It takes a long time for him to produce just one word. “Yeah.”
I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. I think my hands are still shaking. Thoughts still racing. The look in our kids’ eyes after I shouted won’t leave me.
“Billy?”
Hearing my name brings me back. “This … isn’t working.”
“What isn’t working?”
“We haven’t been ourselves in years. We get on each other’s nerves. I’m too involved in the Sweet Shoppe. You’re so busy with coaching and football. We don’t have time forusanymore.”
“We’re just havin’ a rough patch, babe, it isn’t—”
“And then our kids. Our beautiful kids. I’m such an asshole.” My face goes into my hands suddenly. “I can’t—”
He sits up and his big arms fly around my waist. His chin tucks into my neck from behind. “It was an off day. Just an off day.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve had this conversation in my head? How many times I tried to talk to you about it and you’d just blow me off? Tanner. Be honest with yourself.” I turn my head slightly. “You feel it, too. You’ve felt it as long as I have. Things … aren’t the same anymore.”
“But I love you.”
“Love isn’t enough. We’re not …” I’m off the bed and at the doorway, arms crossed. It’s easier to talk when I’m not looking at him. If I look at him right now and see his beautiful, burning eyes and the longing in his face, I’ll lose my resolve and fall right back into his arms. “We stayed together for all thewrong reasons. Your family’s reputation, with your ma being the mayor. Pressure from our friends, from all of Spruce, or hell, all of Texas. It’s too much. We stopped being honest with ourselves. I … I think we should end this … while we still love each other.”
“End? …End? Billy …”
“Before we fall out of love completely and startresentingeach other. I couldn’t live with myself if I started hating you. Even just saying that out loud is a fucking nightmare I can’t bear. I … I can’t, Tanner, I just can’t.”
He’s on the edge of the bed now. “Let’s think this over …”
“It’s all I’ve thought about. I’ve thought it over, Tanner, and I’m sure you have, too, even if you won’t admit it. We make better friends. Can’t we be honest with each other anymore and just—?”
“You’re blindsiding me here. Let me gather my thoughts a bit first! Gimmehalfa chance to fight for us before you decide—”
“I’m not happy anymore.”
The words I shouted before, now repeated calmly.
Yet they sound ten times as loud somehow.
I turn to look at him, despite the high chance of his beautiful, soulful eyes assaulting me back into submission. But instead I find Tanner staring at the floor with a vacant expression, his brow creased in thought. I can’t tell if he’s forming another argument or battling heartburn from the tension mounting between us.
It hurts me to say what I said, it really does. It hurts to see the effect my words have on the man I love. But it hurts worse to keep it in. I feel like a fate worse than this awaits us if I keep leaving everything unsaid. If I keep brushing it under. If I take a page from Tanner’s book and just pretend everything is fine.
“Even the kids feel it,” I go on. “I don’t want them to grow up in a house full of my moodiness and my … mypetulance. You should’ve seen the way Marcus looked at me. Imagine all theother times he’s noticed something off with us. I can’t do this to them any longer. It’s unfair to them.” I look at the wall, hearing the hum from the kids’ TV on the other side. “To all of us.”
Nothing more is said for a while.
Then, in a faraway voice that’s barely there, he asks, “What do we tell everyone? What about the holidays? Thanksgiving?”
I could laugh. Thanksgiving feels a million miles away. How this will affect the Strongs’ mountain of holiday traditions is last on my mind when I’m just trying to survive tonight.
“I’ll do it,” I promise him, like it’s a chore I’m volunteering to strike off of one of our countless checklists. That’s so me. “Tomorrow. At our Friday family dinner thing. I’ll tell everyone then.”
He lifts his face. “So soon?”
“If I don’t, I never will. And then what, Tanner?” I sink back against the doorframe. “Then when?”
After too long a moment, I catch a glimmer of resolve in his eyes. I wonder if he’s finally allowing himself to see the truth of it, too. It’s a truth I never thought I’d see myself, never dared to even consider, that on a random night of a random week tucked away into nothing-August, I’d be discussing the end of our marriage.