One, two, three, four, five . . .
Fifteen seconds he sits like this. Fifteen seconds of dread. Or regret. I don’t know what he’s feeling.
He releases the steering wheel and sits up straight. He looks in his rearview mirror and wipes his mouth. Adjusts his tie. Wipes his neck. Breaks my heart. Sighs heavily and then finally exits his car.
When he walks through the front door, he doesn’t notice me right away. He crosses the living room, heading for the kitchen, which leads to our bedroom. He’s almost to the kitchen when he finally sees me.
My wineglass is tilted to my lips. I hold his stare as I take another sip. He just watches me in silence. He’s probably wondering what I’m doing sitting in the dark. Alone. Drinking wine. His eyes follow the path from me to the living room window. He sees how visible his car is from my position. How visible his actions must have been to me as he was sitting in his car. He’s wondering if I saw him wipe the remnants of her off his mouth. Off his neck. He’s wondering if I saw him adjust his tie. He’s wondering if I saw him press his head to the steering wheel in dread. Or regret. He doesn’t bring his eyes back to mine. Instead, he looks down.
“What’s her name?” I somehow ask the question without it sounding spiteful. I ask it with the same tone I often use to ask him about his day.
How was your day, dear?
What’s your mistress’s name, dear?
Despite my pleasant tone, Graham doesn’t answer me. He lifts his eyes until they meet mine, but he’s quiet in his denial.
I feel my stomach turn like I might physically be sick. I’m shocked at how much his silence angers me. I’m shocked at how much more this hurts in reality than in my nightmares. I didn’t think it could get worse than the nightmares.
I somehow stand up, still clenching my glass. I want to throw it. Not at him. I just need to throw it at something. I hate him with every part of my soul right now, but I don’t blame him enough to throw the glass at him. If I could throw it at myself, I would. But I can’t, so I throw it toward our wedding photo that hangs on the wall across the room.
I repeat the words as my wineglass hits the picture, shattering, bleeding down the wall and all over the floor. “What’s her fucking name, Graham?!”
My voice is no longer pleasant.
Graham doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t look at the wedding photo, he doesn’t look at the bleeding floor beneath it, he doesn’t look at the front door, he doesn’t look at his feet. He looks me right in the eye and he says, “Andrea.”
As soon as her name has fallen from his lips completely, he looks away. He doesn’t want to witness what his brutal honesty does to me.
I think back to the moment I was about to have to face Ethan after finding out he cheated on me. That moment when Graham held my face in his hands and said, “The worst thing we could do right now is show emotion, Quinn. Don’t get angry. Don’t cry.”
It was easier then. When Graham was on my side. It’s not so easy being over here alone.
My knees meet the floor, but Graham isn’t here to catch me. As soon as he said her name, he left the room.
I do all the things Graham told me not to do the last time this happened to me. I show emotion. I get angry. I cry.
I crawl over to the mess I made on the floor. I pick up the smaller glass shards and I place them into a pile. I’m crying too hard to see them all. I can barely see through my tears as I grab a roll of napkins to soak up the wine from the wood floor.
I hear the shower running. He’s probably washing off remnants of Andrea while I wash away remnants of red wine.
The tears are nothing new, but they’re different this time. I’m not crying over something that never came to be. I’m crying for something that’s coming to an end.
I pick up a shard of the glass and scoot to the wall, leaning against it. I stretch my legs out in front of me and I stare down at the piece of glass. I flip my hand over and press the glass against my palm. It pierces my skin, but I continue to press harder. I watch as it goes deeper and deeper into my palm. I watch as blood bubbles up around the glass.
My chest still somehow hurts worse than my hand. So much worse.
I drop the shard of glass and wipe the blood away with a napkin. Then I pull my legs up and hug my knees, burying my face in them. I’m still sobbing when Graham walks back into the room. I hug myself tighter when he kneels next to me. I feel his hand in my hair, his lips in my hair. His arms around me. He pulls me against him and sits against the wall.
I want to scream at him, punch him, run from him. But all I can do is curl up into myself even tighter as I cry.
“Quinn.” His arms are clasped firmly around me and his face is in my hair. My name is full of agony when it falls from his lips. I’ve never hated it so much. I cover my ears because I don’t want to hear his voice right now. But he doesn’t say another word. Not even when I pull away from him, walk to our bedroom, and lock the door.
Chapter Seventeen
* * *
Then
Inseparable.
That’s what we are.
It’s been two and a half months since I supposedly gave him a “look” that night at the restaurant.
Even after spending every waking moment together outside of our respective jobs, I still miss him. I have never been this wrapped up in someone in my life. I never thought it was possible. It’s not an unhealthy obsession, because he gives me my space if I want it. I just don’t want the space. He’s not possessive or overprotective. I’m not jealous or needy. It’s just that the time we spend together feels like this euphoric escape and I want as much of it as I can get.
We’ve only slept apart once in the ten weeks we’ve been seeing each other. Ava and Reid got into a fight, so I let her stay with me and we talked shit about guys and ate junk food all night. It was depressingly fun, but five minutes after she walked out the door I was calling Graham. Twenty minutes after she left, he was knocking on my door. Twenty-one minutes after she left, we were making love.
That’s basically what it’s been. Ten weeks of nothing but sex, laughter, sex, food, sex, laughter, and more sex.
Graham jokes that we have to plateau at some point. But that point is not today.
“Jesus, Quinn.” He groans against my neck as he collapses on top of me. He’s out of breath and I’m no help because I can’t catch mine, either.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s Halloween and we’re supposed to be at a party at Ava and Reid’s house, but as soon as I pulled on my slutty T-shirt dress, Graham couldn’t keep his hands off me. We almost had sex in the hallway, near the elevator, but he carried me back inside to save our dignity.
He held me to the Halloween costumes I suggested back in August. We decided to go as ourselves, only sluttier. We couldn’t really figure out what a slutty slut costume of ourselves should look like, so we decided to just barely wear clothes. I have a ton of makeup on. Graham says his job is to just feel me up all night and make sure we have plenty of public displays of affection.
Our clothes are on the floor now, though, with the addition of a new rip in my shirt. The wait for that damn elevator gets us every time.
Graham leans in to me and buries his head against my neck again, kissing me until I break out in chills. “When am I going to meet your mother?”