Page 34 of So Close to You
She doesn’t answer. Outside, the rain-soaked trees parade beneath an overcast sky. The trip to the country inn wassupposed to be a wonderful getaway—two days away from the clinic, the endless meetings, the kids, and the constant calls at all hours. Two days to try to salvage what’s left of their marriage. But Seraphina can only feel her heart shrink with every passing mile.
Elliot exhales and drums his fingers on the steering wheel.
“The kids were thrilled at the idea of spending these days with my parents. Ivy had been insisting on sleeping over at Grandma’s, and Oliver had it all planned out to play chess with his grandpa. We have a whole weekend to ourselves… and it feels like I’m taking you to death row.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she murmurs.
“Then talk to me, Phina,” he insists. “Tell me what’s really going on. I haven’t recognized you for months. Is it work? Is it me? What the hell is going on between us?”
Seraphina turns her head toward the fogged-up window and watches the raindrops slide down the glass.
“I’m just tired, Elliot.”
“You’ve been tired for far too long,” Elliot replies, though he can’t hide the pain in his voice. “It seemed like things had gotten better, but for weeks now I’ve felt like I’m watching you slip away right in front of me without understanding why.”
Silence settles between them. Seraphina feels her husband’s words pierce her to the core because they are completely true. Despite believing she was hiding her lie well, Elliot has watched her fall apart without being able to do anything, and that is tearing him apart.
He reaches out and gently brushes her knee. Before, that gesture had been natural, automatic. Now she tenses up. Elliot notices it instantly and slowly withdraws his hand.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his gaze fixed on the wet road as he drums his fingers again. “Tell me, please. At least so I can fix it.”
Guilt hits Seraphina so hard it almost takes her breath away.
“You haven’t done anything,” she replies. “Nothing.”
“Then stop looking at me as if you’re the one who’s trapped here,” Elliot says. “Because it’s killing me. It’s killing me to see that you don’t even want me to touch you anymore.”
Seraphina presses her lips together because she has no idea how to explain to him that she does feel trapped, even if it’s not because of him. And that’s precisely why she finds it unbearable. Elliot is a good man. He isn’t cruel or indifferent. He’s still fighting for their marriage—or at least, he’s tried—while his wife thinks of someone else every time she closes her eyes.
“I just need to disconnect for a bit,” Seraphina says, trying to smile.
“That’s what I’m trying to get us to do this weekend,” Elliot replies with a sad expression. “But it seems like you don’t even want me to try anymore.”
Seraphina looks down, embarrassed, and glances back at her phone. She still hasn’t received a single message, and that absence leaves her with a ridiculous, agonizing emptiness that makes her hate herself just a little more.
Elliot lets out a bitter laugh.
“You know what the worst part is, Phina?” he asks without looking at her.
She barely turns her head.
“That I don’t even know anymore if you’re thinking about the clinic, work… or just wishing you were anywhere else but here with me.”
The words hang between them as the rain continues to beat against the windshield. Seraphina can’t think of any answer that won’t tear them apart a little more.
The country inn appears amid damp hills and narrow roads surrounded by forest. The stone facade, illuminated by warm lanterns, looks like something out of a postcard. Immediately, Seraphina notices the intimacy the place exudes: lit fireplaces, couples talking by fogged-up windows. The kind of place where people go to reconnect.
Seraphina feels nauseous the moment she walks through the door.
During dinner, she manages to put on a pretty good act. She smiles when she should and catches up with Elliot on the latest cases she’s handled outside of her work at the clinic. Seraphina wants to make an effort to rekindle the spark between them, and when Oliver and Ivy come up in conversation, she even manages to laugh. But the effort required to maintain that functional version of herself is too costly and, above all, a blatant lie.
Elliot senses it all. Every belated smile. Every distant look. Every time she seems to mentally leave the room.
And when they go up to the suite, the emotional exhaustion weighs so heavily that Seraphina can barely stand.The room is beautiful, she realizes. A fireplace crackles beside the bed while the rain beats against the tall windows and the dark forest stirs on the other side of the glass.
Elliot sets the keys on the sideboard and unbuttons the top buttons of his shirt.
“I’m going to order a bottle of wine,” he says. “It’ll do us good.”
