Page 11 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

Truly leaped off the couch, knocking Mom’s and Dad’s hands away in her outburst. “No Sad Songs? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Dad frowned. “Buttercup—”

“Did someone—did one of you—”

“No.” Mom shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

“This is no one’s fault. Like I said, your mother and I, we love each other very much.”

“We do. We’ve been together for thirty-three years,” Mom said. “That’s a long time. People change, Truly. Sometimes they grow apart.”

People change? Sometimes they grow apart? With all these trite clichés being hurled at her, it felt a little like she was getting broken up with.

With Justin, the signs were there. She’d ignored them, yeah, but they were irrefutably there.

But this? This was different. There were no signs. There should’ve been signs. Shouldn’t there?

Then again, she’d been so busy lately, promoting one book and writing another and revising a third, dealing with Justin and everything that entailed. She’d been so wrapped up in herself for weeks... a month? Two?

Was it possible there had been warnings and she’d missed them? Jesus Christ, what kind of daughter did that make her that her parents’ marriage was on the rocks, and she’d been none the wiser? Absolutely, one hundred percent oblivious.

She was going to be sick, was going to upchuck Aperol all over the pretty green tufted rug covering the glossy hardwood floor. Her stomach heave-hoed and she swallowed down a thick, disgusting mouthful of bitter, citrusy bile.

“Is one of you having a midlife crisis?” she asked, breath sour and voice hoarse. “Because there’s a dealership down the road selling convertibles if you’re interested.”

“No one is having a midlife crisis. I’m certainly not. Are you, Stanley?”

“Can’t say I am. Though, even if I were, If There’s Anything I Can’t Stand, it’s a convertible. Messes with my hair.” Dad ran a hand over the top of his smooth-as-a-cue-ball head.

The bite of bouche de dame she’d swallowed sat like a rock inside her gut. “Then why?”

“Your mother and I, we—” Dad tore off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It’s a break, Truly. A trial separation. We love each other, dearly, but—”

“But what? If you love each other, then what?” Truly crossed her arms against the rising tide of emotion inside her that had no outlet. Eighty percent of couples who separated divorced. It was all she could think about, Colin McCrory’s gut-wrenching statistic echoing inside her head. “You’re perfect together. You belong together. You have stupid inside jokes, and you dance in the kitchen, and make up lyrics to elevator music and—” They made her believe in love and if her parents, two people perfect for each other, couldn’t make it work, what did that mean for everyone else? What did that mean for her? “Are you struggling with intimacy issues? Because that’s normal and nothing to be ashamed of. There are therapists you can see. And they make pills for that and—and—and—oh! Lubricant!”

Dad’s eyes grew so wide they looked like they were about to fall out of his head. “Truly.”

Mom fanned her face, cheeks neon. “I am not talking about this.”

“There’s no shame in using lubricant.”

“Let me rephrase.” Mom had turned a startling shade of purple. “I’m not talking about this with my daughter.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-seven years old. It’s hardly like I’m a virgin.”

“Truly.” Mom buried her face in her hands.

Dad still refused to look at her head-on. “This is no one’s fault. And we don’t need to talk to anyone.”

Mom shook her head in agreement.

“It’s just... your mother and I are considering the possibility that maybe...” He swallowed hard, eyes growing damp. “Maybe We Do Not Belong Together.”

Mom sniffled. “But—but No One Is Alone in this. It’s no one’s fault.”

“Certainly not Your Fault, Buttercup,” Dad said, as if she were twenty years younger and needed the reassurance that this wasn’t, in fact, because of her. “The Reason Why is just... it’s complicated.”

Complicated?

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