Please don’t go. What about the girls? What about me?” And the last ounce of strength seems to leave her as Bee collapses to the floor in sobs, Daniel wanting nothing more than to put his arms around her and make it better, but he can’t.
Nor can he tell her the truth. That already he feels relief. That he feels more pain than he could have imagined, hurting Bee, leaving the girls, but that the cloud that has weighed upon his shoulders his entire life, the cloud that has only grown darker and heavier throughout his marriage, has finally dispersed.
He can’t tell her this marriage is over, nor can he tell her the reasons why. Not yet. There is only so much pain you can cause one person in one go, he realizes, and it’s not necessary for her to know—there will be time for that later.
Perhaps other people find it easier to sever the ties with a clean cut, but Daniel can’t do that. The concept of needing space feels right. It feels like something Bee could live with, something that isn’t going to end her world.
It gives her false hope, he knows, but he would rather do this gently, kindly, figure out how to drop the bomb when she is stronger, a little more used to dealing with life on her own.
“I love you, Bee,” Daniel says. “I’m so sorry but I can’t stay here anymore.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’ll stay at the Inn tonight. I’ll figure it out. I’ll phone you tomorrow, maybe I can see the girls after school. Right now I have to go upstairs and pack.”
And he reaches down, but Bee pushes him away when he tries to console her, so he leaves her on the floor, with tears streaming down her face, and goes to throw a few of his belongings into a bag before heading out through the door.
Chapter Twelve
It’s not often these days that Michael has a night to himself, he realizes. Most of his time has been taken up with Jordana, and the nights he isn’t with Jordana he’s usually with friends—drinks, a quiet dinner in a neighborhood restaurant: the typical New York life.
Tonight Jordana went back to Long Island—she and Jackson had a benefit of some kind, but Michael didn’t ask much. He tries not to think about Jackson, about how he would feel, about what kind of a person he must be, sleeping with Jackson’s wife. It’s the only way he can do it.
She has been his drug, his obsession, but slowly he is starting to feel as if he’s awakening from a dream. Slowly he’s starting to wonder what the hell he’s been doing.
Just two weeks ago he thought she was possibly the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. He had always found her attractive, but once they got involved he thought she was beautiful, more than beautiful. Mesmerizing.
And now, overnight, he has started to notice that she has bad posture, her shoulders slumping forward when she walks. Her voice is high-pitched and nasal, which he used to find cute, and now finds ever so slightly irritating. He found it endearing, initially, that she was trying to change to please him, swapping her heels for flats, her hairspray for hairclips to pull her hair back into the natural ponytail he loves, but now he finds it odd that a woman would have so little sense of self-worth she would change herself entirely to suit whichever man she was with.
The rose-tinted spectacles, it seems, are falling away from his eyes, and suddenly he realizes he doesn’t know how to get out. He’s been in this job for twenty years—it is more than his job, it is his life, his family, and although from time to time he has thought of leaving and going somewhere else, he never thought it would be because of a situation like this.
And Jordana, who can sense him pulling away, seems to be keener still, more desperate, more in love than ever before.
He needed tonight, a night off, a night to himself, more than he could have dreamed. A night of freedom, interrupted only by the numerous text messages flying in from Jordana.
v. boring here. Miss you LOTS! J xxx
where r u? want to phone! Love u!
Can u call me?
Tried to call. No answer. Am worried . . . xxxx
He pocketed his phone in the bar and left his jacket draped over the back of the chair, trying to ignore the buzzing.