Page 57 of Between Our Hearts

The exhale that left her mouth took a large portion of her strength with it. “I screwed up.”

“But you’re going to fix it?” The worried sound of her friend’s voice unnerved her.

“Yes.” She forced determination to infiltrate her words. “Yes. That’s what I’m good at. Do me a favor, can you not leave the neighborhood? I’ll need you to go back and be at the house and watch Lottie so I can take Clark somewhere. I need to show him something tonight.”

“Sure. Whatever you need.”

A few minutes later, she waved to Parker from her parked spot at the entrance to the neighborhood and thanked the driver when he dropped her in her driveway. Since Parker had mentioned that Lottie had already been put to bed before Clark showed up, Sadie didn’t knock or ring the doorbell. Her incessant calls and text messages had gone unanswered, but she knew that there was a spare key tucked under the eave of the playhouse.

The grass bent and tickled the tops of her feet as her deliberate strides brought her across the backyard. A red breasted robin swooped low, snagging something from the grass before darting back to the tree line. Her momentum only halted when Clark’s sharp voice startled her.

“I asked you not to come home.”

He was seated at his usual spot on the top deck stair, his face tilted sideways as if he was trying not to look at her. He’d discarded his jacket, tie, and collared shirt, leaving only a snug grey undershirt untucked over his black slacks. The evening sun illuminated his clenched jaw line at such a sharp angle it made her blink.

“I know.” She took a tentative step in the direction of the deck. “But I want to talk. I can explain everything. I just need to show you—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Clark punched to his feet, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to talk to you now. I told you not to come home, but here you are because in the end, it doesn’t matter whatIwant. Everything’s on Sadie’s schedule.”

She winced at his forceful words. The warm evening light flooding their backyard suddenly felt jagged and blinding.

“You’vedecided that you want to talk.You’vedecided it’s time to work through things. What about what I want?” He stabbed his chest with a jerky hand. “We’re supposed to be a team, Sadie. We’re both supposed to matter in this. You’re not the only one suffering. I mean, have you even considered how isolating this year has been for me?”

Tightness constricted her throat until only a desperate rasp escaped because she hadn’t.

She hadn’t considered his feelings, his sorrow, his solitude when going through her own. Over and over again, she’d distanced herself from him instead of reaching out. She’d behaved the way her mother had always told her she would.She’d been selfish.

Both hands flew through his hair as pain streaked over his face. “I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t be waiting for you to decide to choose me—to choose our family—and be disappointed time and time again when you don’t. Lottie and I deserve more. We deserve to be more than an afterthought.”

Sadie’s mind raced like debris whipping through a tornado. Her impulse was to work until the shattered parts of her marriage were repaired so this disintegrating feeling would leave her muscles. But if she ignored Clark’s words, if she pushed her agenda, she’d lose him. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t lost him already.

“Just—” She swallowed over the bile climbing her esophagus. “Just tell me what to do.”

Clark rotated toward her, and the wetness shining in her husband’s eyes made her whole body clench.

“I—I need some time to sort all this out.” His shaky hands jammed into his pants pockets. “I think you should go.”

Spots flashed over Sadie’s vision as her body staggered back a step. Suddenly, the sight of the back of her house, something she’d seen hundreds of times, looked foreign. She wouldn’t be entering its cozy walls tonight. Depending on what her husband decided, she might not enter with it feeling like home ever again. Her fingers wove wildly over her chest, trying and failing to subdue the suffocating sensation making her panic.

The only thing louder than the sound of her blood rushing in her ears was the voice that whispered,You can’t fix this. It’s too late.

Clark’s gaze darted to the composite boards beneath him. “You can go in and gather a bag if you’d like. I’ll wait out here.”

“No,” she rasped, taking a reflexive step back as if his words had physically shoved her. “That’s okay.”

Tomorrow when she wasn’t falling apart, she’d worry about practical things like her car keys, a change of clothes, and toiletries. If she entered their home right now, not knowing whether or not she’d ever be welcomed back, she’d collapse.

Clark nodded, never raising his gaze.

Sadie wasn’t sure how she managed, but somehow her feet carried down the driveway. She was halfway down her street when Parker’s text sounded from inside her sweat-covered jacket.

Parker:Should I come back?

A sob tore from her throat as she responded.

Sadie:No. Can I stay with you tonight?

She didn’t register the sound of her friend’s car accelerating toward her, only knew that somehow Parker’s inked arms were holding her upright before they buckled her limp body into the passenger seat. The drive to the townhouse complex where she used to live prior to buying her home with Clark happened in the span of one languid blink.

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