Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“I needed space to let you go,” she shared.
“And you shut your husband out while you did that, and since what you were doing was letting go of your ex-husband, he wasn’t thrilled about it,” Tom surmised.
“We had a very big fight,” she admitted.
“And you haven’t spoken to him since,” Tom said tonelessly.
“Tom—”
He could tell in how she said his name, she hadn’t spoken to Bowie since, and it frayed his temper.
“Fucking call him, Genny,” he clipped. “Right now.”
“This isn’t about me and Bowie,” she retorted. “This is about putting closure on me and you. This is about me taking responsibility for my part of what went wrong between us.”
“And that means something,” he told her. “But what went irrevocably wrong between us was that I turned to another woman before I separated from you. That fact will never change. That is what ended our marriage, not anything you did.”
“I think that’s an interesting way to put it, except for the word that’s missing. ‘Officially.’ We were separated, it just wasn’t officially. And I was the one who separated us.”
Tom couldn’t argue that because she was not wrong.
Instead, he said, “Then you must realize you’re repeating a pattern here.”
“I—”
“Call Bowie.”
“But I—”
“For fuck’s sake!” he exploded, Genny there, interrupting such an important night, a night he felt content—genuinely, down-to-his-bones content with his family, his life, himself for the first time in years, all the shit coming out, all he was feeling, it was too much. He straightened from the coffee table and took a step to clear himself from her. “Call him!”
She stared up at him, face ashen, eyes haunted.
“I lost you before I lost you,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed. “You did. And then I acted like a complete and utter piece of shit, and instead of being an adult and ending it, I lashed out.”
Genny stood too. “Tom—”
He interrupted her again, lifting a hand her way and shaking his head.
“No, Genny. We’re regurgitating history. This isn’t about us. This is about you calling Duncan and telling him you’re coming home and working things out. Tonight.”
“I can’t do that until you know—”
“I know. God, do I know.”
“Tom, stop fucking interrupting me!” she snapped, losing it too. “You know, when it happened, when I found out about you and her, not Mika, the other one, one of the wildest things that ran through my head was, ‘He’s never going to forgive himself for this.’ After I thought that, I was pissed at myself for giving that first shit about how you’d feel about what you did to me. But you were my husband. I loved you. I still love you. I also knew you, and that was what I thought. And”—she threw both hands out to her sides to indicate where they were in that moment—“I was right.”
Tom said nothing again because she was, indeed, right.
Genny did say something.
“Do you understand that, before I can go back to Bowie, I have to be here and say these things to you?” she asked. “I have to admit to my part in what happened. I have to hear from you that I’m right. I need it validated, Tom, so I can move on and when I do, not repeat a goddamn pattern.”
“Then yes, Genny, yes,” he snarled. “You shutting me out hurt. It hurt a fuck of a lot. I was ready to leave you. I was done with our marriage because you were ghosting me while still sleeping at my side. And I was pissed as fuck at you for throwing us away like that, so I stepped out on you to get mine back. Yes. That is what happened. You’re validated.”
They stood, staring at each other, both breathing heavily.
Tom didn’t know how this was making him feel, outside of shitty, dredging it all up and being backed in a corner to say things he never wanted Genny to know.
“Okay, I can tell you don’t like this,” Genny said slowly. “And you have company, and you’re right, this is the worst timing. I get that, Tom. I do. But we’re here, now, saying things we should have said ages ago. In order that we can put this behind us, you can move on free of it, and I can begin rebuilding what we had with all of us together, something that began eroding because I was being me, it all needs to be out there.”
Tom braced, certain she was going to blitz him with how he’d injured her with his affair.
And he needed to take it.
She didn’t do that.
She said, “You never had your time.”
Tom felt his entire frame twitch in confusion. “Sorry?”
“I pulled out my calendars. I looked back, Tom. It was devastating to be reminded of what I already knew. What I ignored. What I refused to remember. And I…I…”