Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

HANSLEY

J essica came home yesterday. I spent the entire ten days she wasn’t here building my resolve to tell her the truth. To admit what I’ve been doing.

Yet, looking at the deep sadness in her eyes makes my stomach roll and I chicken out.

That doesn’t mean home isn’t just awkward. It’s also tense because I’m being a dick. I don’t mean to be, but the irritation and frustration I keep having toward myself is manifesting in stupid ways. Like when I walked into the kitchen this afternoon and found a damp kitchen cloth on the butcher block.

I made a much bigger deal about it than was warranted. Honestly, I should have just tossed it in the laundry instead of reminding Jessica that keeping something wet on the wood will ruin it in time. She says she was cleaning and had walked away for only a minute to change the laundry or something.

Do you think I could let it go? Fuck, no. I continued to get on her back until she burst into tears.

And since I have zero balls, instead of doing the right thing and apologizing, I left. I got on my bike and took off like the chicken shit I am.

I’ve been driving around for the past hour now. No destination in mind. Just driving. I drive past Lemon’s because I can’t help myself. Things have been weird there too, which is entirely my fault. I’ve been avoiding him as much as I have my own house.

The thing is, I need to get into a better place. Tomorrow is our first game. I owe it to my team to be there 100%. Which means I need to grow a fucking pair and face my wife. There needs to be some peace in this house, and the only way that’s going to happen is if I fucking tell her what a piece of shit I am.

While I know this is sending mixed signals, I stop at the florist and purchase the biggest fucking bouquet I can safely get home on my bike. Now that I have flowers I’ll ruin if I take them for a joy ride, I have no choice but to go home.

Jessica is in the kitchen still. I set the flowers on the counter in front of her. She looks at them, wiping her eyes, and tries to smile.

“We need to talk,” I say.

She nods, sniffing quietly.

“You haven’t done a thing wrong, Jess. I’ve done everything wrong.”

“But… why?” she whispers.

“I wish I had an answer to that.” Then I take a deep breath and will the words to come out. “I’ve… I’ve been having an affair.”

She sucks in a breath as fresh tears trail down her cheeks. I force myself to watch them as I try to catch my breath.

“I wish I could tell you it was… I don’t know, an emotional connection? A one-time thing? I don’t know. I wish I had more answers for you, but I don’t.”

“What does that mean?” she asks, voice shaking.

“I’ve been messing around with a man at school who’s been a dick since the moment I met him. Yet, it keeps happening. I—” At what point is it too much information? How much does she want to know and what’s just going to make her feel worse?

I sigh.

“Lemon? The football coach who you’ve said has been hateful since the moment you met?” she asks.

I nod.

Jessica stares at me. “Oh,” she says.

I laugh even though there’s nothing funny. “I know what you’re thinking because I’ve been trying to puzzle out what the hell I’m doing too.”

“What’s the answer?”

Shaking my head, I shrug. I feel so damn tired. “I don’t have one, Jess. It could be any combination of things.”

“I didn’t know you were unhappy,” she says.

“I wasn’t.”

“Are you… unsatisfied… with me?”

“No,” I insist. “Not at all. I mean it, Jess. I have no idea why I let him kiss me. Why I kissed him back.”

“Just kissing?” she asks and there’s hope in her voice.

It makes me feel sick. “No,” I whisper. “I’ve slept with him.”

Her jaw trembles. “Once?”

Fuck, I hate this. I hate how much every word I say hurts her a little deeper. “No,” I say again. “Many times.”

She flinches and looks away. Her tears come quicker now, and I want to take her in my arms, but I don’t think she needs or wants me touching her right now.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s not enough, and you have every right not to forgive me. But I’m so sorry.”

“Are you done now?” she asks through her tears. “Your affair is over?”

As if her words were cruel, my phone pings in my pocket and I know if I look, it’s Lemon. More than anything, I want to tell her it’s done. But it’s a lie. I crave this man.

My inability to answer is loud. Her face falls and she covers it with her hands.

Silence fills the kitchen. The only sound her quiet cries. Eventually she says, “We can go to counseling. If you stop seeing him.”

“You should hate me, Jess,” I tell her. The hope in her voice kills me.

“You’re not going to stop seeing him.”

I sink onto a stool and drop my face into my hands. “I wish I could tell you something you want to hear. It’s just… I’ve been trying. But there’s something about him I just… I can’t get away from.”

She sniffles and squeezes her eyes shut.

“I wish we didn’t move here,” she whispers.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“You just… so… what do we do? Can we move now?”

“If for no other reason than my team, no. I can’t do that to them. Not to the school. Our first game is tomorrow, and they’ve worked their asses off. I can’t abandon them, Jess.”

She gives me a smile. “I’m glad that’s the reason we aren’t moving.”

Every time she says ‘we,’ it feels like a shot through my chest. “Listen to me,” I say and her watery eyes meet mine. “We can’t live like this. More than anything I want to tell you that I can stop. That I want to stop. I’d love to be able to tell you that this was a mistake. An experiment. I was curious. Literally anything at all that is some semblance of an excuse. But it’s all a lie, Jessica. I don’t have a reason. I don’t have an answer. But I can tell you without a doubt it’s not over.”

Her tears fall like a faucet, but I push on.

“We have to be over. You and me. It’s not because I’m choosing someone over you. Although I know it sounds this way, this part truly has nothing to do with Lemon. You need someone to love you better than I am. You need to be taken care of in a way that I’ve failed to do these last couple months. You deserve so much better than I’m going to be able to give you.”

“I just—I don’t understand.” She hiccups and struggles to catch her breath. “If you aren’t going to be with him, then why don’t you want to be with me?”

“Oh, Jess.” I get up and round the counter to take her into my arms. Then pull her close and hug her tightly. “I need you to see that I am not worthy of the kind of love you’re giving me.”

I don’t point out that I didn’t say I’m not going to be with Lemon. Really, I don’t know if that’s the kind of relationship we’re heading toward. I’m not even sure how I feel one way or the other about it. Or how I feel about him in that capacity.

He’s fucking mesmerizing. Addicting. I will keep fucking him.

But being with him? I don’t know.

The thing is, it’s truly not the situation with Lemon that’s making me divorce my wife. It’s the realization that I’m never going to be the man that she deserves. There’s no way I can go back to being the husband she married. It has nothing to do with want. I can’t. I’ve fundamentally changed.

This isn’t even a sexuality thing. It’s just me. Like everything inside me has been rewritten. I’m not the man Jessica married anymore. I’m no longer the man she loved. This is one of those instances where we didn’t grow together as a married couple.

We grew apart and the separation is now inescapable. It’s a chasm that can’t be closed, filled, bridged, or ignored.

It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I know that.

Staying with Jessica will only prolong the inevitable. I’ll only continue to hurt her. I don’t know if I don’t have the strength, will, or want to say no to Lemon. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.

There’s only one thing I know for sure. I’m done hurting Jessica—the single person in this situation who doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry, Jess. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know, I believe you,” she says. “I just don’t understand why.” She hiccups. “Why we can’t—” Another hiccup and a breathless sob as she struggles to get the words out.

I take a breath to cut her off before she gets a chance to try again. “Because I’m not going to stop fucking him,” I whisper, inwardly retching at how I know that’s going to tear at her. My chest is tight and my stomach is so sour there’s a good chance I’m going to vomit after this.

Sure enough, she cries a little harder.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry, and I know it sounds like I’m just apologizing because I should when I don’t intend to change what I’m doing, but Jess, I am so, so, so sorry.”

She nods. Of course, she believes me. I bet she even forgives me too. Because that’s the kind of person Jessica is. Far too good.

Minutes pass. Many, many minutes. I force myself to stay right here and let her take whatever comfort from me she wants. No matter how difficult it is for me.

“What are we going to do?” Jessica whispers. Her tears have stopped, I think, though she hasn’t picked her head up.

“I’m going to move out,” I tell her. “You can keep the house if you want to. No need to buy me out or anything. On any of our properties. You can have whatever you want. But we should file for a divorce. Soon.”

“Because you want to get away?”

She sounds so small. So hurt.

“No,” I insist. Well, kind of. But there’s no way I’m telling her that. “Because you need better than I’m able to give you.”

“Are you going to move in with him?”

I huff in laughter. Not real laughter because there’s nothing about this that’s funny. “No, Jess. It’s not like that.”

“You’re not going to be with him. Just… just fuck him.”

I wince. “I don’t have any answers for that. But I’m not ending our marriage to be with someone else. That’s not saying that we won’t get together. I’m just telling you right now that I’m not leaving you to be with someone else. This isn’t a trade in.”

“Oh.”

I kiss the side of her head and take a step back. She’s so beautiful. Even tear-stained. Wrecked. She’s the most stunning person I’ve ever met.

“I’m sorry.”

I want to tell her I love her because I do. I love her so much. But I don’t want to mislead her or give her mixed signals. Especially since even the love I have for her feels different now.

So I don’t tell her.