not some twenty-year-old, trying to prove something, so I don’t want you worrying about that.”
Silence spans between us as my tears continue to fall, but I don’t know if they’re falling for Alec or for Landon, and that alone makes me feel like the biggest piece of shit alive.
“I’ve missed you,” he finally says.
“I’m so sorry I lied to you.”
“Tell me why you’re calling me.”
Leaning back on the couch, I run my hand through my hair, and close my eyes. “I don’t know. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, but at the same time, I’m so confused.”
“Do you love your husband?”
“I thought I did, but maybe not if I’m sitting here thinking about you.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Eight years.”
“Don’t cry,” he whispers, and I feel like a fool. “Look, I’m no expert or anything, but I do know that I’ve come to like you and care about you. With that said, I think what you’re going through is common. I think most marriages go through these things.”
“I just don’t know what to do because I still want to talk to you.”
“You need to do what’s best for your family.”
His words are salt and the thought of this being our last time to talk upsets me even more.
I now know these tears belong to Alec.
“Who are you talking to?”
I jump off the couch the moment I hear his voice, and I disconnect the call. I must’ve been so wrapped up in my head that I didn’t hear Landon walking through the front door.
“Who were you talking to?” he repeats, and my first instinct is to lie, to tell him anything but the truth.
He would only catch me though. All he would have to do is look at my phone and see the same number he called the other night. So with my heart in my throat, I give up the fight and confess the truth.
“Him.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve been begging me to come home, telling me you want me, and you’re still fucking talking to him?” His voice is pure gravel as he shouts at me. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.”
He takes a step toward me, fists clenched. “I came here so we could talk. It’s what you’ve been pleading for.”
I shake my head slowly—defeated, and take a seat on the couch as I cry.
“What are you doing to us?” he says on a fractured voice.
I want to tell him something to soothe him, but it would be a lie, so I take a hard swallow and open my heart to him, giving him the ugly truth.
“I don’t know if there is an us.”
When I say the words, I see a shift in his eyes as worry coats them.
I lower my head because I can’t bear to see him like this, but I go on, saying, “I was in shock when you first left, but I’ve been thinking about us, and now I’m not sure what I want.”
“You want out?”
“I don’t know, but I do know that I don’t feel like I’m done talking with Alec. And when you leave, I’m going to call him back.”
With apprehension, I open my eyes and look up to my husband as tears fall from his face. It could be the realization that he no longer holds the power of the future of our marriage, but my husband is not a man who cries—ever, and to know it’s by my hand that he’s cracking is the worst feeling ever.
“What did I do? Tell me what I can do,” he pleads.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to lose my family,” he says, a sudden one-eighty shift, and I can tell he’s feeling the same out-of-control panic I did when he left me.
“I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”
“Who is this guy? What is it he’s giving you that I don’t? You met him on that fetish site, right? So what is it? What fetishes is he into that you want a part of?”
“It’s not his fetishes,” I tell him as he stares down at me in utter helplessness. “He’s just . . . I don’t know . . . just completely different than who we are.”
“And what? You no longer like who we are?”
“We’ve grown apart, Landon.”
“Says who?”
I shrug my shoulders and drop my head again. When his next words come, they slay me entirely.
“Fine. If this is what you need, I’ll give it to you. You can call him, meet him, fuck him, just promise me, for God’s sake, come back