Nine
Blake
Istand outside Kim’s hotel room on the red and blue geometric hall carpet, trying to breathe. All I can hear is Kim’s voice in my head, over and over again, asking if I ever loved her.
I get that she thinks I’m over her. It would be more reasonable if I was. But what have I done to make her think it possible that I never loved her at all?
More importantly, if she got over me six years ago and has hated me ever since—why does shecare?
I knock, and Kim opens the door. Her eyes are red from crying, and her mouth is set in a hard line.
My heart cracks. She’s going to tell me it was all a mistake, that she was just working out stress.That she doesn’t love me anymore, that she just wanted to know if our whole marriage had been a lie. Kim doesn’t say anything, but she lets me in, and I pull a chair out from the small table and sit down.
This time, I’m going to talk through it, even if neither of us likes what the other has to say.
“Troy hassled me while I was washing up,” I tell her. “He threatened to replace us with ‘professional actors.’ I told him he can recast if he wants, but he won’t have actors on set tomorrow if he decides to do that, and we’ll be there, ready to work.”
Kim sits on the very edge of the bed and closes her eyes. She hates disappointing the people she works with, so it’s a testament to how bad things are that she doesn’t callTroy right now and take it all back.
We’re both quiet. “He’s not going to replace us,” I say.
“You can’t be in love with me,” she responds.
I open my mouth and close it again. I guess I should be glad she’s going to start the conversation, because god only knows I have no idea how to.
“I am,” I say. “I always have been.”
Kim shakes her head in that resolute way she does when she feels she has irrefutable evidence against me. “You got over me so fast. You wanted to get divorced, and I saw the look on your face when you left. You were relieved.”
There’s a lump in my throat, but I choke past it. I don’t want to tell her how pathetic I am, but I suppose I already have.The rest is just details. “I didn’t want to get divorced. And I sure as hell wasn’t relieved.”
Her face hardens. “Yousaidyou wanted a divorce. Youtoldme that’s what you wanted.”
“I wanted to stop hurting you. You were so miserable with me. You talked all the time about how it would be easier to split up, and I wanted to give you what you needed.”
The certainty fades from Kim’s face, and she stares at me blankly.
“But it doesn’t change anything,” I continue. “Because you were miserable, and I don’t want to do that to you again.”
Kim squeezes her eyes shut. “I was miserable, but it wasn’t you.”
That’s ridiculous. “What else could it have been? We fought all the time, and—”
“I have OCD,” Kim says. She winces and falls silent again.
I stare at her. I can’t have heard her right. “You have . . .”
“OCD,” she says. “Obsessive compulsive disorder. It isn’t like you see onTV, with the hand washing and door locking. I mean, I guess it is for some people. But for me it’s these thoughts that stick in my head and won’t go away. It gets much worse after I have a baby.”
My breath is shallow, and my heartbeat seems to slow. “What kind of thoughts?”
Kim looks down at her hands, which she’s knotted together. “Like that last fight we had, when I left and went to my parents? I was sure that Luke was too warm, and you said he was fine. You wanted me to leave him with you, but I took him with me anyway, and you thought I didn’t trust you.”
I nod. I’m not proud of the way I handled that. I wasn’t even at the time. “I was just trying to give you a break, you know? You were so stressed out, and I thought you could use it.”
Kim nods miserably. “I know. What I didn’t tell you at the time was that Icouldn’tleave him with you. Because Iknew—I justknewthat if I took my eyes off him, even for a second, that he was going to die and it would be all my fault.”
I scoot forward on my chair. I remember pacing back and forth after she left, not sure what the hell had just happened.
