F*ck Marriage(84)

“It’ll take time … healing,” Woods assures me. “You just need to see that I’m here to stay. Things will be different.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I think what’s different is me. I spent years wanting to rewind time and fix things between us. I was so fixated on that that I missed something important. That—I’m not that girl anymore. The one who wanted to be with you. I’ve wanted to be her again because I liked her better than who I am now.”

He laughs. It’s a bitter sound in this peaceful place. I can’t blame him really. I got us into this mess by coming back to New York with him. By saying yes when he asked me to marry him for the second time. By ignoring the voice in my own mind that has never ever steered me wrong.

“And who do you want to be with, Billie? Satcher? Does he fit who you are now?” There’s so much anger in his words I look away.

“I’m so sorry, Woods,” I say, the tears moving sluggishly down my cheeks. I reach up to wipe them away.

“You’re kidding me.” He takes a step away from me, looking out the window.

I flinch at his tone. I think of Satcher then and I have to use all of my restraint not to break down and sob. I’m not okay without Satcher. The thought of never seeing him again, never being able to hear his voice, or see the dimples appear in his cheeks makes me want to double over in pain.

“He doesn’t love you. Satcher only loves himself.”

“You should go,” I say.

I don’t have to ask him twice. Woods storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell myself.

I’m still sitting in the chair, trapped by my dress, when there’s a knock on the door. She doesn’t wait for me to invite her in this time; my mother walks directly over to where I’m sitting and helps me to my feet.

“There’s a cab waiting downstairs for you,” she says. “You can leave out the back.”

“What about everyone who came? I owe them—”

“Nothing,” she interrupts. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation about your choices.”

“Wow, Mom.”

She looks flustered. “I care too much.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but her words come out so forcefully I startle. “And just because I torture myself by caring too much doesn’t mean you should too.”

I grab her then and hug her so tight it’s her turn to be startled. After a few seconds of shock, I feel her hands lift to my back in our first reciprocated hug in a decade.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too. You better go.”

I nod, letting her go and grabbing the last of my things.

“I’ll call you,” I say. “To let you know where I am.”

“Are you going to find Satcher?”

My hands still on the zipper of my bag. “Yeah. I don’t know if he’ll…” I mean to say Forgive me, but I can’t get the words out.

“He will,” she says. “He has it bad.”

I smile.





Chapter Forty





The cab takes me home where I drop off my bag and grab my coat. I walk the twenty blocks to his building even though it’s snowing, and even though I’m still in my wedding dress. I need some time to formulate words … words to express how sorry I am. My hands are numb and my lungs ache from the cold air, but I feel alive, and that’s what counts. If he’s not there I don’t know what I’ll do. Huge mounds of dirty snow are banked against curbs. I walk up the path to his building, and the doorman greets me with a smile.

“He in?” I ask.

“No. He left for the airport.” He eyes my dress, which can’t be hidden even behind a heavy winter coat.

“The airport? Where’s he going?”

“Didn’t say.”

“When did he leave?”

“Early this morning. He asked me to get him a cab.”

“Shit,” I say. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I pull out my phone to call him, but it goes straight to voicemail. He’s probably already in the air.

“Try his mom.”

I’m still studying my phone trying to decide my next plan of action so I’m not sure if I’ve heard him right.

“What?”

“His mom. Moms always know where their kids are. Even if their kids are forty. Mine is a huge pain in the ass. She makes me text her every night when I get home so she knows I’m safe.”

“Oh my God, are you forty? You look like you’re twenty.”

“I am.” He grins. “But my older sister is thirty-seven and my mom makes her call too.”

I laugh and then say, “I—I don’t really know her that well. It would be weird to call her.”

He shrugs. “If you want to know where he is that’s the way to go…”

I thank him and move away from the door. I bite my lip, staring down at the ground. The bottom of my dress is grey, the dirt ground into the silk like a tattoo. I suppose now is the time to stop being such a coward. I almost remarried my ex-husband because I was too much of a coward to move on with my life. I take a deep breath and hit dial.