Page 59 of Easton

I push my chair back and stand, and Easton asks, “Do you want me to come with you?”

Normally, I would say, “Sure,” but right now, I need to be alone.

Shaking my head, I tell him, “No, that’s okay. Finish your sandwich.”

With the look he’s giving me, it’s clear he knows something is wrong.

It is wrong.

Everything is wrong.

And I have no idea how to ever make it right again.

Damn.Is Claire still mad about that picture? I really thought we had it all worked out after our talk last night.

But if we’re okay, why did she just leave half her sandwich on the plate and run outside?

Stranger still, she didn’t want me to come with her.

That’s not like her.

That’s not likeus.

What I’d like to do is go outside and take her in my arms. I’d tell her that somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen in love with her.

Or I don’t know, maybe I always have been?

But I can’t go to her right now. I can’t tell her anything. She’s clearly still pissed at me.

Hell, knowing Claire, she’d probably punch me.

But even worse, what if I came clean and she told me she doesn’t love me? At least not in the same way.

That would fucking crush my heart.

We’d have to get a divorce. Something we never bring up but will probably happen.

But I don’t want a divorce.

I want to stay married to Claire.

I just wish we could be a true husband and wife.

Someday we’re going to have to address this.

But not today.

No, today I’ll just finish my sandwich and give her some space.

A week goes by, and things with Claire and I remain the same—tense and weird. It doesn’t help that one of the days I have that lunch with the girl who won at the charity auction.

Claire knows and acts like she doesn’t care. But there’s clear relief on her face when I return and tell her a team representative joined us. It wasn’t just me and the girl.

And so life goes on…

The rest of the week, there are moments when it feels like we’re back to normal. Like the other day when we took a hike, everything was fabulous. We laughed and talked and even hung out at the table by Stan for a while.

But then, once we returned to the house, that strange awkwardness came roaring back.

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