I freeze when I hear my name, and I inch closer.
“Jayne used to appreciate me…used to be proud of me.”
My heart stops.
“And now?” the witch asks.
“Now she looks at me like I’m the enemy. I feel like a failure half the time. No matter how much I do, it’s never right. She’s always disappointed. I can’t win.”
He’s talking about us to her. He’s…oh God!
“She sounds like she’s resentful. Like maybe she doesn’t realize how lucky she is.”
Lucky! I’ve been the one holding it all together. For years. For him. For us. And now I’m the ungrateful one. This woman needs to shut the fuck up, I think angrily, tears pricking my eyes. How dare she talk about me? How dare he talk to her about me?
“She says I don’t help enough. That I’m selfish, but she doesn’t get it, does she? I can’t just clock out of this job. I can’t tell a patient dying on the table to hold on while I go pick up my kid from soccer practice.”
I take a step back, closing my eyes, his bandana now clutched in a fist. This is all my nightmares come true—Rhys complaining about me to another woman, one who is interested in him romantically.
“And she still works full-time, right?”
“Yeah.”
He laughs, and it’s a sneer. Ugly. Hurtful.
“She doesn’t need to—not for money. I told her she could stop years ago, but she won’t. Says she loves it. But all it does is make her stressed and angry. It’s like she needs to prove something.”
“I’m so sorry, Rhys.”
“It’s…hell right now at home,” he says.
My heart stops. It’s hell at home? Our home?
“You deserve peace, Rhys. You give so much of yourself to everyone else. It’s not selfish to want a little calm when you come home.”
Oh please! What the fuck does she know about running a house? She’s single and has no kids. I don’t say that to minimize her, but she doesn’t get to minimize me either.
But Tory isn’t my problem, is she? It’s Rhys. He’s my husband. He’s my person.
“I…sometimes I think…”
“What?” she urges.
“That maybe Jayne and I need some time apart.”
My knees buckle.
I can’t hear anymore because there’s a strange buzzing in my ears, you know the kind that stuns you after a bomb explodes?
A tremor starts in my fingers, spreading up my arms.
I step back before I can hear another word. My vision blurs. The hallway feels too bright, too sterile.
I leave the bandana in his inbox, the one hanging by his door.
The drive to work is a blur, the city rushing past in streaks of light and color I can’t name. By the time I step into my office, I’m shaking so hard I have to grip my desk to steady myself.
I collapse into my chair. I still have my coat on. I should remove it. It’s warm in here, but my hands don’t work.
