Sabine stood up. Her hands were shaking. She felt like this was the moment. She would finally get to say the things she never got to express wholly. “You let me hold her by myself. You let me scream into an empty room. You let me lose alone. I needed you and you were out with a woman who—who you eventually ended up?—”
“Sleeping with.” Silence. “I didn’t mean for it to happen but I let it…and it broke us…for good.”
Sabine’s whole body stilled. Then, she laughed but it wasn’t a joyful sound. It was bitter.
Adair knew she’d never heard him say it that plainly before. Never heard him actually own it out loud instead of dancing around it. And even though it happened while they were separated, him laying up with that woman after everythign they'd already been through only shattered Sabine worse. It was like every wound between them got ripped back open at once.
“You thinkthat’swhen we broke? No, Adair. No, sweetie. We were already broken. You just kept pretending like we weren’t. Therapy could’ve worked.It could’ve workedbut you never showed up. You always had an excuse. A client. Always a meeting though, always a fucking excuse! I was grieving our daughter by myself while you kept chasing some image of success you thought would fix us. A family I couldn’t hold together by myself.”
“I thought I was building something for us.”
“No. You were building something for you! I was just collateral damage.” Then her voice cracked wide open, finally. Now she was pacing in front of him. “And the crazy part? I should’ve beat both y’all asses! You andWhorrine. Do you know how many nights I laid there thinking about it? About how easy it would’ve been to roll up to that office and humiliate you like you humiliated me? How I wanted to drag her nasty across the parking lot? Looking at me like I was fucking HER HUSBAND!”
Adair’s eyes dropped to the floor. She wasn’t being dramatic. She was being honest, and he let her. He let Sabine get it all out even if that meant screaming or whipping his ass. Again. She deserved this.
“But it wasn’t her fault! She didn’t owe me shit, she got to be a hoe formyhusband because you let her! She felt entitled becauseyoulet her! She was what life could’ve been if you didn’t have a pregnant wife and baby at home! She was easy!Refreshing probably! EVERYTHING I USED TO BE BEFORE YOU TOOK IT FROM ME! You made me feel stupid. You made me feel disposable,” she wept. “I was tired. Tired of begging you to come home. Tired of carrying all the weight of your absence. I was grieving AND parenting. Crying in a closet while Ade napped because I didn’t want to scare him. And you were nowhere. Except in a office hiding like a fucking coward! From a family you…”
“I what?” Adair asked, feeling what she wanted to say. “A family I forced on you.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I heard you that day, Sabine,” he dropped his head.
“What?”
“I heard you that day. On the phone, talking to Narri and your sister about how you regretted going to New York, marrying me…”
Sabine’s face scrunched up a bit because for a second, she couldn’t recall then it all came crashing down on her. She remembered that call and the many others she’d had while sitting at home alone, pregnant with a baby and no husband in sight.
“I wasn’t supposed to hear it. You were in the bedroom. I had just walked in. You didn’t even know I was home. You said you felt stuck. That you were drowning. That you didn’t know who you were anymore.”
Sabine turned her face, but not in shame, just to regroup, because the rage was surging back. “Because Iwasdrowning, Adair. I didn’t know who the fuck I was. You had me in that apartment all day, every day, with a baby and a belly. You were barely there! And when you were, your body showed up, but you didn’t.”
“I was trying?—”
“You weren’t!” she screamed, finally. “You weren’t trying! You were hiding! From me, from our life, from everything we were building that wasn’t easy and shiny and applauding you for every little fucking thing!” she shouted and he swallowed hard. “I was scared and lonely all the time and I said shit I didn’t mean. But youmademe feel like a burden. You made me feel like you had a whole life you could’ve lived if I hadn’t gotten pregnant! Like I ruined some bright-ass future by just existing!”
“I never felt that way,” he said immediately, fiercely, but she shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter if you felt it. It matters that Idid.” The words hung there. Sabine’s shoulders shook as she wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “And you couldn’t even be present enough to sit with me even in silence.”
“I wasn’t ready to face it…”
“No, you weren’t ready tofeelit. Because if you did, you’d have to admit you fucked up something youaskedfor. You married me. You told me to follow you and you would protect me, us. You said we’d be fine, that I could stay home with Ade, that we were a team. But when things got heavy, I was the only one lifting.”
Adair’s eyes burned. But he didn’t say anything.
“I should’ve beat y’all asses,” she muttered again, softer now but no less real as she paced. She replayed so many things from the past over in her head and how she wished to have handled it. “That bitch felt safe humiliating me because she watched you humiliate me first and you let her.”
He nodded. “You’re right.”
“And you know what, I’ll give you one thing, I should’ve spoken up, told you all the things I would tell Narri but neither of usobviouslydidn’t talk to each other. We found other people for that, huh?” she took a dig. “If that’s what you’re using as a cop-out to why you failed your family then I’m so sorry Adair,that you couldn’t keep promisesyoumade for a life I wanted to give you because…because I loved you. Simply because I fucking loved you, nothing more, nothing less. I loved a selfish man. I loved you so much I would’ve followed you to the ends of the earth if you told me that’s where our happiness would be. So I don’t want an apology. If that’s what you’re here to give, I accept it but I don’t forgive you. I want my time back. I want my daughter back. I want to forget that I ever had to labor through griefalone. Can I get any of that back?”
Solemnly Adair shook his head no; guilt etched into every muscle in his face. He didn’t even stop the tears when they pooled in his eyes then fell down his face.
This wasn’t a good idea either. Even simply allowing her the space to express her hurt was still hurting her.
It was him.