Page 24 of Another Life

Jilly falls asleep in my lap as I stroke Penny’s hair and theroom is still as the sun dims, casting an orange light through the blinds.

I’ve made plenty of poor decisions in my life, but is this one of them? Was marrying Peter in the first place wrong? Was deciding to go for the safe choice one that I was going to regret for the rest of my life?

“What are you thinking about?” Penny asks, turning her head to look up at me.

A tear tracks down my cheek and I swipe it away with the back of my hand.

“I worry that I’m not doing the right thing for you,” I confess, looking up at the photo of all four of us from two Christmases ago staring back at me. It took hours to get the girls ready and minutes for them to mess their hair up, playing in the snow while I’d gotten ready. And, as usual, Peter reigned us all in for the one decent shot. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and I could still see the rosiness in their cheeks from the cold, but that was us.

Imperfect.

I glance down at Penelope to find her sleeping as well. For a few minutes, I sit on my bed with them, enjoying the weight of their sleeping bodies on me. Then, when I think it’s safe, I pull myself away and sneak away into my office down the hall.

And I call the only person I can stand to talk to right now.

“Hey,” my baby sister’s voice says and immediately, more tears fall.

“God, I feel like a piece of shit for ruining their lives,” I sputter after a moment of silence that she takes in stride.

“You aren’t ruining their lives. You’re saving your own.”

Although she can’t see me, I nod, trying to imprint her words in my brain.

“Are you okay?” Denise finally asks and I don’t know how to answer it. I try for the closest thing to honest as I can get.

“I think I will be. But today? No, I’m not.”

We schedule a playdate for our kids tomorrow and Denise pauses before whispering, “I love you most.”

“Impossible,” I tell her with a small smile.

And once the call ends, I sit at my desk.

Peter once asked about the photo of the Manhattan skyline that I kept in a gilded frame to the right of my computer monitor.

It’d been effortless to lie.

New York is a part of me. It’s where I met Miley, where I honed my passion.

It’s also where I fell into a love affair that shaped me.

The woman Peter fell in love with will always wear the marks of another man’s mistakes.

My love affair with the city can be summed up in one word: Abraham. I relate the chaos of the frenetic city to the whirlwind and electric relationship we shared. Anything to do with New York City reminds me of him.

And I wonder if it had, indeed, been beautiful when I cracked wide open for him. Because there’s one thing I know for certain today: I’m cracking now and it’s far from beautiful.

I don’t want to work tonight, but I check my emails just in case there’s something time-sensitive waiting for me.

One of the emails stops me short and I’m not surprised to see his name in my inbox. After all, I’ve been the object of his desires before. And while it may be different this time, I still know Abraham well enough to know that when he wants something, he won’t stop.

I used to love that about him.

Now it’s just fucking annoying.

CHAPTER TWELVE

YOU’LL LIVE

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