Every Wrong Reason

Or at least it didn’t matter.

“If this is what you want, then fine. A divorce, legal separation… whatever will make you happy.”

Whatever will make me happy. Is this it? Is this what I want? But I had already told him it was. Immediately I regretted everything about tonight, everything I had said and everything I’d accused him of. But I couldn’t keep feeling this way. I couldn’t go through this again, only to have it happen tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. It was time to stand up for myself and fight for my happiness. Nobody else was going to do it for me.

Not even Nick.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

There was a long weighted silence as if he were waiting for me to take everything back, to make my final words disappear. Eventually, in a hoarse, tortured voice, he said, “I’ll, uh, sleep on the couch tonight. I can move my things out tomorrow morning.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Was he serious? Were we really doing this? “Where will you go?”

“I’ll stay with my brother until I can get a place of my own.”

“Jared won’t care? I mean… what will he think?”

“You can’t have it both ways, Kate. You can’t ask for a divorce and then hope to keep it a secret. Besides, it’s better than staying at a hotel.”

“No, you’re right,” I whispered. I rubbed my stomach and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. I asked for this. I practically demanded the divorce. So why did I feel such a horrific feeling of disappointment.

My body felt like it was being pulled apart in every direction. My heart felt trampled beneath a stampede of bulls. This was supposed to make me feel better. This was supposed to feel like freedom. I was finally digging myself out of the wreckage of our marriage and yet, I felt more wrecked at this moment than any moment leading up to this one.

“We’re really doing this?” My words couldn’t seem to come out stronger than a weak whisper.

“You tell me. You’re the one that started throwing around divorce. It’s not the first time you’ve asked for one, Kate. I’m frankly sick of trying to talk you out of it.”

“I just… I don’t know where else there is for us to go. Nick, we’ve tried. We gave it our best and now I think it’s better if we move on… away from each other.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Tried and failed, I guess.”

I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong and that we hadn’t failed, that there were as many good times between us as there were bad, but I couldn’t bring myself to put up the effort. He was right. We failed.

We were failures at our marriage.

When I didn’t say anything else, he grabbed his pillow and stomped downstairs to the living room. I rolled over in bed, pulled the duvet over my shoulders and cried until I passed out.

When I woke up in the morning, he was already gone.

Chapter One

8. My life will be better without him.

The bell rang and my stomach growled. I looked at my classroom, at the kids shoving papers and notebooks into their backpacks and the energetic chatter that warred with the high-pitched ringing of the fourth period bell, and wondered if I had some Pavlovian response to that sound.

I had been conditioned to know hunger, but I hadn’t felt it in months.

I smiled at my students as they filtered from the room and reminded some of them about homework they owed me, but I barely heard the words that fell from my lips or acknowledged the concise instructions I was notorious for.

Behind my smiling mouth and teacher responsibilities, I was made of brittle glass and emptiness. I was nothing but paper-thin defenses and sifting sand.

I had never known this kind of depression before. I could hardly tolerate my soon to be ex-husband and yet his absence left me unexpectedly battered.

Once my English class filled with a mixture of juniors and seniors had left me behind, I let out a long sigh and turned back to my desk. I dropped into my rolling chair and dug out my lunch from the locked bottom drawer.

I set it on the cold metal and stared at the sad ham sandwich and bruised apple I’d thrown together last minute this morning. I couldn’t find the energy to take a bite, let alone finish the whole thing. I’d lost seven pounds over the last four months, one for each year of my disastrous marriage. And while I appreciated the smaller size I could fit into, I knew this was the wrong way to go about it.

My friend, Kara, called this the Divorce Diet. But I knew the truth. This wasn’t a diet. I’d lost myself somewhere in the ruins of my marriage and now that my relationship was over, my body had started to systematically shut down. First my heart broke. Then my spirit fragmented. Now my appetite was in jeopardy and I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know if I would ever feel hungry again.

I didn’t know if I would ever feel again.

I used to eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge, but lately I couldn’t bring myself in there to face other people, especially my nosey colleagues.

Everyone had heard about my failed marriage. They stopped me in the halls to offer their condolences or hit man services with empathetic expressions or playful smiles. They watched me with pitying eyes and sympathetic frowns. They whispered behind my back or asked invasive questions.

But none of them cared. Not really.

They liked having someone to talk about that wasn’t them and a topic that didn’t dive into their personal lives. I was the gossip martyr. As long as they could tear apart my bad decisions and argue whether it was my frigidness or Nick’s playboy tendencies that hammered the last nail in our coffin they shared a macabre sense of community.

They didn’t care that each callous comment shredded me apart just a little more or that I could hear them cackling from down the hall.

They didn’t take into account their own divorces or unhappy marriages or faults or hypocrisy or shortcomings. They only saw mine.

And now so did I.

I should at least get a thank you for my efforts.

Or a spiked Starbucks.

Where was the gratitude?

The creaky door swung open and my best friend and fellow teacher/school guidance counselor, Kara Chase popped her pretty red head in the room. Her pert nose wrinkled at the sight of my untouched lunch and she smoothed down some of her wild frizz with a perfectly manicured hand. She had endless, luscious curls, but as the day went on and she dealt with more and more apathetic high school kids, her beautiful hair would expand with her impatience.

“That looks… yummy.” Her stormy gray eyes lifted to meet mine and I couldn’t help but smile.

I wrinkled my nose at her. “Don’t judge! It’s all I had.”

She walked all the way into the room and leaned against the whitewashed cement wall with her hands tucked behind her back. “You used to be better at going to the grocery store.”

The small dig cut deeper than it should have. “I’ve been busy.”

Her lips turned down into a concerned frown that I mildly resented. “You can’t wallow forever, Kate. Your marriage ended, not the world.”

But he was my world. I kept that thought to myself. Now was not the time or the place to sift through my complicated feelings regarding Nick. I wanted this. I wanted this divorce. I had no right to be this upset or depressed.

Deep breath. “You’re right,” I told her. “I just haven’t gotten the hang of cooking for one. Last time I went to the store, I ended up way over-shopping and then had to deal with rotten oranges and moldy cheese. Plus, I don’t want the Chinese delivery guy to feel abandoned.”

As gently as she could, she said, “You’ll get the hang of it.”

I pushed off in my chair until the back of it slammed against the whiteboard behind me. “I hope that’s true.”