Every Wrong Reason(39)

“Stop acting like a three-year-old.”

That was it. The last straw. My chair scratched over the wood flooring as I pushed back and jumped up from my seat. I fled for the door, ignoring the protests and frustrated calls of my name. I had to get out of here.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t be us again.

I grabbed my purse off the couch and let the screen door slam shut behind me. It snapped against the frame for a second time when Nick followed me outside.

“Kate, are you serious?”

I whirled around and tried to breathe through my anger. “Nick, are you?”

“What is your problem! I thought we were cool. Friday night we-”

My eyes flooded with tears and I wasn’t sure why. “Don’t,” I whispered.

He took a step back. His hand had been reaching out to me and he dropped it. “You’re serious,” he said.

“I can’t do this. I can’t have you here with my parents, acting as if nothing’s wrong. As if we’re fine and normal and not in the middle of a divorce.”

“We’re not in the middle of a divorce,” he bit out. “We’re separated, Kate. Neither of us has filed. Neither of us has to file.”

“What?” The breath whooshed out of me and for a second I didn’t think I’d be able to stay standing.

“You heard me.” He lifted his jaw defiantly and narrowed his gaze again.

For a hysterical second I thought he was going to dare me not to divorce him. As if all I needed was the challenge of making us work and I would forget about wanting to leave him.

As if I would take his dare.

As if it were that easy.

“Did you even need your amps?” I took a step toward him, not sure what I was going to do or say. Part of me wanted to shake him. The other part wanted to collapse in his arms and tell him he was right. So. Right. “Was this just an excuse to see me again?”

He returned my question with one of his own. “Why are you so hell bent on leaving me? Is this about having a baby? Kate, I-”

My heart jumped in my chest and then crashed back into place, only this time it was shattered into a million pieces. “Don’t,” I begged him with a broken, desperate voice. “Don’t.” A tearless, silent sob shook my entire body and I had to hold my hand to my face to keep from completely falling apart. “Nick, this,” I flicked my finger between us, “is what this is about. Not kids, not my parents not any other reason than we cannot get along. When we’re together, we’re miserable. I’m tired of being miserable.”

“We weren’t the other night,” he quickly reminded me. “We weren’t miserable.”

“That was one night! One! What about all of the other nights? What about all of the other days and fights and years of not getting along? I’m not trying to hurt you. Or, at least, not intentionally. I’m trying to give you a chance to find happiness somewhere else.”

“Because you want to find happiness somewhere else.”

I could have argued with him. I could have sworn that it wasn’t entirely about me, that I wanted us both to be better off, that I was thinking of him as much as I was myself. But I didn’t.

Instead, I let him believe it. I let him think the worst of me.

I let him decide that I wasn’t worth fighting for.

“I have to go,” I whispered.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t argue and he didn’t come after me again.

I got in my car and drove away. I didn’t last one block before I started crying again, before the tears and pain became so much I had to pull over and cave into the pressure in my chest and the sobs that racked my entire body.

Eventually, I stopped crying. Eventually, I stopped shaking. But when I got home, I didn’t feel any better. And when I crawled into my empty bed that night, it started all over again.

I didn’t go to family dinner for the rest of the month.





Chapter Eleven


18. He can’t let go.




I slumped against the doorframe to Kara’s office and dropped my bag to my feet. She looked up at me from where she stood over her desk examining some papers and frowned at me.

Unlike the rest of the school, Kara’s office was warmly lit and smelled like heaven. She burned candles all year round, despite the fact that they were against school policy. Mr. Kellar let her get away with it because she argued that her students needed to feel safe and comfortable. He apparently agreed, because he never said anything to her except when there was an inspection.

“You look like shit.”

I glared at her. “Thank you.”

“What happened?” Her voice softened to gentle concern.

“Don’t ever get married. It’s not worth it.”

Her lips pursed and her shoulders straightened. “I wasn’t planning on it, but thanks for the advice anyway.”

I couldn’t tell if I offended her or not. She wasn’t married, she wasn’t even dating, but that wasn’t because there was something wrong with her. She was hot, successful in her own right and the best person I knew. She wasn’t with someone because she chose not to be.

I had always thought of her as the quintessential empowered woman. But there was something in her expression just now… something I couldn’t read.