Every Wrong Reason(70)

“Kate…”

“Please,” I whispered.

And just like me, he couldn’t say no. “I, uh, hold on a sec.”

I heard movement on his side of the phone while he moved around his room. The entire time I waited for him, I found myself chanting, don’t hang up don’t hang up don’t hang up.

But I didn’t know if it was for him or for me.

I sat frozen in place, too afraid to move, too afraid to make a sound in case I frightened him off. When the first plucks of guitar strings reached me, I realized what he had been doing.

“This is going to be rough,” he warned. Then, under his breath, he mumbled, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

I pressed my lips together in anticipation. I felt near tears again, but I didn’t know why.

When he started singing, my knees went weak and I would have collapsed if I hadn’t already been sitting. His voice, so familiar and achingly sweet, wrapped around my skin and sunk into my bones. I closed my eyes and listened to him sing about two people so in love they breathed each other. He sang about the world coming between them and tearing them apart. He sang about their love being wide enough to reach around the entire world and find each other again. He sang about love and loss, hope and sorrow, he sang about a girl that wanted more but a boy that had enough. And then he sang the chorus.

Love that is enough.

Love that is big enough for two.

Love that is endless enough for more.

Love that is just between me and you.

He didn’t finish it. He trailed off somewhere in the second verse and claimed he couldn’t remember the rest.

“That was beautiful,” I whispered. Emotion clogged my throat and silent tears tracked down my tears. “Nick, that was…”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. I could picture him tugging on his earlobe. “I should have sung it for you last year.”

I couldn’t respond to that. I had no words. No ability to speak. We sat there silently for another minute. Then suddenly I had to get off the phone with him right then. I couldn’t spend another second talking to him.

Besides, what was I doing? We were getting a divorce! Why was I reminiscing with him about a past neither of us could change?

I wanted to throw my phone against the wall in frustration.

I forced polite words out, “Merry Christmas, Nick.”

After another beat of silence, he repeated. “Merry Christmas, Kate.”

I hung up the phone before I could say another word. I dropped my cell into the chair like it could burn me or turn into acid and eat away my skin. I jumped out of the chair so quickly Annie yelped in surprise.

I stumbled back from the wall and then toward it. I had to do something. I couldn’t feel like this anymore. I couldn’t even describe what I was feeling. It was just… everywhere. My skin crawled, my blood felt itchy and wrong. My head started pounding with a fresh headache.

God, I was a mess.

I looked at the picture he hung for me and had the strongest urge to tear it off the wall and throw it outside. I had to get rid of it. I had to get it away from me.

Instead of shredding it to pieces, I carefully lifted it from its place and carried it to the hall closet. It was heavier than I’d anticipated it to be. It wasn’t very big, but the frame was nice and sturdy.

It wasn’t just poster board slapped haphazardly together. Nick had put it together with care… made to last.

Unlike our marriage.

I set it in the hall closet next to the vacuum and closed the door behind it. I let out an agonized breath and let myself feel a little bit better.

There.

I couldn’t see it.

It wouldn’t haunt me if I couldn’t see it.

I looked around at my house and felt loneliness stir inside me. The dark corners seemed to press in on me, eating up the dim light and the happy memories that once belonged here.

Unable to take it or myself for a second longer, I called Annie to my side and dragged my tired body to bed. My mind whirled and whirled while I got ready for bed and hours later while I stared up at the ceiling fan rotating in lazing circles.

Unable to find sleep or peace, I crawled out of bed and braved the chill of night. I crept downstairs like I was a burglar in my own house. I knew no one else was there, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was doing something wrong.

Or maybe I was doing something right for the first time in a long time.

I pulled the picture from the closet and with shaking hands and trembling limbs, I rehung it on the wall.

I stepped back and stared at it.

It wasn’t a solution, but I felt a little better.

At least when I lay back down in bed, I could finally fall asleep.





Chapter Twenty


27. Second chances are a myth.




By the middle of January, school had started back up again and Nick and I had been through our second round of mediation.

We’d gotten nowhere.

Neither of us was willing to give up the house or the dog.

Mr. Cavanaugh had been exhausted by the end of it and Ryan Templeton had been contemplating murder of the first degree in his head. I wasn’t sure for whom, but if I had to guess, I would have picked me.

He probably wanted to run me over in his expensive sports car. I bet it was something beyond pretentious.