Someone knocks on my door.
“Not now,” I snap, not caring who’s on the other side.
I need a minute.
I need…a minute.
My office is just as I left it on Friday. The sunlight pours through the window like nothing’s changed.
But everything has.
I press my hands to my face. My heart feels like it’s breaking open in slow motion. It’s not loud or cinematic, just…silent and painful.
He thinks I don’t appreciate him. He thinks that I blame him for everything. He thinks I’ve made our home hell for him.
Does he have any idea how small I’ve made myself for him?
I’ve held his life together with both hands. Woke him up for shifts. Cooked meals I didn’t eat because I was too tired. Showed up to galas, smiled through exhaustion, carried the invisible weight of everything he never saw.
And still, somehow, it was never enough.
My sobs come in waves, soundless at first, then full, heaving, ugly.
I press my forehead on my desk, gasping, whispering into the quiet:“I’m so tired.”
It feels like the truth is finally out, not just for him, but for me, too. Now I know something about how he thinks that I can never unknow. Whatever I thought we rebuilt this weekend wasn’t real.It was a reprieve, not a resurrection.
A Band-Aid on an amputation.
I can’t fix this anymore.
Do I even want to?
There’s a knock on my door again.
“I just…need a minute,” I manage to croak out.
But the door opens. I hurriedly brush my tears off. Daniel looks at me with his kind eyes, assesses the damage, then closes the door behind him and locks it.
He crouches in front of me. “What’s wrong?”
My throat burns. I shake my head. I don’t have the words.
He studies me for a beat, his gaze steady, calm. “Jayne, you’re scaring me a little, honey. Did something happen to the kids?”
“No.” My voice cracks. “It’s Rhys.”
“Okay.” He takes my hands in his and looks up at me, waiting.
“I went to the hospital,” I manage finally. “He forgot his bandana. The…his lucky one. And I…” My words dissolve. “I heard him.”
“Heard what, Jayne?”
I swallow.
“With her. That woman. Tory.” My stomach twists around the name. “He was talking aboutme. Aboutus. Telling her I’m angry all the time, that our home is hell, that maybe we should…separate.”
Daniel lets out a long breath. “Jesus, Jayne.”
