I never made any promises, I wouldn’t fuck up as my father did. The only promise I made to myself was that I’d let you go if I ever hurt you. I broke it several times because I love you too much. I wanted to change, but I was fucking up more and more. The day I said, ‘That’s it,’ it wasn’t because I wanted to let you go, but because maybe I never deserved you. You’re right, our wedding was hideous.”
“We didn’t even have vows,” I snort. “How pathetic is that?”
He scratches his eyebrow with his free hand and huffs. “The first night, our first night, I promised to make you forget. Erase everything that happened to you before you met me. I became addicted to you and the afterglow…I lived for it. The light within you that appeared after we made love was… I was—no, I am dependent on it to the point that sometimes I didn’t care if I should let you go so you could be happy.”
“So, it was the sex?” I ask as the lump in my throat keeps growing.
He shakes his head. “That light gives me hope. It gives me life. It makes me believe that there’s more. There’s a promise,” he explains. “Because that light is you and your happiness. Outside of the bedroom, I put a barrier between us. I understood that about myself when I started therapy. Even when I fell for you immediately, I pretended that everything was casual to protect myself. Because if you left, no one would ask about us. After all, if it’s casual, who cares about the ending?”
My eyes drift down to our entwined hands while my mind is processing everything he just said. Therapy, falling for me immediately, and being an asshole because he was protecting himself.
“I am a self-absorbed son of a bitch who, even when I love you more than anything in the world, couldn’t think about you before me,” he continues. “Fuck, I’m thirty-four, and I just now understand the basics of what a healthy relationship should look like.”
I turn to look at him and whisper, “Nothing like ours.”
“Don’t undermine us, Ley. We had a good thing for a while. I should’ve done a lot of things differently, like putting you first when things got serious. I was too focused on becoming a partner that I didn’t see what my mother did when she found out about our marriage.”
I feel a breeze move through my hair as I watch the sun sink below the mountains. The irony doesn’t go unnoticed. His words are like the sunset in our relationship—the end of everything.
It’s finally time to see a new day—a new story.
Find a new life.
The orange size lump in my throat throbs. I like this new Pierce. Why is it that now that he’s ready, it’s time for me to go?
Because I never get to have the good things, the happy moments, or the fairy tale.
Life is so unfair.
Would I give up a family for him? If he asked me, and if we work on our relationship…maybe.
Would he want kids because I want them too?
“We’re trying our best to grow and become better people,” he continues, and I like that we can talk the way we used to when we started. There’s no anger or bitterness between us anymore. “You more than me.”
Even when the sun disappears and everything is dark, I see everything so clearly. This has to end.
“I’ll sign,” I say, and I look at him.
A sad smile plays on his lips, and he nods with satisfaction. “I was hoping you’d say that. An uncontested divorce in Oregon can take between a few days to no more than six weeks.”
“I’m not sure how to feel about this information,” I state. “When did you research it? I’m not upset, and I swear I won’t contest the divorce, but can you at least admit that there’s another woman.”
He snorts, “There’s no other woman.”
“For once, be honest, Pierce Griffin Aldridge,” I say, and my voice comes out angrier than I mean it to. Okay, maybe there’s a little rage inside me. I just hate when he lies. “You spent a week away from home. I still don’t understand how Parrish didn’t catch you. Your brothers covered for you with lame excuses about you being in Portland. I know you were somewhere in town—with her,” I remind him about that strange week when he flew to Portland but never came back. Then out of nowhere,