Page 91 of Perdition
Her smile dropped, and his did too as reality returned.
“What about you, Em? Doyoustill need me?” he inquired, strains of hope in his voice.
Her tears fell in earnest now, the laughter only holding them back for a moment.
“Yes, Mads—I will always need you. Just because I got busy with Flower’s Blooms didn’t mean I stopped needing my husband. You’re my best friend, and when you stopped coming home, I didn’t have anyone to share my day with, to share my victories and failures with—and I didn’t have someone to celebrate with when I reached my quarterly goals. I didn’t have my rock, my protector, my safety net when I had a shit day.”
She whimpered as a memory surfaced. “There was one day I really needed you….” She closed her eyes, and recalled, “I was making wreaths and arrangements for a funeral. I was late to work that day because of an appointment that morning, so when I went in, I just started on the order, not really paying attention to the name of the deceased. Then…when the friends of the family came in to collect the order, I recognized them.
“They were people I knew from the community, and they were collecting the funeral arrangements for a woman I knew personally, a wonderful woman who’d been one of the first customers through my door after the shop opened. She had been one of the most kind, welcoming, and compassionate women I’d known…and she was gone.”
She sniffed back tears, wiping at them with her fingers.
Mads tightened his arms around her, his chest rumbling with a sound of comfort.
She continued, “I texted you that day…and you didn’t answer. I called and I got your voicemail. And when I got home,I waited for you…all night, in desperate need of my best friend, my husband, to come and hold me while I cried.”
“Fuck, Em, I am so fucking sorry,” Mads choked out.
“I think that was the night I started to pull away; I realized that you’d already put so much space between us, and I was so tired of trying to shout over the gulf, that I just…gave up.”
He made a sound of disgust. “And I had my head so far up my own ass I didn’t even notice until you changed he fucking key code.”
“No, Mads, you had your head so far up Sarah’s ass that you couldn’t see that she was wrapping you around her finger,” Em grated, anger—fresh and bloody—surged through her. “That woman took one look at you and knew you were easy pickings. She heard the brothers talking about how I hadn’t been at the clubhouse for a while—because you hadn’t even bothered to tell me what was going on and that you even wanted me there—and she realized that she had you all to herself. She could take her time with you, slowly ingratiating herself in your life so that you couldn’t go a day without her. She slowly, methodically took my place in your life, and you didn’t even notice. Actually, you did, because I know those men noticed, and I’m sure the said something to you about it.”
Mads’s face took on a sour guilty look. He cleared his throat. “They did. They staged an intervention last week…and I didn’t take it too well.”
She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. “Oh yeah? What did they say that you didn’t like?”
He was silent for long moments, his expression pinched, but his thumbs never stopped brushing against her knuckles, like a subconscious need to comfort her and himself, and remind himself that she was there, and she was allowing him to touch her.
“They told me that I was an asshole, and that I was cheating on you. At first, I disagreed with them because I never crossed that line with Sarah, but then I talked to War….”
“Limerence,” Em chimed in, and Mads nodded.
“Yeah, limerence.” He took a deep breath. “I might not have fucked her, but I was ‘in like’ with the idea of her, how she made me feel needed, fulfilled, like I was that protector and provider again. I know now that everything she said was fabricated to lean into the club damsel in distress, feeding my ego, but back then, I felt….”
Click…click…click….
“Like you hadn’t been left behind,” Em whispered.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. It all made too much, painful sense.
Her man, her best friend, her husband felt abandoned. The kids left home for college, and she’d poured more time and attention into her business—neither of those things were wrong, but Mads was left feeling like they were moving on with their lives without him. Their protector and provider was no longer needed to protect nor provide…and he’d gone looking for something to fill the void.
And Sarah slithered right in.
That wasn’t an excuse though, it was a symptom.
“I admit, being with Sarah was fun. And when I wasn’t playing the protector, I could just be myself without the worry that comes with being committed to her. There were no strings, no ties to her that couldn’t just be brushed away. Nothing serious. Nothing lasting. And I was okay with that…and every time I answered her text but left yours on read, and every time I answered her calls but sent you to voicemail, and every time I chatted with her at the bar then went to bed in the clubhouse instead of coming home…I was choosing her over you. And little by little, I was betraying our marriage.”
Oh God…just hearing him say those things out loud…it was like being flayed alive.
She’d known that he’d been ignoring her, neglecting her, but she’d never thought he washappywhile he was doing those things—but that’s what it sounded like.
Her throat burning from captured sobs, she croaked, “You were living your best life while the rest of your family were waiting for you. You may have thought we left you behind, but we were waiting for you to be where you usually were—at home, present, within reach—so we could live our lives with you, no matter how they were changing. When the kids passed a difficult class, they wanted to call you, but you left them on read, too, only getting around to texting back when it was convenient. And me…what I was feeling like shit, and I was alone, and I was desperate to just hear my husband’s voice—you weren’t there.
“So, we may have begun a new chapter in our lives, but we always wanted you there to turn the page with us. It was you and your ego and your pride that ruined that for you and for us. Instead of being part of what we were building for our future, you turned your back on us.”
