F*ck Marriage(77)

Satcher is angry with me. He thinks I’m better than sleeping with my ex-husband who is currently engaged to my nemesis. I’m not sure I am, but the night I claimed I slept with Woods went completely different than the story I told.



After Woods and I got to Jules’ apartment, all of our rapidly building chemistry extinguished. It was as if the walk from the restaurant to the apartment (a mere five blocks) had cooled the attraction, leaving us tired and emotionally tense. I made drinks anyway, feeling a growing heaviness in my chest. What would I have done if things kept going like they were in the restaurant? Would I have slept with him? My mother always said that our intentions represented our depravity, while our actual behavior showed who we chose to be. Currently, I was choosing to be a lukewarm hostess, not meeting Woods’ eyes. I made drinks that were too strong and when I caught sight of my reflection in the kettle my eyeliner had bled and my mascara was smudged. That’s what I got for buying the cheap stuff. I looked like a back-alley hooker. I excused myself to the bathroom as soon as I handed Woods his drink and washed my face with scalding hot water. I emerged pink-faced and wearing my fluffy winter robe. There was nothing about my current look that said I was trying to seduce someone.

“You look beautiful,” Woods said as soon as I exited the bathroom.

“What? No,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks.

He laughed. “You put on your granny robe to send a message, didn’t you?”

I eyed him warily as I made my way around the island putting three feet of space between us.

“How did you know that?”

“You used to put on that robe when you didn’t want to have sex.”

I laughed not just because he was right, but because he knew me so well.

I toyed with the belt of my robe while I stared at him. He watched me so closely, I felt a fleet of goose bumps skitter over my arms.

“Why did you really come back?”

His question jarred me. I was too drunk to lie though, so when I answered it was with the insecure, ugly truth.

“I wanted to know why I wasn’t enough.”

He dropped his head just as suddenly as he asked the question, and I stared at him earnestly. Please, please, I’m so close to answers.

When Woods looked up, his expression was one I’d only seen on his face twice before: once when his grandfather died, and the other when I broke down and sobbed after he told me he wanted a divorce.

“Billie,” his voice was strained. “You were enough. It was me who was never enough. Every day I tried to meet your expectations and every day I failed.”

A cry escaped my throat. How could he say that? I’d adored him. In a flash he’d gone from adoring me to treating me like a stranger. It was shocking. I’d never been able to figure it out—why men were given that internal switch and women were not. One little flick and they could turn their feelings on and off—so in control. I used to love this one and now I love that one. Men were more loyal to football teams than they were to women. They never cheated on those.

“I never asked you for anything. How can you say that?”

“That’s exactly right, Billie. Because you didn’t need me. I’ve never felt more like a useless fuck in my life.”

I was shocked into silence. In the eight years we were together, three of them married, Woods never once mentioned anything like this.

“You were the brains, the talent, the ambition. Anything I offered was a dull knife to your sharp one.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “What did I do to make you feel like that?”

“I made myself feel that way. In the beginning it was what drew me to you, how you were so sure of yourself. So capable and bright. Your brain reminded me of a big city, always lit up and spinning around and around. I was just always a small-town boy trying to make it in the big city.”

“Goddammit, Woods.”

“Just shush and listen, Billie.”

I closed my mouth. He held his sweating glass between his hands, but I hadn’t seen him drink anything.

He shook his head, curls falling all over. Woods and his big hands, and his big eyes, and his big curls. I always loved being underneath those hands.

“It was easy with Pearl. She thought I was the beginning and the end.”

His words were like an icy hand around my heart, fingers digging, digging. “So you left me for Pearl because she fed your ego? Bravo.” I was already turning away, finished with this conversation. The thief of love was ego. How weak was love that it could not sustain insecurity? Wasn’t it supposed to do the opposite?

“It wasn’t love…”

I stopped.

“Hear me out,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

He walked around to face me.

“What I felt for you was love. The poets, the philosophers—they say things about perfect love. How it heals, how it behaves, how it braves all things. But they’re idealizing it. Best-case scenario: love saves the day. But I was the worst-case scenario. Love is sometimes powerful enough to self-destruct. Because when an imperfect person wields the most powerful weapon in the universe, they’re bound to trip over their own feet.”

“How can you say this to me now?” My voice lifted and warped like old linoleum. Words that could have saved me before—saved us before—given too late.