Page 63 of Back in the Saddle

She took a brief pause, letting the memory in. If she could, she would go back in time and tell her younger self it wasn’t her fault. In that moment, it didn’t feel like it. Her fingers brushed her cheeks, wanting to wipe away tears reminiscent of those she had silent sobbed into the satin pillowcase while Finn peacefully snored next to her.

‘Did he hurt you?’ Hunter’s voice pulled her back to the present.

She startled, only now meeting his gaze. ‘What? No. It wasn’t like that.’

His eyes softened but he didn’t say anything.

Caroline exhaled. ‘It just didn’t happen. At all. He said he was tired. I thought he was just saying it because I was tired too. I went to the bathroom to change, and when I got back, he was already asleep.’

She bit back a laugh. When it happened, she didn’t feel particularly amused. But now it was funny. Just a little bit.

‘It was a very strange start to a marriage. We talked about it – well, I tried at least. He made it sound like it was my fault. Said not many people even have sex on their wedding night.’ She shrugged. ‘Either way, it happened on the third night of our honeymoon in Santorini.’

She looked to Hunter. ‘I don’t have to keep going if this is making you uncomfortable. It isn’t like … I don’t know. Not a normal topic to talk with another guy about sex with your ex-husband.’

Wordlessly, he shook his head.

She continued. ‘It was sloppy, rushed, and painful. He behaved like he wasn’t himself.’

Caroline’s mind wandered back to that night. She remembered how Finn had pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders and pushed her down on the bed. How hurriedly he’d undone his belt and shorts’ zipper, throwing both on the floor. How he’d hoisted himself over her, propping himself up on his elbows. How, without even looking at her, he’d positioned himself at the opening to her vagina and thrust hard inside.

How she had clasped her hand over her mouth, trying to stop herself from letting out a howl of pain. For a second, she had thought she might cry. But she didn’t. Instead, she bit her lower lip and drew blood.

How Finn had seen neither her pain nor discomfort.

Because his face was buried in the pillows the entire time.

‘It was over in a blink of an eye. I … I didn’t think it was going to be like that.’

As she finished her story, she let out a shuddering breath. Erin was the only person she had ever told this to. The wild beat of her heart against her ribs reminded her she was alive. Saying it out loud didn’t open a black hole in the ground that would swallow her whole.

Hunter’s hands were balled into tight fists. ‘Bastard,’ Hunter uttered, his voice nothing but an angry growl.

‘It’s fine. I mean, we talked about it over the years. He didn’t mean to hurt me.’

‘But he did.’

When they later talked about it, Finn was horrified to hear how she had felt that night. Another one on the list of things that shouldn’t have happened between them, but it did.

‘I’m not angry at him,’ she stopped, unsure if she should say more. But then she decided she should. Not for Finn’s sake, but for her own. ‘He isn’t into it. Sex, I mean.’

Hunter just stared at her like she had just told him the aliens were real and they were about to invade the Arctic to set up a colony of tomato growers.

‘We both tried more times after the honeymoon. It just wasn’t good. At all. Eventually, we stopped trying.’ She shrugged, like it was the most natural thing to say. ‘We had an honest conversation, and it turned out trying made both of us miserable. Just for different reasons.’

‘Is that the reason you’re getting a divorce?’

‘Partly.’

When he just blinked at her, she added: ‘It’s also because he wants kids. I don’t.’ She glanced at her bare ring finger. ‘I tried to make myself fit into the space I thought I should be able to occupy. First, holding off sex until the wedding night. Then, telling myself that I didn’t need sex because everything else was great – I’d married my best friend. We loved each other. But I just … I don’t know.

‘A time came that I just couldn’t give away pieces of myself. When I turned thirty last year, I had an epiphany. I realised I had too much life ahead of me to throw it away on compromising my own happiness. Finn felt the same way,both about me and about his own life. We came to a decision that we just didn’t work. That the best thing we could do for each other was to let go.’

Silence enveloped the room in a hug. The words hung in the air, dissipating against the backdrop of a healing heartache.

Caroline felt lighter. Whatever Hunter thought about her, about her situation, she had unburdened herself from something she had been holding on to for years now. Every night she had sat on the bathroom floor, every night she had sneaked out of bed and wrapped herself in a blanket on the sofa, wondering what she had done wrong, what was wrong with her for Finn not to be interested in her the way she wanted him to be …

Deep down, she knew it had nothing to do with her. Months of marriage counselling and inching farther and farther away in their king-size bed had told her that much. It was just one of those things. Yet it was still hard to completely forget.

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