Prologue

PROLOGUE

Mack

When my husband, Davey, finally walks in our front door, it's close to 2:00 a.m. He tries to sneak, pushing the door closed carefully, before standing his suitcase next to it and toeing out of his shoes.

My chest hurts just watching him. Everything about him is so familiar, and I miss it. Every day. We met close to twenty years ago, on his visit home after graduating college, and I've been consumed by him ever since. I wish we could go back to that. To the days when things were fun and easy and I didn't have this bowling-ball-sized lump constantly sitting on my chest.

Davey turns and stumbles to a stop when he sees me. "Mack? Baby, I said don't wait up."

My face screws up against the need to cry through the anger burning me. "Why are you so late? "

"Flight was delayed." His voice sounds wrecked. He's definitely tired, but so am I. So tired. Not because it's late, but because I'm married to a man who's never home, who looks after his family by working himself into the ground, and who leaves me to explain to our kids where Daddy is.

I miss him so much it hurts.

But I'm tired .

"Well, it had to be something, right?" I ask, not trying to mask the hurt.

Davey rubs his temples, and I recognize the way his shoulders go stiff. "Mack … I can't do this right now."

"Do what? I'm not doing anything."

He drops down onto the couch across from me, and I can't hold in the thoughts I've sat with for the last six hours.

"Just saying that it's becoming more and more common for you to get stuck at work these days. Or to miss your flight. Or to have to duck into the office or to take a call." My throat is getting thick. "Or maybe it's not work keeping you away at all."

He sighs, looking at his hands and not me. "Please don't do this again."

"Well, there has to be some reason why you don't want to be home with us."

"Are you fucking kidding?" he snaps, like I knew he would. I know my husband so well by now that pushing his buttons is easy, and usually I do it to get the amazing makeup sex that comes with it, but I don't think that's what it is this time.

This time, I don't even know what I want.

"I always want to be home with you," Davey says. "It kills me to leave you and the kids, but it's my job . Why don't you get that? "

"Because you could have any job. And you choose the one that means you're gone half of the time. You dump everything on me, pack your bag, and go, then expect me to be okay with that. It might have worked when it was just us, but the kids don't understand. Having to do everything myself is too much."

"You know how much I love what I do. You know how hard I've worked for this."

"Yeah, well, I didn't realize you love it more than you love us."

I know I've gone too far the second the words are out of my mouth.

Am I being an asshole? Yes.

Is it long past needing to be said? Also yes.

"That's not fair."

"Not fair ? What's not fair is only having a husband half of the time. The kids only having Daddy when Daddy wants to be around."

"Mack …"

"We don't even have sex anymore. Do you know it's been six months? Six whole fucking months, from the man who couldn't keep his hands off me when we met."

"Is that what this is about? You want to have sex more?"

My nostrils flare because he doesn't get it. I married Davey because he made me feel like I was his entire world, but little by little, that world was taken away from me and given to his work. I want to have a husband who loves me. Who's so excited to get home to see me that he'd never miss his flight. Never want to be away a week at a time in the first place. Why can't he be as obsessed with me as I am with him?

I swallow roughly, dreading asking my next question. I've thrown it at him in fits of rage before, but this might be the only time I've meant it. "Is there someone else?"

"Someone else? Come on, Mack."

"That wasn't a no."

"Because why the hell would you ask that in the first place? I love you. I love our kids. I'm sitting here being told I'm a shitty dad and husband, and now you're asking if I'm cheating on you?" He presses his fingers into his eye sockets. "I … Every time. Every time I get home lately. Every, single, damn time. I can't keep doing this. I'm exhausted."

"Try being a single parent."

He jolts like I've hit him. "Ouch."

I blink, spilling tears onto my cheeks. "I'm sorry. It's … I can't … I need my husband."

"You have me."

"No, I don't. You think it hurts you to leave? Every time you walk out the door, it's like my heart's being ripped out. You say you love me, but I haven't felt it in a really long time. And I'm so damn sick of staying awake all night, not knowing where you are and who you're with and if this will be the time you come home and say you've had enough of me."

"But you're saying you've had enough of me ?"

My knees are bouncing up and down, because am I? I don't know. I don't have a solution. I'm scared and confused. I'm sick of feeling sick.

"All I know is that I can't keep going like this."

"You know I've tried to find something else, but nothing has been a good fit."

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The last year has been a blur. "It's too much."

"What are you saying?"

"Maybe … If you can't give up work … maybe you need to g ive up us." My heart strangles at the words, but maybe this is what he needs. Maybe this will be the wake-up call for Davey to realize what matters most in life. He's amazing at what he does, he earns bucketloads of money, but we don't need all that. We just need him home again.

"What are you saying?"

"We both can't do this anymore, so …"

"Are you … are you saying you want a divorce?"

A divorce ? Holy fuck, that sounds final. But if I'm going to push him back to us, I need to follow through. A divorce sounds exactly like the kind of world-ending finality he needs to take a step back and look at what he's doing to us. "I … I think so."

Davey breaks down into tears, and I'm not far behind him. I love him so fucking much, want to spend my whole fucking life with him, and if he feels anything even close to what I do, he'll make the right choice.

He'll choose us.

I give him all the time he needs for how serious this is to sink in.

Davey stands from the couch and pulls me up and into his arms. He holds me tight, crushes me to him, and we cry together for so long I almost forget what I'm crying about. Almost.

And when he pulls back, I wait for him to tell me he'll fix it. He'll sort something out with his job. He'll be here for us.

But when he opens his mouth, those aren't the words that come.

"If that's what you want, then okay. I'll look into how we do it in the morning."

A rush echoes in my ears, and I realize it's the sound of my life completely falling apart.