from his hands, eyes swollen and bloodshot, wounded from the bullet I just fired into his heart. “Where do we go from here?” he finally asks, breaking the silence there’s no glue for.
I wipe my face—the face of a villain—and drop the guillotine on our marriage. “When we get home, I’m going to leave.”
It’s been two days since I told Landon I wanted a separation. We haven’t spoke about it, but there’s no need—it hangs low in the air between us. When we arrived back in the States yesterday, I went ahead and booked reservations to stay at a hotel. Just another safeguard to protect myself from Landon finding out that I’m with someone else, because if we are going to get a divorce, I hope to do it as amicably as possible.
There are no words for what I’m feeling as I continue to pack my suitcases. I’m about to leave this house and walk out into the unknown. There’s no plan, there’s no direction, there’s no security, and that in and of itself is frightening. But at the same time, it’s what I desperately need. Along with my urgency to be with Alec, there’s also been an underlying urgency to run away and escape from this life I’ve created with my husband.
As I empty my drawers into my luggage, I do what I can to focus on Alec to protect myself from the debilitating emotions that threaten to break free from the cage I’ve built around them. I tried calling him last night when Landon drove to pick up the girls from his brother’s house, but all I got was his voicemail.
A chill razors up my spine when I hear Landon return from dropping the kids off at school. I hate that I’m inflicting this upon him. He doesn’t deserve any of this, but my heart’s been screaming at me to run to Alec for nearly a year now. I thought it would eventually fade and I’d grow tired of him, but I only want him more, so much so that it’s created a constant ache inside my chest.
“You’re really leaving?”
I turn to Landon, who’s standing in the doorway of our bedroom. He looks at me with indifference in his eyes, a result of my constant back and forth game this year. I led him to believe we were good and happy, but when I grew tired of pretending, I pushed him away. I’ve done nothing but jerk him around, and I know he can easily find someone that’ll treat him better than I can.
“Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
This is the part I want to hide from, but I know I can’t, so I give him a nod. I follow behind him when he walks into the living room. He takes a seat on the couch, the couch Alec fucked me on, and I sit in the chair across from him.
There’s an awkward silence that bleeds between us before he finally speaks. “What’s the plan here?”
“I don’t know,” I respond with a cowardly shrug of my shoulders.
“I need to know.”
“I don’t know, Landon,” I maintain. “It’s not like I’ve ever done this before.”
“You can’t keep stringing me along. If you’re done with this marriage, there’s no need to separate. It’s only wasting time.”
Again, doubt surfaces, and I question if I’m giving up too soon.
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t keep saying that, Tor. This is black and white. Either you love me or you don’t.”
“It’s not that simple,” I tell him. “We have thirteen years of life together—”
“And?”
“And I’m confused. I need to get away and clear my head because there’s so much tension in this house that I can’t even think straight any more.”
“I can’t go on like this. I can’t keep fighting for this marriage on my own. Love me or leave me, but don’t waste my time because you’re confused,” he says with irritation before adding, “I want to be with someone who loves me. I want a family, and if that’s no longer something you want with me, then tell me so I can find someone who does.”
But it isn’t black and white. If he only knew what was really going on, he’d see the gray, he’d see the blurred lines. I’ve blinded him to believe that I’ve had a flippant change of heart. This is anything but flippant though. This runs deep in my marrow, which is why I keep this battle alive.
And now, the thought of him remarrying and having a family