Page 38 of Fox
Well, he didn’t either, now did he?
I look away, my emotions rising hotly.
The anger is helpful.
Especially when he’s aroundall the time, being the kind of husband I used to think he was.
When a nurse helps me sit up, Fox is on his feet before she finishes arranging himself between me and any difficulty, as if he were trained for it.
“I’ve got her,” he snaps at the nurse, and then to me he says, gently, “Sweetheart, put your weight here—is that okay, does this hurt?—”
“Yes,” I choke out, because it does hurt, because four fractured ribs are not a small thing, and I am not above my own actual pain.
But also: “Yes, this hurts,”in the larger sense.
Yes, you have done this, all of this, the accident and the grief and the driving and the crying, all of it leads back to you, and now you are standing here asking if this hurts like you have any business being tender about it.
My anger the foundation on which I build my performance, brick by brick. It is very good building material because it does not warp, it does not soften, and it does not look at him sleeping in a chair at three in the morning and feel anything complicated.
I use it. Sometimes pettily.
“Can you get me some water?” I ask when he has just sat down.
He gets up. Gets the water.
“Actually, can you close that blind a little? The light?—”
He does as I ask.
“Sorry, can you open it again?” I ask as soon as he sits back down. “I think I need the light.”
He does so without any hesitation.
“Anything you need, sweetheart, you just have to ask,” he murmurs, stroking my cheek with a finger.
Tell me the truth, then, so I can tell you the truth.
13
SOME LIES, SOME TRUTHS
FOX
Ilied to my wife.
Sue me.
What was I supposed to do? Hand her the truth and watch her walk away all over again?
She forgot me. Forgot how much of a dick I was—which, honestly, works in my favor.
She fucking forgot me. Forgotus. The way we hold each other, the way we fuck, make love—all of it. Gone.
And now I’m this—this mass of rage and fear and insecurity, every feeling I’ve spent my whole life refusing to experience. I was the master of stoicism. Proud of it, even.
That’s out the window now.
Turns out I’m just like every other man in love—scared shitless of losing the one person he can’t live without. Except mine doesn’t know me.
