She looked at me.
I spread my arms wide. ‘Try it. Take a shot. Scream the worst things you can think of at me. You think I’m going to leave you? Try and make me.’
Her breath was coming fast and uneven, white fog in the night air. My wife was a dragon tonight.
‘Here, I’ll start,’ I said. ‘I’m a snob. I’m a mansplainer. I have obscene amounts of privilege and a spotty record when it comes to recognising it. I cry about my horrible dad even as I take advantage of being his son. I pick fights for the sake of picking fights. I’m all the worst things about university made flesh.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘That’s just a warm-up! A mere tasting platter of things you’ve said to me before. If you’re such a terrible person, you must have a whole well of them to draw on. Hurt my feelings, Sadie. I dare you.’
‘You’re not listening to me!’
‘I am listening to you. I always listen to you. I’m just not agreeing with you.’
I closed the distance between us, taking her shoulders in my hands. ‘You want to know why I’d never tell Fiona that being loved by her can be exhausting? It’s because our foundation isn’t strong enough to handle a fight yet. I don’t know her well enough.’ I smoothed my left hand over her hair. ‘Maybe one day, Fi and I will get to a place where I feel comfortable enough to fight with her, but we’re not there yet. It’s still too fresh. Too fragile. Not like what you and your sister have.’
Sadie closed her eyes. Tears kept streaming down her cheeks anyway.
‘I’m not going to pretend I know what the fuck Chess is thinking,’ I said. ‘But this silence between you… I thought it was my fault, for a long time.’
‘No. It’s—’
‘And it’s not your fault either.’
I slid my fingers through her hair, thumb beside her ear, and made her look at me. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I repeated.
‘Yes it is.’ Her face was crumpling again. ‘All Chess has ever done is fight for me. She’s sacrificed so much for me. Everyone –everyone– left, but she stayed and she loved me even harder to make up for it, and then I threw it back in her face.’
‘Respectfully, Shaw,’ I said, ‘being loved like thatdoessound absolutely fucking exhausting.’
She bit her lip, hard, trying to hold back more sobs.
I slid my fingers down to her jawline. Gently, I traced the pad of my thumb against the divot of her chin.
‘I’m sure it was hard for her to hear,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it hurt. I understand why she’d be angry. I understand why she might want some space.’
Sadie closed her eyes again. Her whole body was shaking.
‘But it doesn’t mean it wasn’t true,’ I said, ‘and it doesn’t make you a bad or a fundamentally unlovable person to say it. That’s ridiculous.’
‘She sent me a letter.’
‘With the wine?’
‘No. Last month.’
I did the mental calculations. Had Chess got that email I sent her back in April? Had it finally spurred her into action?
‘She said,’ Sadie added, opening her eyes again, ‘that she needs to work out what her life looks like without me in it.’
Oh no.
‘And if Chess can leave me,’ she went on, ‘then anyone can.’
The look on her face was heartbroken and confrontational all at once. And there was only one way I knew how to respond to confrontation.
‘You’re wrong, Shaw,’ I said. ‘And I can prove it.’
