I’m not only full of anger now. I’m also full of shame. I didn’t think he noticed all the times I try to avoid him.
“You spoke one word to me Wednesday night. One. Do you remember what it was?”
I nod, but I keep my head buried against my arms. “Goodnight.”
I can hear the tears in his voice when he says, “I was so angry at you. Figuring you out is like a fucking riddle sometimes, Quinn. I was tired of trying to figure out how to be around you the right way. I was so mad at you, I didn’t even kiss you goodbye when I left for work Thursday.”
I noticed.
“When we finished up the project on Thursday, I should have come home. I should have left, but instead . . . I stayed. And we talked. And . . . I kissed her.” Graham runs his hands down his face. “I shouldn’t have done it. And even after it started, I should have stopped it. But I couldn’t. Because the whole time I had my eyes closed, I pretended it was you.”
I lift my head off my arms and look at him. “So it’s my fault? Is that what you’re saying?” I turn my whole body toward him in my seat. “You don’t get the attention you want from me, so you find someone who reminds you of me? I guess as long as you pretend it’s your wife, it shouldn’t count.” I roll my eyes and fall back against my seat. “Graham Wells, first man in the world to find an ethical way around an affair.”
“Quinn.”
I don’t let him speak. “You obviously didn’t feel very guilty if you had the entire fucking weekend to think about it, but then went back to work and did it all over again.”
“It was twice. Last Thursday and last night. That’s it. I swear.”
“What if I wouldn’t have caught on? Would you have even stopped it?”
Graham runs his hand over his mouth, squeezing his jaw. His head shakes a little and I’m hoping it’s not an answer to my question. I’m hoping he’s just shaking it in regret.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he says, looking out his window. “Nobody deserves this. Especially you. Before I left tonight, I swore to myself that it would never happen again. But I also never believed I would be capable of something like this to begin with.”
I look up at the roof of the car and press my palm to my chest, blowing out a quick breath. “Then why did you do it?” My question comes out in a sob.
Graham turns to me as soon as I start crying. He leans across the seat and grips my face, silently pleading for me to look at him. When I finally do meet his desperate stare, it makes me cry even harder. “We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.”
Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.”
Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him.
And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with.
But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into.
“Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband—a husband who truly loves his wife—wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.”
Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?”
“I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.”
Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!”
He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!”
He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry.
He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!”
He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe.
Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.”
Chapter Twenty-one
* * *
Then
I never ask my mother for favors for obvious reasons. Which is precisely why I called my stepfather to ask permission to use his beach house in Cape Cod. He only uses it as a rental property now and it stays booked up in the summers. But it’s February and the house has been sitting empty for most of the winter. It took a lot to swallow my pride and ask him, but it was a lot easier than if I’d asked her. She has stated numerous times since she met Graham that she thinks I could do better. In her eyes, better means meeting someone with his own beach house so that I’ll never have to ask to borrow theirs for the weekend.
Graham walked around for an hour after we got here, pointing things out with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning.
Quinn, come look at this view!
Quinn, come look at this bathtub!
Quinn, did you see the fire pit?
Quinn, they have kayaks!
His excitement has waned a little since we got here earlier today. We just ate dinner and I took a shower while Graham built a fire in the fire pit. It’s an unusually warm day for a February in Massachusetts, but even on a warmer winter day, it barely tops out in the fifties during the day and the thirties at night. I bring a blanket to the fire pit with me and curl up next to Graham on the patio sofa.
He pulls me even closer, wrapping an arm around me while I rest my head on his shoulder. He tucks the blanket around both of us. It’s cold, but the warmth from both him and the fire make it bearable. Comfortable, even.
I’ve never seen Graham more at peace than when he’s out here, listening to the sounds of the ocean. I love how he looks out over the water as if it holds all the answers to every question in the world. He looks at the ocean with the respect it deserves.