“It’s not fair?” My voice cracked on the word. My hands curled into fists so tight that my nails bit into my palms. “You don’t even fucking look at me anymore, Peter. You look THROUGH me, like I’m some convenient hole you tolerate between football games.”
He slammed his beer down. Amber liquid sloshed over the rim and onto his fingers. He didn’t wipe it off. His face darkened as he sprang to his feet.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” he snarled.
“Is it?” I stepped closer, my whole body trembling, but I didn’t back up. I had finished backing up. “Is it?”
“Yes,” he snapped, his face reddening from his collar to his hairline. “You’ve fucking changed.”
I let out a laugh that hurt coming up. “Yeah. I grew the fuck up.”
“No,” his voice dropped low, quiet. “You got comfortable.”
It hit hard, harder than I wanted it to.
Comfortable.
My jaw clenched, my molars grinding against each other.
“You know what?” he kept going, jabbing his finger toward me as if making a point in some boardroom. “I work my ass off. I come home fucking exhausted. The last thing I need is you attacking me because you can’t handle the truth.”
“The TRUTH?” My voice shot up so high it didn’t even sound like mine. “You just told me I fucking disgust you!”
“I didn’t say disgusted,” he snapped.
“You didn’t have to.” My throat burned. My eyes stung, butI would not cry. I would not give him that. “I saw your face, Peter, when you said let herself go—I saw exactly what you meant. You looked at me like dog shit stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“So don’t you dare,” I said, my voice shaking now, every word deliberate, “stand there and tell me I can’t handle the truth. I’ve been handling it every night you finish in three minutes, roll over, and fall asleep without even asking if I’m okay. I’ve been handling it every time you look at your phone instead of me.”
My chest heaved. The kitchen was too bright, too quiet.
“The truth isn’t the problem,” I said. “You are.”
We stared at each other across the kitchen, his face tight.
Four fucking years.
Four years of my life, and only now seeing him clearly—this stranger with his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, looking at me like I’d become a problem he no longer wanted to solve.
“I’m not asking for much,” I said. My voice dropped low, barely above a whisper, but it filled the room. “I’m asking to be wanted.”
He didn’t respond, merely stood there, breathing through his nose, staring at me with those flat, dead eyes.
Nothing.
Something inside me changed. Not shattered—I had moved beyond the point of breaking. The silence between us pulled taut until it reverberated, and Peter stood there with his jaw locked, as if everything I’d said had bounced off him and died on the kitchenfloor.
My vision narrowed.
I lunged at him.
My palm cracked across his face so hard that the sound bounced off the cabinets. His head snapped sideways. A red handprint appeared on his cheek before he’d even turned back to look at me. The only sound was my ragged breathing.
Then his eyes found mine.
Dark. Furious. Pupils so wide there was almost no color left.