Tom stopped calling after three weeks.
A month later, Cherry told him she wanted a divorce.
Chapter 58
They were lying in bed. They both smelled like sweat and sex. Their hair still smelled like gingerbread.
And Tom wanted to come home.
And Cherry wanted him to come home.
Cherry wanted Tom back more than she’d ever wanted to marry him in the first place. Because now she knew what it was like to have him, and what it was like to lose him.
Cherry loved Tom like a wild beast. Like a hurricane. She loved him boundlessly.
“It’s not that easy,” she said.
“Why not?” he whispered. “It feels so easy, Cherry.”
They were naked. They weren’t touching.
“Because you left,” she said.
Tom looked genuinely confused. “I never left.”
“Youleft,” she said again.
He lowered his eyebrows. Still at sea. “You told me not to come home.”
“You were long gone by then.”
He shook his head. “What are you talking about?” He was still whispering. If they whispered, it wasn’t a fight. It was barely a conversation.
“I’m talking about how you checked out,” Cherry said. “And left me here with our entire life. You moved on.”
“I didn’t move on,” Tom said, raising his voice an inch. “I went away for work, and you told me I couldn’t come home.”
“There was nothing stopping you from coming home,” Cherry said clearly.
“Youwere stopping me. You literally told me that I couldn’t.”
She sat up, away from him. She took the comforter. “You’re a grown man.”
Tom sat up, too. “Cherry, you wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“Because you were with someone else!”
“I was never with her!”
“You wereliterallywith her.”
He winced. “Okay.” His voice dropped. “I know. I’m sorry—please listen to me.”
“I still don’t want to hear your apologies.”
“You don’t want to hear me at all.”
“Because there’s nothing you can say to make it all right!”
