The Good Widow(52)
“Trust me. This is what I do, okay?”
I comply, holding my breath for several seconds and finally releasing it.
“Better?” Nick asks, crouching in front of me and putting two fingers on my wrist. I nod.
“Your heart rate is slowing. But now I want you to breathe in and out through your nose, slowly.”
After a few minutes, my breathing steadies, and he sits beside me. A lone tear runs down my cheek, and I let my body go limp into his side.
“Have you ever had a panic attack before?” Nick asks as he strokes my hair.
I think back to Beth finding me in my garage, keys dangling from my fingers while I leaned up against the bag of fertilizer, and nod.
“I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should have known this drive would be too much. That renting a Jeep was a bad idea.”
“This isn’t on you. I told you I could handle it. And I really thought I could. I’m just tired of being so weak.” I start to stand, but my knees buckle beneath me. “Fuck,” I mutter as Nick grabs my arm.
“Easy there,” Nick says. “You’ve got nothing to prove to me.”
“Why did this have to happen?” I whisper. “I’m just an elementary school teacher who used to think an exciting night was binge watching Netflix while eating chili-powder-seasoned popcorn. I know it sounds gross, but it’s really good.” I laugh slightly, and Nick frowns, then half smiles, clearly not sure how to react. “And now all these secrets. So much drama. My life has become a complete shit show!”
I breathe in again, slowly exhaling to please Nick. “I just don’t get how life as you know it can change in an instant. Like, you think it’s one thing, that you’re a certain person. Did you know I’m the teacher who gets oddly excited when her end-of-the-year textbook count comes out right the first time? Who tears up when I have enough extra school supplies to donate to another country? Who is meticulous about separating the sad crayons, as I call them, from the ones I can feel good about giving to the art teacher?” I sigh. “I always took pride in my work, in my life. And now I feel like it’s all been for nothing.”
Nick shakes his head. “I wish I had an answer for you, for us. I see unfair things happen to good people every single day at work. And no matter how often it happens, I still can’t figure out the reasoning behind the madness.”
“You know what I’ve been thinking about? If I could go back to the last day I saw him. This time, when we fight, I’d give him a divorce and let him have his life. I’d let him live. Even if it was with her.”
“Really?” Nick asks.
“Don’t you ever wonder if they’d still be alive if we hadn’t been so naive?”
Nick shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”
“If I’d bothered to question one damn thing, I’d have probably figured out he wasn’t being honest. If I had confronted him, he could have confessed to me that he was in love with someone else. He could have left. I would have earned the right to hate him, to be fueled with anger and jealously and ugliness.”
“And that’s what you want? To be filled with all that negativity?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “But then maybe they wouldn’t have snuck off together. Maybe they wouldn’t be dead. Even if I hated them both, they’d still be here to feel it.” I waved my hand toward the tree-filled canyon below. “Not somewhere out there.”
Nick stared at me intently, an unreadable look on his face. “Even if you had found out, and confronted him, there’s no way of knowing if that would have saved their lives. I’m not sure there’s anything you could have done to change what happened.”
“How can you say that? I could have done a million things differently. I could have been honest with him about my endometriosis. I could have refused to fight with him the last time I saw him.” I pause, my words catching in my throat. “I could have been a better wife,” I whisper.
“Jacks, we could all be better. Better husbands, better wives, better sons and daughters. But the people who love us, the ones who truly care, they accept us, even if we aren’t perfect. James could have forgiven you. Or he could have left you. He did neither. That is on him.”
“But she was able to give him the one thing I couldn’t. That baby didn’t deserve to die that day. None of them did.”
Nick tightens his grip around me, and I look up at him, my lip quivering so hard I have to bite it.
He puts his hand under my chin and tilts it up, using his thumb to wipe away my tears. It starts to rain lightly, the sky crying with me.
I close my eyes. This moment feels so raw, so real. And when you realize your life has been filled with more lies than you probably even know, you cling to any shred of honesty you can. So I allow Nick to close his mouth over mine, his lips soft and tentative.
The kiss feels different and unexpected. It’s been years since I’ve kissed another man. I haven’t memorized the curve of his jaw, the feel of his tongue. I lean in closer, our hearts beating hard against each other. I tell myself that I need Nick, and that he needs me, in a way no one would ever understand. Not my mom, who has never spent more than three nights away from my father. Or Beth. Even though she and Mark bicker constantly, they would walk across hot coals for each other. They wouldn’t understand the way Nick’s words feel like a life jacket that’s been thrown to me right before I slip under the heavy current.