“Come on, Vivian, it’s not like that.”
“Then how is it?”
“I ... I ...”
I crossed my arms over my chest and let him flounder a bit before I added, “You’re afraid of being alone? You needed to keep your options open? You miss someone who does your laundry? Yes?”
“Dammit, Vivian.”
“Careful, or you’ll wear my name out.”
He started to run a hand through his hair but stopped. “Can’t you just take me back, Viv? For old time’s sake?”
“No, baby, no.”
“For Dylan’s sake?”
My stomach clenched. That was a low blow, and he knew it, but I couldn’t even take him back for Dylan. I shook my head.
He howled in frustration. “But why not?”
“Because you don’t love me.”
The words burrowed through my chest and into my soul, so I knew they were true. “I’m not sure you ever did. I think you loved theideaof me. I think, when we were younger, you saw yourself as some kind of nerd, but then you grew up and filled out and got LASIK and hair plugs and fixed your teeth. Suddenly, I wasn’t looking so hot after my one baby and four miscarriages. Suddenly, I wasn’t the life of the party anymore because you left me at home. I wasn’t who you thought I was, and I’m not what you need.”
“But what about you?”
“Oh,nowyou ask that question.”
“Come on, Vivian, give me a break.”
“I need someone who sees me, really sees me.”
“But I see you!”
“No, you don’t. Just help Dylan get through college, will ya? I’m going to have a hard time finding a job that pays well enough to do that, and I’d hate to saddle him with loans at this point.”
“What about your YouTube stuff?”
“Smoke and mirrors, I’m afraid. My first check is going to be a little over two hundred dollars. Still want to take your pound of flesh?”
Surprise widened his eyes, but then they narrowed in cunning. “But if you take me back, then you don’t have to worry about any of that. Vivian, please.”
“It’s a no from me, Mitchell. If you’d never filled out those papers and if you’d never had an affair, maybe we would’ve made it. Would we have been happy? I don’t know. Content, maybe. But I can’t. I can’t be with you knowing you only choose me when you’re afraid of something else.”
“That’s not fair!”
“It’s totally fair! I dedicated my whole life to your and Dylan’s welfare because I thought that was what you wanted. That’s what yousaidyou wanted. And now I see you asked me to marry you so you could get laid. Then you actually did marry me because I was pregnant but also because it did your ego good to have a wife. Then you kept me around because we had Dylan and you enjoyed a clean house, clean clothes, supper every night at six, and fully planned vacations. I guess having cold-fish sex was better than having no sex at all.”
He winced. “I never should’ve said that. I don’t know what got into me. I wanted to feel attractive, and Tabitha made me feel attractive, and—”
“And she told you she’d marry you if you divorced me?”
He couldn’t meet my gaze. “Yeah.”
“Well, there you go. She needs you now more than I do. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t marry her unless you really love her.”
“I don’t want to marry her, though. I want—”
