It never will.This isn’t a thing I can have, only a brief reminder of all that I’ve lost.
“Yeah,” I say, though it comes out strangled. “Okay.”
“Exes hook up all the time, right?” she says. “It’s a wonder it never happened before now.”
I can’t breathe. My eyes are burning, and for one blinding second, I’m terrified that I’m going to break down and cry.The only time I’ve cried since I was thirteen was when Ugly Naked Pig died. I managed to be strong through the divorce, through moving into my own place, through the tabloid speculation about Kim’s new loves, through discovering she was serious with Roger.
But when my pig died—the pig she found for me, the last surviving piece of our life together other than the kids—that’s when the weight of losing Kim opened up like a cloudburst.
I sobbed for three days, and god, I don’t want to do that now.
Kim shudders. She sits up and turns away, but not before I realize thatshe’scrying. She tugs at her pantyhose, but I reach out and run a hand along her jaw, the tears soaking my fingertips.
“Kim,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
She dissolves. I wrap my arms around her as she sobs, not sure what I’ve done, but certain that, as usual, I’ve ruined everything.
“I know I messed it all up between us,” she says. “But I just have to know, was there ever a time that you loved me?”
My arms go slack, and her words circle through my mind as I try to make sense of them. “Was there ever . . .what?”
“Even if it was before we were married,” Kim continues between sobs. “Did you ever feel anything real for me, or did you just realize one day that you never had?”
I pull back, staring at her. Kim’s face is blotchy and her eyes rimmed red. I’ve seen her cry like this more times than I can count, and nearly all of them were my fault. I’ve always been helpless to fix it, always left nothing but pain in my wake. But the words fall out of my mouth anyway. “I never stopped. I’m still in love with you.”
Kim stops crying, looking first stunned, then confused. She opens her mouth to respond—
A loud knock sounds on the door, not three feet away. “Kim?” Sarah shouts. “Troy’s wondering when you’ll be ready to be back on set.”
Kim reaches for her corset, but I get up off the couch and step over Kim’s spilled purse, pulling up my pants and fastening them. No way am I making her answer the door, not like this. I stand in front of it and crack it open, so no one will see behind me while Kim dresses.
“Hey, Sarah,” I say. “We’re going to need a minute.”
Sarah stares up at me from below the trailer steps. I know what I must look like—I’m naked from the waist up and covered in the combined makeup of two action heroes, one bleeding and close to death. I can see crew members huddled between a few of the other trailers, and no doubt at least one of them is taking pictures.
As if we hadn’t put on enough of a show already. Behind me, I can hear Kim scrambling into her clothes, and I think about what she said.
Did I ever love her? God, doesn’t she know?
“Actually,” I say, “tellTroy we need the rest of the afternoon off.”
Sarah arches an eyebrow at me. “But we’re all set up, and we only have permits for—”
“We’ll be back on set tomorrow, ready to go. But we’re having an emergency, so we’re going to need the rest of the day.Troy’s just going to have to deal with it.”
Sarah gives me a look that says she thinks this emergency is happening in my pants, but she takes a step back. “I’ll talk toTroy,” she says, and I close the door again.
I find Kim fastening the hooks on her corset. She looks at me warily, and I’m at a total loss for what to say next.
I need to tell her the truth, all of it. And there’s clearly a lot going on in her head I don’t know, and for the first time in six years, it seems like it might actually be my business to know.
I want to, more than anything, and I don’t want to be interrupted again. “Let’s get dressed and clean up,” I say. “And then drive back to the hotel and meet there.The kids will be gone for hours. We can sit down and talk, okay? We can talk about everything.”
For a moment Kim looks reluctant, but then she nods. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “That would be good.”
As much as I want to just hold her and tell her that everything is going to be okay, I realize I don’t know that, and it scares the hell out of me.
So instead I open the door again and begin my walk of shame back to my trailer, praying that by the time we both get to the hotel, Kim will still want to listen to what I have to say.
