all, if Ford hadn’t ditched me to go out with Claudia and their old crew.
Sinking onto the bed, I looked at my husband. “I’m going to the hotel across the street. Stefan got me a room there. Are you coming?”
Wordlessly, he nodded. We made the trek in silence.
By the time I had checked in and we had taken the elevator up and dropped our bags down in the new room, I couldn’t take the tension between us any longer. As he started unpacking his work bag on the desk, I waited for him to say something. Anything. To apologize, or at least explain himself. But no.
When he was done, he sat down in the desk chair and rotated to face me. Still saying nothing. Like he expected me to apologize.
Filled with resentment, I exploded.
“Okay, what is your problem? Is this about our marriage? Is it because I was on my way to a business dinner with Andrew? How is any of this fair? You’re the one who roped me into this whole charade to begin with. First it was fake dating, then it was a fake engagement, and now it’s a fake marriage. Except, surprise! We’re really married now. And all because you didn’t want to deal with your parents pushing you to marry Claudia—”
“Emzee—” he interrupted, slumped in the desk chair.
“No! I’m speaking!” I interrupted right back. “You acted like it was do or die trying to get away from your ex, but then you let her flirt with you in front of me for an entire day—which you knew I didn’t like but which you were clearly enjoying—and then you left me and went out with her.
“So yes, I came here to this convention. To remind myself that I’m my own person, and to maybe try to figure out what I’m going to do with my life after our divorce. But then you just pop up out of nowhere to sabotage me and punch my potential future employer in the face! And now you’re the broody one? Really? Ha!
“I should be the one pouting and slamming closet doors and refusing to look you in the eye, not the other way around.”
Losing steam, I finally stopped yelling and stalked over to the window. The lights of New York did nothing to calm me.
“You have every right to be upset,” Ford said quietly, having the nerve to sound remorseful. Or maybe it was a ploy for sympathy. “I just want—”
I was furious all over again, and nowhere near ready to hear his side.
“No, Ford,” I said, whirling around to face him. “You know what your problem is? It’s that you have no idea what you want. You’re trying to keep all of your own options open, while ensuring that no one else has any other option but you. I can see right through you.”
Stopping to catch my breath, I pushed away the feelings of tenderness I felt when I looked at my husband’s stitched-up eyebrow and gauze-wrapped knuckles. I knew he’d be hurting tomorrow, but I told myself he had more than earned his bruises. Ford’s injuries were Ford’s fault. He had left Andrew far worse, and deserved whatever pain he got.
“I know what I want,” he muttered.
“Oh really,” I scoffed, still burning up. “Tell me something, Ford. Why did you even come here?”
Despite my confrontational tone, my bravado, my anger, all of it—I was scared to hear his reply. I wanted to know the answer, yes, but I was also afraid that I already knew what it was.
That he’d flown to New York to tell me he wanted a divorce, sooner than the year we’d agreed upon. So that he could marry Claudia, or at least be free to sleep with whomever he wanted. It was the only answer that made sense, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I waited for him to confirm what I already knew.
He didn’t say anything for a while, looking down at the carpet and shaking his head.
I’ve heard that your life flashes before your eyes at the instant of your death, and I was definitely experiencing some of that now. Not my whole life, just my life with Ford. Probably because this was the instant of our relationship’s death.
I recalled in vivid detail the first time he’d come to my rescue, during sophomore year at Wayland-Blaine. It was in study hall, this jackass named Blake calling me a whore. Ford had swooped in and I’d felt so relieved,