Every Wrong Reason

The bartender came back before either of us could speak again and we put in our food order. He had a ridiculous amount of questions for us and by the time he turned around again I had decided that I should voice a formal complaint.

Except he wasn’t doing anything more than what he was supposed to. My nerves had put me obnoxiously on edge. I took a shaky sip of my wine and savored the flavor, hoping to find center.

Hoping to find solid ground.

“I’m sorry for what happened during mediation. I didn’t… I didn’t expect you to take it so hard.”

I stared at him, unable to form words for a full minute. Finally, I whispered, “Which part?”

“You have to know that if we had a baby… if you became pregnant, that I would do everything in my power to give that child the very best life.”

“I’m not pregnant,” I told him quickly. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

He flinched. I watched pain fill his blue eyes and his shoulders tense with disappointment.

The wine churned in my stomach and I wanted to sob. Didn’t he know what his disappointment with me did to me? Didn’t he understand how much my inability to do this one thing right tore at me, shredded my soul to pieces… poisoned my thoughts of the future and turned all of my hopes and dreams to ash?

“I thought you’d be relieved.” My voice was such a harsh rasp that I wasn’t sure he could even hear it over the din of the restaurant.

He leaned in again, ignoring my comment completely. “I didn’t realize how deeply affected you were until mediation. I should have. God, I should have known that it would kill you to even talk about it. But… before we separated you had seemed, I don’t know… it was like you’d shut off all of your emotions about a baby. I thought you were... I thought maybe you were…”

“Callous? Heartless?” I lifted an eyebrow. “You thought I didn’t care?”

“Yeah,” he admitted sadly. “Yeah, I thought you didn’t care.”

“It started to hurt too much,” I admitted. “I didn’t… I couldn’t keep hoping each month that that would be the one that was different. I couldn’t keep waiting for each month to prove me wrong. It would have killed me.”

He shook his head, struggling to swallow. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry I was too blind to see how much you were hurting.”

My chest felt pinched, my heart thumped painfully. “It’s not something you have to worry about anymore, Nick. Like I said, I’m not pregnant. It’s done. You can take it out of your demands.”

His fingertips lifted my chin, “Hey, look at me.” I obeyed, but he didn’t give me much of a choice. His deep blue eyes pierced me, body and soul. I felt captivated… transfixed… imprisoned by the intensity of his expression. “I can’t change the past, but I want you to know that I think you’ll be a lovely mother. I think you’ll be perfect. The very best.” His voice roughened, deepened. “And one day, I know you’ll get to be one. I know it will happen for you.”

Tears welled in my eyes and I wanted to run from the room, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but let him look at me and hold me in place with his sincerity. “You can’t know that,” I whispered.

“I can,” he swore. “You’re too beautiful a person not to have a child, not to be a mother. It will happen, Kate. I know it will.”

A lone tear slipped beyond my control and slid down my cheek. He caught it with his thumb and brushed it away.

The bartender reappeared with our meals and I finally tore my eyes from his. I stared down at my elegantly prepared Osso Buco and wondered how I could possibly eat it. No matter how good it was, it would still taste like dust in my mouth. I would still have to fight to keep it down.

“Why did you really ask me here, Nick? Was it really just to apologize for that?”

He pushed his fork around his plate, stabbing his pork shoulder with a savage frustration. When he looked back at me the tenderness in his expression was gone, replaced by something fierce and primal.

“I’m not going to stop, Kate. I need you to know that.”

“Stop what?”

He didn’t answer specifically. Instead, his voice pitched low and his hand landed on my knee, his fingertips sliding beneath the hem of my dress. “I’m not going to back down.”

“About the divorce?” I guessed. “You can’t have the house. You can’t have A

“I want more than the house and A

His words sent a shiver of fear slithering down my spine. “Why are you doing this?”

His eyes flashed with something dark and familiar. Lust, I thought at first. But then… but then maybe something more too.

“Because I can’t stop.” He sounded as pained and desperate as I felt. “I can’t let this go.”

I didn’t know if he was talking about me or the divorce. I didn’t know if he meant us or our things. But I couldn’t speculate.

I couldn’t ask him.

I jumped to my feet and he caught the bar stool before I could topple it.

“We shouldn’t have done this.”

“Don’t be a coward now, Kate,” he challenged. “Don’t back down now.”

I glared at him, even while my heart felt like it was splitting in two. “I’m leaving.”

“Leave.” His chin jerked toward the door. “Run if you have to. But this isn’t over. I’m not going to stop just because you won’t face me.”

I shook my head, unable to come up with anything to say. I grabbed my purse and my coat and stumbled through the restaurant, pushing my way to the door.

The icy wind slapped me in the face as soon as I stepped outside, but it wasn’t enough to shake off Nick’s threats… or the electric heat that still sparked between us.

It was like I was addicted to him. Why couldn’t I just move on? Get over him?

Why did I get sucked back into his gravity every single time?

It was finally obvious. This divorce was going to kill me.

I would die before I ever finalized the end of my marriage.

Chapter Seventeen

24. It’s me. I’m beyond damaged.

Christmas break was within my reach. If I could make it through this day, I’d have three and a half blissful weeks of break.

Granted most of my plans included binge-watching Netflix shows… but the point was I wouldn’t have to get out of my pajamas for days.

That was glorious.

Especially because this Chicago winter was unbearable and my pajamas were warm and fleece and heavenly.

Nick used to tease me that I turned into an Eskimo during winter break. He was right. Hamilton was frigid during the winter months. Our school building was painfully out of date and the heaters never worked properly.

Sentenced to look somewhat like a professional every day, I had to shiver through the majority of my classes and wonder if my health insurance covered frostbite.

Christmas break was the one reprieve I got between November and March. I could finally be warm for days on end. My teeth could stop chattering and my toes could regain feeling.

I just had to make it to the end of the day. Tonight I had a date with an entire pot of hot chocolate, cheesy potato soup that I was determined to make from scratch and old Christmas movies.

This was the first time I had something to look forward to in months and it was hard to contain my excitement.

I shuffled papers during my plan period and tried not to doodle on them. It was hard to explain hearts and stars bordering my students’ essays. Usually, if I forgot myself and ended up drawing some stupid little doodle, I had to then come up with something positive to say next to it- like I’d meant to put it there.

But these particular essays were exceptionally bad. And I couldn’t find the willpower to write “Great point!” or “Way to think outside the box.”

These were, without a doubt, inside the box. Inside the cliff-notes-version-absolute-bare-minimum box.