Sail (Wake #2) (23 page)

“Then why’d you do it?” he asked indignantly with his teeth clenched. His jaw ticked and his face lost all color.

“Because I love him. You know? I fought it. I fought for us, but it was wrong. When I met him, I felt all of these things I should have been feeling for you. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t expect it, Grant.”

“Well, I’m not just rolling over here. I want to see a couples therapist.”

My heart sank. I didn’t want that. At all. I just wanted out. Out of the conversation. Out of the restaurant. And out of my marriage.

“What? No.” I shook my head and looked out the window. “I don’t want to work on our marriage, Grant. I want out of it.”

“I never pegged you for such a quitter. It turns out I was wrong about a lot of things. But, Blake, I’m not throwing in the towel so easily.”

I reached into my purse to get the envelope. Thinking that if he saw it, saw I was serious enough to have the papers drawn up already, maybe he would relent. I placed it on the table and slid it to him.

“What are those?”

“I saw a lawyer. I’m not asking for anything and I’ll pay for all of it.”

He huffed a fake laugh. “What if I ask for things? What about what I want?” There was an edge in his voice, but it had changed into a more persuading sound when he suggested, “We can work this out. We’re just starting out. We just need some help, that’s all.”

“Help? Grant, I’ve been seeing Casey since before we were married. I’m in love with
him.
”

We sat there not saying anything when the appetizers arrived. Neither of us touching them or moving to eat. The space between us grew larger and emptier.

“If you want a divorce, then fine. But I want to work on our marriage. We’ll see a marriage counselor, if you still feel like that in a few months, then I’ll sign. But I’m not just giving up.”

Counseling? How much counseling did I need?

I wanted the divorce. I wanted it to happen quickly and with the least amount of resistance, but could I agree to counseling when I was confident it wasn’t going to change anything, at least for me?

But he was right. It wasn’t
all
about me. I had to consider his feelings.

And Casey’s.

I needed Casey that very second.

Just the thought of him eased me. It wasn’t a decision I should make on my own. I wanted to share myself with him—be partners—and it was a good time to show him I’d meant what I’d said.

Grant reached over the table, offering me his hand, but I pulled back. Touching him felt wrong now, especially with Casey on my mind. I refused to taint my thoughts of him ever again by touching Grant. Especially when Casey’s was the touch I craved.

No substitutions. Not anymore. Not ever again. I got comfort from him and him alone.

“I need to use the ladies’ room,” I said, excusing myself.

His placed his napkin on his lap and went about eating like everything was fine.

Just having dinner. Nothing to see here.

I couldn’t read anything that was going on in his head from his expression. I never could.

With Casey, I saw his emotions. They were conveyed by his body. Even in the past, when his hell-bent mouth would tell me one thing, his truthful body language always told me he cared.

Looking at Grant, as I unhooked my purse from the back of my chair, I saw only superficial things. A handsome face. A man with an expression I couldn’t read.

Had it always been like this? And didn’t he leave out the biggest reason to stay married? What about love?

The second I was away from the table I pulled out my phone. I didn’t have time to wait for a text, and truth be told, I needed to hear his voice.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

I NEEDED TO HEAR it from her lips.

Something about the way he’d said what he did, didn’t sound right. Didn’t add up.

There were many times where Blake and I hadn’t communicated the way we should have. Many times where, if we’d just talked things out, our circumstances could have been different. But it didn’t feel like that.

I woke up to my phone ringing beside me.

“Hello,” I croaked, sleep heavy in my throat.

“Hey,” Blake said hushed. “Can you talk?” Her breathing was labored and her voice warbled.

I sat up on the couch and tried to concentrate through the fog of my nap.

“Yeah, are you okay? What’s going on?” It was evening and the sun had almost set. I’d slept away most of the day.

“I’m fine. I need to tell you what’s going on. I need you to tell me what to do. I never do the right thing. I never make the right decision. I’m tired of hurting us. Just tell me what to do.” She was rambling, and by the sound of it, she was almost in tears. Her tone was high pitched and she spoke in rushed, clipped sentences.

“Hey. Hey. Hey. Shhh. We’ll figure it out. What happened?”

The haze that occupied my mind was blown away. She was shaken. The urgency in her voice wasn’t something I’d heard many times before. In the past, when we’d fight, I’d leave or she would. We weren’t practiced in working through things together.

“Grant called me today. He said that he wanted to talk. And you know how I’ve been trying to get the courage to give him the divorce papers? Well, I thought it was a good time.” She was going so fast, I had to make a real effort to keep up “He wanted to meet for dinner. I offered to meet him at the house, but he insisted on going to dinner.”

She spoke like she was confessing. It must have been such a weird place to be. Explaining things, just so I wouldn’t jump to the wrong conclusions. She really had changed over the past month, it wasn’t all just talk.

Still, feeling like I was missing something, my gut told me I needed more information. I needed to know exactly what he was up to. He’d picked a hell of a time to start fighting for her. That was for sure.

“Okay. Is that where you are? What did he say?”

“Casey, I didn’t want to go to dinner with him. This isn’t a date or whatever. You know that, right?” Her voice cracked and I wished I could touch her. She was having a difficult time talking through her anxiety and even though she was speaking low, I could hear her agony. She must have either gone outside or to the bathroom to be alone.

Flags rose and alert buzzers went off in my head.

“I know. I know. What’s going on?” I sat forward and rested my arms on my knees, running my free hand over the corners of my eyes to rid them of sleep.

“We’re at Michael’s, a restaurant I like. I drove myself.” She just kept confessing. It was painful to hear her sounding so guilty and paranoid. She’d been through a lot for us. Listening to how she was reacting, it killed me I wasn’t there to give her relief.

“Just slow down. It’s okay,” I reassured her.

“Anyway, I gave him the divorce papers and told him I want out of our marriage. I did, Casey. I told him I’m done. I feel bad, but I don’t want him and there’s no sense in sugarcoating it. I’m not being mean, but he just won’t listen. What’s the point in dragging everyone through this? It’s exhausting, you know?”

Did I ever.

I didn’t want Aly, in much the same way, I thought. Good people don’t like hurting people, but often that’s just life.

“What did he say? Did he get angry?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a little, but he said he wants to see a counselor. That if I saw one with him for a while, and still wanted to end things,
then
he’d sign the papers.”

That sneaky motherfucker.

He’d lied to me. Then called her to make it the truth.

The fact she was talking about it with me, made me want do a victory lap around my living room. Blake, not keeping it a secret from me, inspired me to get a sky-writer to fly “Betty is mine, Fucker” over Seattle.

But the fact he was fighting for her made me realize, he wasn’t going to bow out gracefully. And asking her to tell him to fuck off wasn’t the right move. Not for her. Not for him. And, unfortunately, not for me.

Would she wonder, in the years to come, if she’d made the right decision? And even if I didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought, she did. Her family’s approval meant the world to her and I knew how conflicted she felt telling them she was filing for a divorce.

Since she was freaking, it wouldn’t do us any good if I freaked out, too. But inside, the feeling that I’d won huge was already getting squashed by insecurity.

“What do you want to do?” I asked, hoping I already knew the answer. Hoping she didn’t want to see a couples counselor with him. Hoping that if she did she wouldn’t think I was a mistake.

“I don’t want to do anything with him, but I don’t want him to fight me in court either. Or make this any worse than it already is.”

“How long did he say you’d have to see someone together, before he’d sign?”

“He didn’t. I came in here to call you right after he proposed the idea.”

I loved that.

“Thank you for confiding in me,” I said. If there was such a thing as a pride hard-on, I was in danger of getting one.

“You’re very welcome, I needed you. What should I do?”

It was simple. We were both terrible about overthinking things, and where this situation could have been a fucking train wreck, we were doing okay. I just had to stay calm and keep it simple. But we were handling it.

I said, “I love you. Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.
Only you,
” she said purposefully.

If Grant, that bastard, was conniving enough to lie on the phone to me, then he was willing to fight dirty. I didn’t want that for her. She liked her doctor and her doctor sympathized with her, from what she’d told me. I had to trust that overnight and just from seeing a shrink a few times, they wouldn’t magically grow a great relationship.

“Do you trust me, honeybee?”

“Please, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Then agree to it. Set a limit with him though. However many sessions you feel is enough. Or by a certain date.” My chest burned telling her to see a couples counselor—or just a therapist, but whatever—with the man I wanted to throw off a cliff. But it seemed like the best solution for
her.
The easiest. Maybe they would both get closure.

Not that I enjoyed the idea, but maybe they had a chance at being friends.

That fucker.

All right,
friends
was a little too much for me to swallow at that moment. I didn’t want them to be friends, but not everything was about me. And after meeting the bitches-guy, in the bar—who was going through some major shit—suggesting a little therapy for them couldn’t hurt.

I was being a man about it and that was the man thing to do. God, I hoped it scored me some karma and didn’t blow up in my face.

“I don’t want to,” she objected.

The burning in my chest grew hotter hearing her say that, but I had to focus. “Do you want a divorce?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you think he’ll do what he says?”

“I don’t think he’d lie to me.” That made one of us.

That fucker.

“Then what are you scared of, honeybee? This seems like the easiest way. It’ll be okay. It’ll get things over sooner than later.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I heard her tears. She cried them for me.

I bit my knuckles.

Time wasn’t ever our friend, but I’d signed up for a year. She’d been fast-tracking her divorce more than I’d ever dreamed possible. If this made it easier on her, and her family, and that fucking fuck of a fucking robot fucker, then it was the least I could do.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” I said and I actually believed it. No longer did I think she would hurt me. Not after she’d done everything she said she would. There were many reasons for me to not believe her, but we’d wasted too much time dicking over what the other one was thinking. She’d just poured her heart out, obviously worried about me. She didn’t want to hurt me.

Our new way of communicating was foreign, but the simple act of her calling to confer with me about the situation…well, I couldn’t force her to do something that might bring her more anxiety. More heartache. More guilt. More pain. I couldn’t be the bastard that told her no about this.
That
would only bite me in the ass.