Broken

by Megan Hart

  “It’s just that sometimes, I get so pissed off….”

  He was quiet. I said nothing, hoping that maybe, for once, he’d stop pretending he was okay. Then I could, too. That we could both forget the roles that had so long bound us.

  I waited a bit longer, but he didn’t continue. I stroked his cheek. “Adam, it’s natural for you to be angry.”

  His jaw tightened under my fingers, and he cut his gaze away. Steely. Stoic in a way he’d never used to be.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I want to talk about it—”

  He whipped his head around. “I said I don’t want to talk about it! Jesus! Don’t push me!”

  I pulled my hand away. I so desperately didn’t want to fight with him again. I took a few breaths but the tears from before threatened to slide down my cheeks again.

  “Don’t you do it,” he warned me. “Don’t you fucking start.”

  It was so unfair, that I shouldn’t be allowed to cry. I understood. I knew why he didn’t want to see it, but it was so damned unfair, just the same.

  “I liked it better when you used to throw dishes!”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” he said, voice thick with the sarcasm I loathed, “I can’t throw anything.”

  “You never used to never hold anything back. You used to let yourself be angry. Or sad. Or delirious with joy, Adam, you used to let yourself be overcome—”

  “And you used to hate it!” His shout was hoarse and I couldn’t stop myself from fussing with his blankets. His face clenched. “Stop it, just fucking stop it, okay? Dennis can do that.”

  “I want to make sure—”

  “I said stop it.”

  I stopped. We stared at each other. Glared, really, and I waited for him to let fly with the blistering invectives that would reduce me to tears.

  He reined it in. I was torn between relief and despair. I crossed my hands under my arms, tight against my stomach. They were cold.

  “I didn’t hate the way you were.” The words slipped out before they could stop them. “I miss it. I miss you, Adam.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. He turned his face from me again. I walked around the side of the bed to force him to see me.

  “I think it would be better for you to talk about it with me. I think we need to talk…I need to talk about this. About us. About this. You never tell me stories anymore.” I gestured at the bed, the wheelchair.

  “What are you, three years old?”

  I refused to let his words sting. “You never talk to me about what you’re feeling anymore.”

  “I don’t want to talk.” The emphasis he put on the last word made it sound dirty. “You can put shit on a Kaiser roll and call it a sandwich, Sadie, but it’s still shit.”

  “Well, it’s shit I think we need to talk about!”

  “Stop fucking trying to analyze me!” He tried to shout but it came out more like a wheeze.

  “I’m not your analyst. I’m your wife.”

  “Then be my fucking wife,” he snapped. “And quit trying to get inside my head. I’ve got nothing to share with you. This is my thing, Sadie. Mine. Not yours. Quit trying to make it all about you. I’m so fucking tired of you trying to make this about you.”

  It wasn’t the nastiest thing he’d ever said to me, but it was the cruelest. It hurt worse than being called a cunt, or stupid. I recoiled as physically as if he’d slapped me.

  He turned his head again, expression stony. I thought I’d cry, but my own face felt like it had been carved from marble. I blinked, hard, but my eyes stayed dry.

  I left the room and bumped into Dennis in the hallway. He put out a hand to pat my shoulder. We shared a look. I was in his arms before I could stop myself, my face pressed against his chest while I cried in silence. Dennis patted my back, his big strong arms like pillars around me.

  Adam shouted for him. The next second the intercom buzzed, and I pulled myself from Dennis’ comforting embrace though I was far from finished needing it. Dennis wasn’t there for me.

  He looked concerned, though, and I forced a smile. “Go on. He needs you.”

  Dennis chucked my chin. “This happens, Sadie….”

  “I know.” I swiped my tears. “I know. I’m okay. Go ahead.”

  He nodded again and patted my shoulder before disappearing into Adam’s room. I thought I might cry some more, but I took a page from Adam’s book and forced myself to stoic calm.

  September

  I was twenty minutes later than usual on the first Friday of the month. I’d told myself I wouldn’t go, but I left my office fluffing my hair and applying my lipstick in the shiny reflection of the elevator doors on the way down. I held my brown lunch bag crumpled in my hand like a prize, and my heels click-clicked on the pavement as I headed for the spot on the bench I thought of as ours. September afternoons were still warm enough to sit outside, but today was a little overcast, the breeze cool enough to make a sweater necessary.

  There was no way for me to pretend my heart didn’t leap when I came around the corner to the small, hidden spot that held our bench. He was there. He wore a suit I recognized, the tie I’d complimented, and his eyes caught mine. I could have used a hand to catch me, because in the next moment my shoe slid on a stray piece of gravel and I ingloriously stumbled.

  Joe was there, but he wasn’t alone.

  I knew at once who she was. The blond hair in the twist and the pearl earrings gave it away, as did the cool way she turned her head to view my graceless approach.

  Joe did not stand. He did not smile. His hand snaked along the back of the bench to rest upon the sleek, padded shoulder of his companion, and she inched closer with a look down at the bench as though she wanted to scold it for being dirty.

  “Are you all right?” His voice was neutral. It stung more than if he’d been cold. “Watch your step.”

  “They really should clear these paths more often,” said Priscilla, and fucking hell, even her voice was poised and perfect. “You could have turned your ankle.”

  “I’m sorry,” I heard myself say as though from very far away. “I didn’t realize this bench was occupied.”

  Priscilla glanced at the side of her not nestled against Joe. “We could move over…”

  “No, that’s fine.” I shook my head. “I’ll find another one.”

  “Are you sure?” Joe asked. I watched his finger trace the back of Priscilla’s neck. “There’s room for one more.”

  We both looked at him, and if our faces wore similar expressions it was because we both were feeling the same thing.

  “No. Thank you.” I shook my head and put my foot back to the path leading away from them. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  Bastard. Motherfucking bastard. Asshole. The invectives filled my head as I stalked away. Behind me, I heard him murmur. The soft trill of Priscilla’s laughter made me want to vomit.

  Behind the wheel of my car I gave in to disgusted tears I hid behind my hands. They didn’t relieve any of my tension. They only made it worse, and I stopped them with the heels of my hands pressed to my eyes so hard I saw flashes of color. I wouldn’t allow myself the luxury of wallowing in grief I had no right to feel.

  The face in my rearview mirror didn’t look like me at first, until I blinked a few times and wiped my face with a handful of crumpled tissues that came apart in my hand. Picking off the tiny pieces of shredded paper gave my fingers something to do while my mind caught up. By the time I’d cleaned off my skirt and shoved the tissues into a plastic grocery bag I kept for trash, I regained enough calm to be able to drive.

  I’ve never been one to reapply my makeup, but I sorely needed it today. I spent another ten minutes retracing the line of my lips with color, coating my cheeks with powder. I had no mascara or liner to undo the damage my tears had wrought, but it was the best I could do.

  My sobs had felt like thorns in my throat. And that’s what it was, with Joe, wasn’t it? All briars. No roses. Lesson learned, the
painful way.

  Chapter

  13

  I couldn’t pretend to hide my relief when Adam told me his mother and sister wouldn’t be visiting, after all.

  “Did they say they’d make it another time?” I settled my tote bag, filled with reading material, some work and the scarf I’d been knitting for a million years, onto the recliner.

  “No.”

  I didn’t look at him as I arranged the small table next to my chair and refolded the afghan. Friday night rituals I didn’t have to think about, so used were my hands to performing them. I picked at a small hole in the arm of the recliner, where something had snagged the material. I’d have to repair it before it got bigger.

  “I’m going to get a needle and thread,” I said, turning, but Adam’s gaze stopped me.

  “Sadie.” The way he said my name was the iceberg that sunk my heart. “I told them not to come.”

  The knitting needles in my hand clattered as my fingers squeezed, and I put the mess of yarn aside. “Did you? Why?”

  “Because I don’t think I can deal with them right now.”

  I’d been relieved more than was kind to learn they weren’t coming. Hearing Adam had been the one to decide it made me feel marginally better, but not much. I moved to his side and stroked my fingers through his hair. His skin was warmer than I liked, and I shifted the sheets off his body to help it cool.

  He was silent while I fussed. Again, his gaze snared me tighter than if he’d been able to reach out and grab me. I laid my hands flat on the crisp white sheet and ran the edge of it through my fingers, back and forth. This would have annoyed him had he been able to feel it; it annoyed him watching the repetitive motion of my arms, and I stopped abruptly.

  His eyes looked me over, up and down, peeling away my layers and leaving me naked in front of him. “I’m sorry, Sadie.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about.” I said this firmly, allowing no argument. “This is what it is. We’ll work things out, Adam, like we always have—”

  “No.” He bit out the word.

  I leaned in, unwilling to give up. “Yes.”

  In the past, if I’d won any arguments it was because Adam had relented, not because I’d been better able to plead my case or because I’d been the one throwing the bigger fit. When we fought, it was spectacular and sometimes messy, but Adam was the sound and fury and I simply waited quietly until he’d finished.

  Not this time.

  “I am not giving up on you.” I shook my head to emphasize my point. “No matter how much of an asshole you are.”

  I’d hoped to get a smile from him, but his gaze just went darker.

  “I’m not playing around, Sadie. This—all this—”

  “All this what?” My fingers crumpled the sheet. “Our marriage? Our life? What, Adam?”

  It felt good to push at him. He glared and made a rude noise. I glared, too.

  “Yeah, all of it.”

  I wasn’t about to let him stop there. “What about it?”

  I’d never seen him without words. Either he had them to spare or he doled them out as rewards, but he always had them. I felt triumphant and destroyed at the same time, watching him struggle.

  “I think…I want a divorce.”

  I reacted as if I’d stepped on a rake, recoiling. “What?”

  “I want a divorce.” It seemed saying it the first time had been difficult, but the second was a piece of cake.

  “Absolutely not!” I put my hands on my hips to keep from making fists. “Go to hell! Fuck you!”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he shouted, voice hoarse as if it tore his throat. “I can’t fuck you! Not now, not ever! Not for the rest of my fucking life!”

  I said nothing in the face of this truth. Heat had flared between us. My breath came faster, driven by my fury.

  “You can,” I muttered finally. “You just won’t, you selfish prick.”

  Adam blinked. His mouth thinned, grim, straight, like he meant to force back his retort. In the next moment, though, he let it all out.

  “I want to put you up against a wall and fuck you until you scream, Sadie. How ridiculous is that?” He looked down at his immobile body, then back up at me. “I can’t even take care of myself, much less you.”

  “I know.” I kept my voice hard, though I wanted to soften. “And it sucks. A lot.”

  His voice cracked. “I thought I’d always be able to take care of you, Sadie. That you’d always need me more than I needed you. And now, you go out every day and live a life I have no part of, and I…I don’t know how you can not need me, anymore.”

  I kissed him, then, no longer angry. “I still need you.”

  He shook his head a tiny bit. “No—”

  I stopped his movement with another kiss. “Yes, Adam. I still need you.”

  “But I can’t—”

  I shushed him. “You can.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes. I let my fingers stroke down the sides of his neck, where he could feel my touch, and he sighed. I slipped a hand inside the collar of his pajama shirt to trace the ridge of his collarbone. Adam’s mouth parted and I kissed him, waiting for his tongue to delve into my mouth before stroking it with my own.

  “I love you,” I whispered against his lips. “That hasn’t changed.”

  My fingers shook as I pulled down the covers and unbuttoned his shirt, folding it open to reveal his chest. I’d seen his body plenty of times, assisted with showers and changed his clothes. I knew the changes in it. They no longer frightened me as they had the first time I’d seen him, unconscious, rubbed raw and bleeding in places that now bore faint white scars.

  I traced the line of the largest, where a tree branch had gouged him from just above his right nipple and around his side to the jut of his hipbone. I bent to kiss the small, puckered star of scar tissue at the top, and when I did, Adam groaned. I slid my lips down along the line, pressing gentle kisses to his flesh.

  It had been years since I’d kissed him anywhere but the mouth, neck or hand. We’d never spoken about his feelings about his body, or why in our sporadic lovemaking we both chose to focus on what I could do to myself rather than what I could do to him.

  My hands stroked his skin as I moved my mouth upward again to find his mouth. I kissed him softly as I rubbed his chest and sides. I slid my hand into the elastic waist of his pajama bottoms. The brush of his pubic curls against my fingers made me gasp a little, my knees weak with longing.

  “Will you touch yourself?” Adam whispered, voice thick.

  I shook my head. “I want to touch you.”

  His eyes fluttered closed, but when he opened them, the lust in his gaze seared me. We kissed again, mouths open and hungry, while my hands roamed every place I could reach.

  I rediscovered his body, its curves and lines. It wasn’t the same as it had been before, but what ever is? And if I had to struggle a bit to ease down his pants to reveal the rest of him to me, well, a prize is always sweeter for having to work for it.

  Adam laughed when I told him that in a voice slightly out of breath from having to move his body in order to pull down the pants. “You’re optimistic.”

  “Shut up,” I ordered from the foot of the bed, where I was lifting his feet to take off the pants.

  He lifted his head to look down at me. I imagined myself framed between his thighs as I moved up the bed, my own clothes already shed before I crawled. I rubbed his legs, thinner than they’d ever been. I kissed his knees and brushed my cheek against his thighs, then crouched between his legs and reached for the bed controls to lift him higher.

  “I want you to be able to watch this.”

  “Sadie—” He sounded alarmed.

  I looked up. “I want to do this.”

  And oh, how I did. Though much about him had changed, Adam’s cock remained the same. When I reached to stroke him, he turned his head away and closed his eyes, mouth turning down like my touch hurt him.

  I murmured his na
me. I bent to brush my lips along his pubic hair, the soft flesh of his lower belly, his thighs. I kissed his penis at the base and let my mouth whisper along it while I slid a hand beneath to cup his testicles.

  There was much I couldn’t do for him, but there was also much I could. I could lick him. I could stroke him. I could kiss him all over and let my hair trail over his body the way he’d once loved.

  I heard him say my name, and when I looked up, saw tears gleaming. He licked his mouth. Beneath my hand, his penis stayed soft and still.

  It didn’t matter. Naked, I eased my body along his, skin to skin in a way we hadn’t been since before the accident. I stretched out beside him, my thigh over his, my cunt snugged up tight against him. I licked his shoulder at a place I knew he could feel, and Adam groaned.

  “I miss touching you,” I told him. “I miss you holding me, yes, but I miss touching you just as much. And you never seem to want to let me.”

  His breathing was hoarse. I thought he might not answer. “You touch me all the time. Every day. You feed me, you dress me, you wipe my ass. Your hands are always all over me, Sadie, and I can never feel them.”

  I caressed his collarbone and the tops of his shoulders. “I know.”

  “No,” Adam said through gritted teeth. “You don’t.”

  With conscious effort, I timed the in and out of my breath to his, so our chests rose and fell in tandem. I kissed his shoulder and kept my lips there, feeling the warmth of his skin. My hair had tangled beneath my cheek and I lifted my head to smooth it.

  Adam looked at my face. “If you had a lover, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Shame shot heat through my entire body. “I don’t have a lover.”

  I caught a glimpse of the old Adam, the man who’d have called out any man who dared look at me with lustful intent. Just a glimpse, but it lifted my heart. I leaned in to kiss him.

  “Good. Because I can’t exactly beat the shit out of him, can I?”

  I shook my head, putting aside thoughts of Joe. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

  Adam tipped his head a bit, seeking my mouth, which I gave him. “Get on top of me.”