Page 48 of Open Secrets
The sentence sits like a flat, cold thing between us. I rake my hand through my hair, tugging at the roots until my scalp burns.
“I thought you were gonna ask for a divorce,” I say. “I thought I was doing what you wanted—so you’d stay.”
I wish that was the only reason.
I wish I hadn’t also suggested it because I was curious. Because I got tired of the empty bed.
Her eyes are hollow, stripped of fight.
“I didn’t lie,” I push on, my voice rough. “Being away was hard—lonely. There were times I wondered. Times I thought about it. But once it was allowed… once we opened the door, it just became—”
“…unwanted.” She spits it out quiet and clean.
I nod. It’s all there — short, blunt. The chair creaks as I lean forward, head between my hands. My chest is a hollow I can’t fill. I thought I was helping our relationship, not ruining it.
“How do we come back from this?” The question cracks in my mouth.
She gets up slow, robe pulling with her. She doesn’t stand over me. She kneels on the floor in front of me, and her hands find my jaw like they always do — warm, steady. No theatrical gestures, just steadiness.
I stop breathing without meaning to.
Her eyes catch mine, wet but fixed. She leans in and kisses me — a light touch at first, only lips. When she pulls away her forehead rests against mine. “I love you,” she says. “Talking about this, dragging it out — it convinced me. I do love you. I love our life.” Her thumbs brush my cheeks, light, like she’s afraid I’ll look away. “I’m just so lonely, Lyle.”
She breaks. The words come out like splinters. “My dad is dying and he won’t speak to me. Your parents won’t stop trying to.”
Tears paint her face. She keeps talking because the dam is gone: Anna, blame, choices, the way she stepped into fights she didn’t have to, how she carried damn near everything. “I’m so tired of carrying it alone,” she says, and it hits me like someone turned a fist inside my chest.
I slide down beside her. I put my hands over hers until the shaking slows. “Then don’t,” I say. “Not anymore. Don’t carry it alone.”
Her eyes search mine. “What do you mean?”
My throat works. The words come out raw. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done three years ago. I’m quitting.”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot first, then like I’m insane. “Quit — the Army?”
“Yes.” It feels like both a knife and a release. “Maria, I’m quitting the Army.”
She blinks, the breath leaving her. “But you love it.”
I laugh, a sound that doesn't belong in me. “I love you more.”
Her mouth opens and closes, and for once she’s quiet. I move because silence can become a cliff if you stare at it. I lean in before I can think better of it; my hands find her face and she grabs the back of my shirt, pulling me in like a tether. She kisses me hard — not tender, not careful — like somebody taking back what was loaned.
I realize then, the way you realize what’s been staring you in the face: she’s been waiting. She’s been waiting for this to be only ours again.
My hands go to her hair. I pull her closer until I can feel the bones at the base of her skull. The kiss breaks and becomes a different thing. No slow buildup — something hungry and immediate. I taste salt and fear and the old hunger that hasn’t died between us.
“I need you,” I tell her. Not clever. Not romantic. Just the fact.
She nods and fumbles at my shirt. I strip the robe from her shoulders. She’s mine in the simplest sense — not rented, not borrowed, not shared. Mine.
We don’t reach the bed. The floor is hard and unforgiving but I don’t care. I shove the chair back with my foot — the thud against the wall a satisfying sound as I lower her down, my hands on her hips, feeling her naked skin.
“I’m not sharing you anymore,” I say, low, and I kiss down her stomach, pausing to caress every inch.
Her back arches when my mouth hits her mound. Maria trembles under me like a live wire. We have a healthy sex life but lately it’s felt more like walking a tightwire than making love. The thought of other men touching my wife, makes me pause.
“Lyle,” she breathes, her fingers digging into my hair.
