Page 42 of Faking Forever
“I never wanted a fucking damsel, Kenna!” he snapped. “You’re always so capable. I felt superfluous. Like I served no real purpose in your life. You wouldn’t even tell me about your day when you came home. Even when you were clearly upset about something, you never talked to me about it.”
“I didn’t want to bring my work into our home.”
“So you chose what? Sterile silence instead? We never spoke aboutanythingmeaningful. Even losing our baby didn’t warrant any kind of discussion.” She swayed again and he swore. “Christ, Kenna, sit down before you fall over.”
She ignored him, leaning on her cane for dear life.
“I know that in coming here I’ve pretty much given you permission to shit all over me,” she said, voice wobbling. “I’m here to choke down all of that delicious humble pie, after all. Here to apologize. Take the blame for everything. Beg you to forgive me and take me back.Sofucking sorry I couldn’t be the wife you wanted me to be, Smith. Sorry I internalized everything instead of sharing it with a man who never gave me any indication that he felt anything more for me than fondness and sexual attraction.”
“Bullsh—”
She held up a hand and glared at him. “No. You’ve saidyour piece. You’ve been very vocal about where you think the blame lies. And, for the most part, I agree with you. I could have been more emotionally available. Ishouldhave shared my crippling, excruciating pain at the loss of our baby with you.” He made a quiet, distressed sound at the back of his throat at her words. “All the nights I cried myself to sleep, I should have called for you. Allowed you to hold me and held you in return. We should have mourned together. I made those mistakes. I can’t undo them. But I also can’t change who I am.”
“I didn’t want you to change, goddamnit.” His voice was low, frustrated. He raked an irate hand through his hair, leaving it a shaggy mess. “I just wanted to know you.”
The silence between them teemed with sad regret. An ocean of unspoken conversations between them. Decisions not made and roads not taken.
“I understand that now. But you’rehurtingme, Smith.”
His face went slack and his pupils dilated.
“And maybe…” Her vision went wavy with hot tears. “Maybe I deserve it, but I find I’m not as thick-skinned as I believed I was. I’m not strong enough to take this punishment any longer.”
“Kenna.” She barely heard his quiet, hoarse exhalation.
Tears were seeping down her cheeks, the first she’d let him see since her miscarriage, and now that they’d started she found that she was quite incapable of stopping.
He moved toward her, arms outstretched, and she flinched away from his touch.
“No. Please. If you touch me right now, I’ll fall apart and I need…” Her voice was nasally and choked with tears. “I need to keep it together because I’m not done.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re hurting me, but you’re also pissing me off. As you’ve repeatedly pointed out, I made a lot of mistakesduring our marriage but so didyou. And while it’s easy to blame me for everything, it also isn’t fair.”
“What mistakes?”
“Moving out of our bedroom.”
“You were sick.”
“And your solution was to leave me alone?” Her outraged question was followed by a long, stunned silence. “When I was feeling vulnerable and terrible and bloated and unattractive, you thought the best course of action would be to leave me to it?”
“I asked if you wanted me to stay.” Now he sounded defensive and surly.
“You were clearly uncomfortable. And we’ve now established that I’m not great at asking for help. So, ofcourse,I told you it was okay. That I would be fine. Newsflash, Smith. It wasn’t okay. And I wasn’t fine.”
“You should have said something.”
“You shouldn’t have put me in the position of needing to.” God, it was becoming glaringly obvious that they were better off apart. Why was she bothering to rehash all of this now? “And afterwards, you never came back. And that reinforced my belief that you’d only ever wanted this marriage because of the baby. And that you were biding your time before leaving. If I’m terrible at communicating, Smith, you’re not much better, so maybe get off your high horse and accept some responsibility for this disaster. I’ve admitted to making mistakes. I know that I’m not…easy. But maybeyou’renot quite the great guy you think you are, either! Now, if you don’t mind, I need to call an Uber or something. I refuse to stay here another night. I’ve had enough of being treated like some kind of pariah who destroys everything she touches.”
“You can’t leave.,” he said weakly. “There’s nowhere to go.”
“Don’t worry about it, Smith, it’s not your problem. I’ll figure it out. And you know what? I’ve decided that you don’town exclusive rights to this town. I’m on leave. I’ve been injured and Riversend seems like a lovely spot to rest and recuperate. So I’ll be staying.”
“McKenna, f’fuck’s sake, you’re being unreasonable,” he grumbled. “And irrational. It’s four p.m. on a Sunday. There are no places available to rent.”
“Unreasonableandirrational?” she repeated mockingly. “Well then, it looks like this town is already changing me for the better, right? Bringing out all those messy emotions you wanted to see.”
