Page 47 of What We Broke

“You mean did I come up with an end date for our marriage?” I snap back. “Did you?”

I brace myself for his answer, to hear how he’s reduced our marriage to an arbitrary timeline that says nothing about how much we love each other or everything we’ve been through.

“I was hoping we could present a united front on this,” he answers calmly. “It doesn’t need to be another thing we can’t agree on.”

“It’s not another thing we can’t agree on,” I say, trying to match his indifferent tone and failing. “It’s theonlything we can’t agree on.”

That right there was a lie. There are probably a million things we couldn’t agree on, but this is the only thing that matters. The outcome of this would change the trajectory of both of our lives, and I refuse to believe he is ready or really wants that.

When he asked me for a divorce, he was the most broken I’ve ever seen him. He was sitting on the kitchen floor after I picked him up from the bar—again—and just sobbing. Head buried in his hands, the tears didn’t stop.

He cried over our daughter.

He cried over his lost job.

He just cried.

When we first started dating, Leo was in between jobs, and throughout the last seven years it has happened another few times. Because he left home so young, he’s always worked just to stay afloat and has never really been given the financial freedom to go on his own journey of self-discovery.

I have always wanted to give him that. But when you add in life, weddings, mortgages, and the decision to start a family, you’re once again dedicated to the nine-to-five grind and forced to pick and choose which one of your dreams gets to come true.

It was adulting. Sometimes it sucked, and sometimes you could maneuver all the shitty things you had to put up with and do and get it to work in your favor.

This is where our lives were before Lola. Our money was for the IVF process and all of Zara’s medical expenses, and when Lola was born, Leo was going to quit his job, be a stay-at-home dad, and it would hopefully give him the time to find himself.

The excitement we all had for the next chapter was palpable in every aspect of our lives.

Now I think back to Leo crying on the kitchen floor, feeling like a failure, and begging me to give him a divorce.

I know my husband. I know he has insecurities and deep issues of inadequacy. I know he was trying to push me away because he thinks he’s the weakest link in our family.

And if I truly believed that leaving me would guarantee him a pain-free and fulfilled life, I would’ve been the one to leave him a year ago. I would’ve handed him my bloodied heart on a silver platter—veins, arteries, and all—and begged him to go.

But this is not how life works, this is not howourlife works.

Our life is me dangling a divorce in my husband’s face with the hope that it might just make him want to stay.

It’s fucked-up and more than likely going to blow up in my face.

But it’s the only card I have left, the only thing I have that will keep him with me a little while longer.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Leo says as I park in front of Dr. Sosa’s office. “I just want us to be on the same page.”

“Leo. Baby,” I say with an exasperated breath. “We can’t be on the same page when we’re both reading a different fucking book.”

* * *

After a fifteen-minute wait,we’re finally in Dr. Sosa’s office, sitting on opposite ends of the room, and I can feel the tension emanating off of him. He can’t decide if he’s mad or if I’m right, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m right that makes him mad. Either way, he’s sitting here with a chip on his shoulder and I’m over it.

“I picked Leo up from the police station the other night.” I feel like the biggest tattletale, but I’m committed to the cause. “For drunk driving.”

If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it.

“Is that a first?” she asks him.

We both look at her, confused. “Is that the first time you were driving under the influence or the first time you got caught?”

My lungs tighten in anticipation, waiting for his answer. The idea of him doing this on the regular never even crossed my mind.

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