“For fuck’s—” He bit off the rest of it and tore his elbow from her grip, lifting his hand to rake his fingers through his hair. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Of course not, this is our life. Our future. I want to know what this unobtainable thing is that you think is so impossible for me to give you. If I knew, maybe?—”
“Christ!” The violence in the word made her jump and he dragged his hand from his hair to rub his palm over his mouth, green eyes glittering in the soft light as he stared down at her.
“It’syou, okay?Us!That’s what I want. What I can’t have. What I’ll never have.”
“But…” Her voice was small. Timid. “I don’t understand.”
“And that’s the fucking crux of our problem. You don’t understand. You’ll never understand. You think that the minuscule parts of yourself that you’ve doled out over the last year and a half are enough. Carefully curated pieces of a whole picture I’ll never get to see. I’ve been living with, and fucking, a total stranger. And that’s not going to change. Nothing’s going to change because you think things are just goddamned fine the way they are. You think everything is so perfect, you actually want another baby. Donotfucking correct me, Kenna,” he warned, holding up an assertive index finger, when she opened her mouth to do exactly that. “Not right now. I’m sick of living like this. Sick of waiting for you. Fucking sick ofyou. I’m done. I want out.”
“You don’t just get todecidethat,” Kenny said, seething. Hating this. Hatinghimfor doing this. For saying such confusing and cruel things. “You don’t get to lay all of this on me and then threaten to leave before I’m able to process or understand what’s happening.”
“Are you happy, Kenna?” he asked tautly, his eyes were sharp, probing, too damned observant.
The question tripped her up.
“Well, I’m not happy right at this moment,” she prevaricated.
“I’m trying to have an honest conversation with you and you can’t even answer a simple question without tying yourself up in knots. Are youhappy, McKenna?”
She swallowed, the sound audible even over the insistent, loud chirruping of an ardent cricket.
He was right. What hope did they have if she couldn’t even answer a straightforward question?
“I-I thought I was.”
“Why?”
“My career is going well,youdidn’t leave me, life seemed so settled and…and good.”
“That’s it? Success in your career and the fact that I stuck around like some kind of goddamn fantasy hero after we lost our baby? Which, by the way, any halfway decent man would have done. You’re telling methat’sall it takes to make you happy? Maybe aim higher next time.”
“I think so.”
“You don’t know?” Kenny felt ridiculous and pathetic in the face of his incredulity. “Kenna, when’s the last time you were really, genuinely happy?”
The day I met you.The words hovered on the tip of her tongue and she considered them and wondered if that was indeed true. How could that be? There were nearly two years between that point and now. How could she not have been truly happy since then?
It wasn’t possible.
She hesitated a beat too long because he made an impatient sound and turned away from her again.
“When we met.” She threw the words at him desperately and he froze. Shoulders set, head back, body so taut it was as if he’d turned into a living statue. A beautiful piece of art.
She watched his back, waiting.
“I don’t know if I find that sad or just plain manipulative,” he finally admitted, turning his head to look at her, while keeping this body angled toward the house.
“You wanted honesty.”
“Yeah. And the truth is pretty fucking damning, wouldn’t you say? You haven’t been happy. Neither have I. We don’t belong together. We never did. Having a baby with your pretend husband isn’t going to miraculously fix what’s broken inside of you, Kenna.”
“I’m not broken,” she protested, but it was a lie and she knew he knew that.
He laughed again, the same dry, brittle bark as before.
“You might not be, butIam. You and this fucked-up excuse of a marriage broke me. And that’s as honest as I can get with you right now. I’m leaving. Tomorrow.”
