
But her eyes don’t meet mine. Rather, they slide past me to the tower and the fire engines below.
“So that’s why …”
“Why what?”
Her gaze leaps back to mine. The clouds have been swept away, but the lightning of panic flashes. “Why you were triggered by me in the beginning. Why you didn’t want anything to do with me. You thought I only cared about my image the way your ex did.”
“Guilty.” I hold up my hand as if I’m being tried in a court of law. “But now I know that you’re not—”
“Do you?” she demands, though I’m not sure what she’s demanding because I didn’t even finish my sentence. She snatches her hand away. “You were triggered when Thad carried me out of the building because you were comparing me to your ex again.”
“Right.” We just went over that. I’m trying to connect the dots that took her from consoling to accusing.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her tone is pleading for some reason.
“I know.” I’m not blaming her of anything. I’m explaining why I’m triggered.
She waves her arms wildly. “That’s between you and Thad. It has nothing to do with me.” Her mouth opens and closes a few times before I hear her say, “I can’t … I can’t …”
I inhale sharply. “You can’t what?” My chest constricts as though the drawbridge to my heart is being raised. I don’t want to have to put my armor back on.
She covers her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I’ve put myself in a relationship where I’m being compared to someone else again.”
