Can't Look Away(110)

He shrugs. “Not really.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jake?”

“Wrong with me?” Anger rises in his chest. He stabs his pointer finger against his chest, then flips it around. “You just pushed a pregnant woman down a flight of stairs!”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant!”

“It doesn’t matter, Sabrina. Those things you said—in front of Stella, in front of Hunter, in front of all of Molly’s family and friends—they were … they were evil.” He glares at her in disbelief. His own wife is a stranger.

“Okay, maybe I took it a step too far because I’m upset, but seriously, Jake? How are you defending her? You cheated on me with her, not to mention the fact that she’s been lying to you for years about your own child! I mean, really? Grow a pair.”

His jaw clenches. “You don’t know everything about Molly and me, Sabrina.” He hisses the words, watching them slide into her veins like poison. He hopes they hurt.

“Stop calling me Sabrina,” she says, her voice catching.

“What should I call you, then?” he spits. “Caitlin? Lenore?”

She scowls. “Molly and her friend are both deranged.”

“Are they? That’s convenient.” He throws his hands up. “I’m going for a walk. I need some time to think.”

“When will you be back?” she calls behind him, but he ignores her, already halfway down the driveway.

At the mailbox, Jake turns right, his head fogged with a mix of devastation and regret and sheer, staggering confusion. He is Stella’s father. Molly’s beautiful, talented, curious, perfect girl is his daughter. Six and a half years ago, Molly was pregnant. That’s why she left him so abruptly. That’s the reason she moved out without saying goodbye.

He wants to be mad—he’s almost willing himself toward anger—but he can’t get there. Jake has done enough soul-searching in the years since he lost Molly to understand who he was back then, how incapable he’d been of putting anyone before himself, even when he wanted to. It’s a painful pill, but one he has to swallow.

Jake walks all the way down Woodson Road, past joggers and flocks of women in sunglasses pushing fancy strollers. He thinks of Molly’s mother, the horror that filled her eyes after Sabrina pushed her daughter, the hysteria rocking her voice: She’s pregnant, you bitch! He thinks of the ambulance pulling into the driveway just as they were leaving, its lights flashing red like shiny jewels.

The memory feels like a nightmare. In this moment, nothing matters except for Molly and her baby. Jake just wants them to be okay. It doesn’t matter that he has a thousand questions, like how Hunter wound up with Molly so quickly after she left him, and what kind of father Hunter is to Stella, and if this has all been hard for him, and if Jake will be able to see Stella again, and what inside of his own soul is so permanently broken that he ended up married to someone like Sabrina.

Jake walks in a trance until he’s ended up all the way in town, standing between Gwen’s and the post office. He blinks in surprise. He’s walked more than five miles. By the time he gets back to the house, it’s nearly dark out, the sky a rich, inky blue, the last of the light a dim thread of orange along the horizon.

He finds Sabrina in the kitchen, curled in the fetal position on the window seat overlooking the driveway. A smoky, charred scent permeates the room.

Jake flicks on the pendant lights above the center island. “Is something burning?” He goes over to the oven and removes a ceramic baking dish. Whatever meal it contains—lasagna, he guesses—is black and bubbling, inedible.

“Jesus, Sisi.” He places the dish on the stove as smoke fills the kitchen. He opens the double windows above the sink and waves at the air until the smoke subsides.

“Where the hell have you been?” Sabrina sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes. “I called you a dozen times.” Her voice is low and croaky; Jake can tell she’s had more to drink since Stella’s party. His eyes find a near-empty bottle of wine on the counter, a stemless glass smudged with her lip gloss.

“I turned off my phone.” He plucks a tumbler from the dish drainer and fills it with tap water, then hands it to Sabrina, averting his gaze. He doesn’t want to look at her. He can’t. “You should drink this.”

She takes a small sip. “Where the hell have you been?” she repeats.

“I told you I was going for a walk.”

“For four hours?”

“I lost track of time.” He sighs. “Molly is in the hospital right now. Because of you.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, not sounding sorry at all. “Think she’s okay?”

“This is over, Sisi.”

“Huh?”

“We are over. I’m leaving you.”

The water glass slips from her fingers. There’s a high-pitched clanging as the pieces shatter on the floor. “What are you talking about?” She studies him, her green eyes swimming with panic.

Jake rests a hand on the counter. “I’m packing a bag tonight, and I’m leaving. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

“Because of Molly?”

“No. Because of us. Because I don’t love you.” The words emerge as resolutely as he feels them inside.