“The tree needs—” she begins.
“Every other day until the heat breaks,” I cut her off. “Then every three. I know. I’ve been doing it since you left that first time. I know how to water your fig tree.”
And I know why you need to leave. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. You don’t believe me—you don’t trust what your heart is telling you. You want some distance to think clearly.
I’m sorry, sweetheart, you’re not getting distance. You can think just fine with me clouding your senses.
I am not losing you.
“Okay.” She bites her lip and looks so fucking forlorn that I want to hug her. So I do.
She wraps herself around me.
“I know, sweetheart.”
She cuddles into me. “I’m being silly.”
“Yes.”
She lets out a choked laugh.
“You’re not losing me. I’m not losing you. You just need to do this,” I assure her.
“I feel foolish.”
“You should, for leaving your loving husband.” I pull away and tilt her chin so I can look at her beautiful face. “You’re going to go to Dina’s and work at the diner and be somewhere that’s completely yours.” I hold her gaze. “But I want you to understand that I’m not conceding. This isn’t me stepping back because I think you’re right about us.”
“Fox—“
“You said your piece last night,” I speak over her. “Let me say mine.”
She goes quiet.
“I lied to you for two years.” I take a deep breath. “Not in words—I never told you a false thing directly. But in the gap between what I let you believe and what I was actually feeling, I lied to you, and I knew it, and I told myself stories about why it wasn’t my fault. I let those stories run longer than I should have, and the consequence of that is that you drove down here to pick up the rest of your stuff and almost—” I stop because thealmosthas its own weight that I have not yet learned to carry without it showing, and I don’t think I ever fucking will. “And that is on me. That will always be on me.”
She’s about to say something, but I shake my head, and she stays silent.
“But here is what else is true,” I continue. “I know the difference now between the story I was telling myself and what was actually happening. I know because I’ve spent two years next to you, and I know what a morning is without you in it, and I know what it felt like when your car left this driveway the first time, and I know what four days in a hospital waiting room does to a man’s understanding of what he values.”
I cup her cheek. “I love you. I loved you before I said the wrong thing to Percy, and I loved you while I was saying it to you, and I have loved you every day since I met you, and I will love you while you’re at Dina’s, figuring out whether you can believe me.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and I feel both bad and good about it.
I don’t want my wife in pain—I hate that she’s hurting—but I’m telling myself this is the good kind because it means she knows that even though she feels like she has to leave, even though she’s afraid that leaving might mean the end of us, shecan find comfort in the fact that I’m not going to let her slip away.
She needs me to fight for her.
To go after her and bring her back.
I intend to do that.
“Why can’t I just…I’m so sorry for being so difficult,” she moans, misery written all over her face.
“Hey, you have nothing to apologize for.” I kiss her softly. “I understand that my words are not enough right now. You heard something in a hallway, and it was true when I said it—I want to be clear about that. I am not rewriting what happened—it was true at the time, then it became the most wrong thing I have ever said, and the distance between those two points is something I have to account for—and I will. However long it takes.”
I put my hands on her shoulders and squeeze. “But I need you to know that when I figure out how to prove it to you—and I will figure out how, I am very motivated, and I have excellent follow-through when I decide I want something.”
That makes her smile, and my heart lightens.
