Page 11 of What We Broke

As I hug her to me, my eyes find Jesse, who is staring at me, his own eyes filled with nothing but turmoil. I will myself to look away, but the man has always held me hostage.

We aren’t just bound together by marriage vows, we are tethered. Like magnets, my soul couldn’t detach itself from his no matter how hard I tried.

And I’m fucking trying.

Raine releases her hold on me, still smiling. “I’ll meet you in the car, Dad.”

We watch her walk out of sight, leaving us to stand in silence.

It’s suffocating, filled with all the things I know he wants to say and all the things I don’t want to hear.

“We have that appointment this afternoon,” Jesse says as I turn to retreat to my room.

“I know,” I reply without looking at him. “I haven’t forgotten.”

I feel Jesse’s hesitation seconds before I hear it in his voice. “I guess I’ll see you later, then.”

I know it isn’t what he wanted to say to me, but we don’t have much to say to each other anymore.

I listen for the sound of his footsteps retreating and the front door closing as I walk back into my own room. When the familiar snick of the lock echoes through the house, I release a loud exhale and let my body fall onto the bed.

Like clockwork, my phone vibrates on my bedside table and I groan into the mattress.

They’re a tag team, refusing me a single moment of peace.

Reaching for it, I slide my thumb across the screen, answering the call and putting it on loudspeaker. “What?”

“Is that any way to greet your best friend?”

“Good thing you’re not my best friend,” I say flatly.

“And yet you keep answering my calls.”

“Because you won’t leave me the fuck alone.”

For all intents and purposes Gio is my best friend, but the truth is, he’s more than that. He’s my brother. My only family. The only person who has been there for every high and low in my life. And despite our constant arguing lately, I need him. I just don’t want to admit it to him.

“Seriously, though.” His voice loses the humor. “How are you?”

It’s a simple question that I have no answer for. There’s not a single word that can encompass the tumultuous number of feelings that pass through me on a daily basis.

I am the seven stages of grief personified, but sometimes I don’t know what I’m grieving the most: my past or my future.

The loss of what we had left a crater-sized hole in our hearts, lives, and my marriage, but the loss of what we could’ve been feels insurmountable.

Like no version of the days ahead would do.

It’s the reason I want to drink every night and sleep through every day. I’m rooted in purgatory, unable to work out what’s supposed to happen next.

“Leo,” Gio says. “Talk to me.”

I let my silence answer him.

“You have your session with Jesse today, right?” he continues, tempting me to respond. “Are you looking forward to it?”

I scoff. “Looking forward to it? He won’t give me a divorce until we attend couples’ counseling; it’s a fucking bribe. Don’t try to build this up into something it’s not.”

“You love him,” he states. “Working on your marriage is the right thing to do.”

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