I have no idea how he talks so calmly about it. I was so angry in the weeks following Ethan’s affair. I took it personally, like they had the affair just to spite us. Graham looks at the affair like they did it despite us.
“Do you still talk to her?”
“Hell, no,” he says with a laugh. “Just because I don’t think she’s a malicious person doesn’t mean I want anything to do with her.”
I smile at that truth.
Graham kisses the tip of my nose and then pulls back. “Are you relieved it happened? Or do you miss him?”
His questions don’t seem to come from a place of jealousy at all. Graham just seems curious about the things that have happened in my life. Which is why I answer him with complete transparency. “I missed him for a while, but now that I’ve had a chance to reflect, we really had nothing in common.” I roll onto my side and prop my head up on my hand. “On paper we had a lot in common. But in here,” I touch my chest. “It didn’t make sense. I loved him, but I don’t think it was the kind of love that could withstand a marriage.”
Graham laughs. “You say that like marriage is a Category 5 hurricane.”
“Not all the time. But I definitely think there are Category 5 moments in every marriage. I don’t think Ethan and I could have survived those moments.”
Graham stares up at the ceiling in thought. “I know what you mean. I would have disappointed Sasha as a husband.”
“Why in the world do you think that?”
“It’s more a reflection of her than myself.” Graham reaches up to my cheek and wipes something away.
“Then that would make her a disappointing wife. It wouldn’t make you a disappointing husband.”
Graham smiles at me appreciatively. “Do you remember what your fortune cookie said?”
I shrug. “It’s been a while. Something about flaws, accompanied by a grammatical error.”
Graham laughs. “It said, If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”
I love that he kept my fortune. I love it even more that he has it memorized.
“We’re all full of flaws. Hundreds of them. They’re like tiny holes all over our skin. And like your fortune said, sometimes we shine too much light on our own flaws. But there are some people who try to ignore their own flaws by shining light on other people’s to the point that the other person’s flaws become their only focus. They pick at them, little by little, until they rip wide open and that’s all we become to them. One giant, gaping flaw.” Graham makes eye contact with me, and even though what he’s saying is kind of depressing, he doesn’t seem disappointed. “Sasha is that type of person. If I had married her, no matter how much I would have tried to prevent it, she would eventually be disappointed in me. She was incapable of focusing on the positive in other people.”
I’m relieved for Graham. The thought of him being in an unhappy marriage makes me sad for him. And the thought of potentially being in an unhappy marriage hits a little too close to home. I frown, knowing I almost went through with that same type of marriage. I stare down at my hand, unconsciously rubbing my naked ring finger. “Ethan used to do that. But I didn’t notice until after we broke up. I realized I felt better about myself without him than I did with him.” I look back up at Graham. “For so long, I thought he was good for me. I feel so naive. I no longer trust my own judgment.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says. “Now you know exactly what to look for. When you meet someone who is good for you, they won’t fill you with insecurities by focusing on your flaws. They’ll fill you with inspiration, because they’ll focus on all the best parts of you.”
I pray he can’t feel the intense pounding of my heart right now. I swallow hard and then choke out a pathetic sentence. “That’s . . . really beautiful.”
His pointed stare doesn’t waver until he closes his eyes and presses his mouth to mine. We kiss for a quiet moment, but it’s so intense, I feel like I can’t breathe when we separate. I look down and suck in a quiet breath before looking him in the eye again. I force a grin in an attempt to ease the intensity in my chest. “I can’t believe you kept that fortune.”
“I can’t believe you kept my number on your wall for six months.”
“Touché.”
Graham reaches to my face and runs his thumb over my lips. “What do you think is one of your biggest flaws?”
I kiss the tip of his thumb. “Does family count as a flaw?”
“Nope.”
I think on it a moment longer. “I have a lot. But I think the one I would like to change if I could is my inability to read people. It’s hard for me to look at someone and know exactly what they’re thinking.”
“I don’t think many people can read people. They just think they can.”
“Maybe.”
Graham readjusts himself, wrapping my leg over him while his eyes fill with playfulness. He leans forward and brushes his lips across mine, teasing me with a swipe of his tongue. “Try to read me right now,” he whispers. “What am I thinking?” He pulls back and looks down at my mouth.
“You’re thinking you want to move to Idaho and buy a potato farm.”
He laughs. “That is exactly what I was thinking, Quinn.” He rolls onto his back, pulling me on top of him. I push against his chest and sit up, straddling him.
“What about you? What’s your biggest flaw?”
The smile disappears from Graham’s face and his eyes are suddenly sad again. The variance in his expressions is so extreme. When he’s sad, he looks sadder than anyone I’ve ever known. But when he’s happy, he looks happier than anyone I’ve ever known.
Graham threads his fingers through mine and squeezes them. “I made a really stupid choice once that had some devastating consequences.” His voice is quieter and I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. But I love that he does anyway. “I was nineteen. I was with my best friend, Tanner. His sixteen-year-old brother, Alec, was with us. We had been at a party and I was the least drunk of the three of us, so I drove us the two miles home.”
Graham squeezes my hands and inhales a breath. He’s not looking me in the eye, so I know his story doesn’t end well and I hate it for him. It makes me wonder if this is the flaw that makes him look as sad as he does sometimes.
“We had a wreck half a mile from my house. Tanner died. Alec was thrown from the vehicle and broke several bones. The wreck wasn’t our fault. A truck ran a stop sign, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t sober. They charged me with a DUI and I spent a night in jail. But since I didn’t have a record, I was only charged with injury to a child and put on a year of probation for what happened to Alec.” Graham releases a heavy sigh. “Isn’t that fucked up? I got charged for the injuries Alec received in the wreck, but wasn’t charged in the death of my best friend.”
I can feel the weight of his sadness in my chest as I stare at him. There’s so much of it. “You say that like you feel guilty you weren’t charged for his death.”
Graham’s eyes finally meet mine. “I feel guilty every day that I’m alive and Tanner isn’t.”
I hate that he felt he had to tell me this. It’s obviously hard to talk about, but I appreciate that he did. I bring one of his hands up to my mouth and I kiss it.
“It does get better with time,” Graham says. “When I tell myself it could have just as easily been me in that passenger seat and Tanner behind the wheel. We both made stupid decisions that night. We were both at fault. But no matter what consequences I suffer as a result, I’m alive and he isn’t. And I can’t help but wonder if my reactions could have been faster had I not been drinking. What if I hadn’t decided I was sober enough to drive? What if I’d been able to swerve and miss that truck? I think that’s what feeds most of my guilt.”
I don’t even try to offer him reassuring words. Sometimes situations don’t have a positive side. They just have a whole lot of sad sides. I reach down and touch his cheek. Then I touch the corners of his sad eyes. My
fingers move to the scar on his collarbone that he showed me last night. “Is that where you got this scar?”
He nods.
I lower myself on top of him and press my lips to his scar. I kiss it from one end to the other and then lift up and look Graham in the eye. “I’m sorry that happened.”
He forces a smile, but it fades as fast as it appeared. “Thank you.”
I move my lips to his cheek and kiss him there, softly. “I’m sorry you lost your best friend.”
I can feel Graham release a rush of air as his arms wrap around me. “Thank you.”
I drag my lips from his cheek to his mouth and I kiss him gently. Then I pull back and look at him again. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Graham watches me in silence for a few brief seconds, then he rolls me over so that he’s on top of me. He presses his hand against my throat, gripping my jaw with gentle fingers. He watches my face as he pushes inside me, his mouth waiting in eagerness for my gasp. As soon as my lips part, his tongue dives between them and he kisses me the same way he fucks me. Unhurried. Rhythmic. Determined.
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
Now
The first time I dreamt Graham was cheating on me, I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. I was gasping for air because in my dream, I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. Graham woke up and immediately put his arms around me. He asked me what was wrong and I was so mad at him. I remember pushing him away because the anger from my dream was still there, as if he’d actually cheated on me. When I told him what happened, he laughed and just held me and kissed me until I was no longer angry. Then he made love to me.
The next day he sent me flowers. The card said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you in your nightmare. Please forgive me tonight when you dream.”
I still have the card. I smile every time I think about it. Some men can’t even apologize for the mistakes they make in reality. But my husband apologizes for the mistakes he makes in my dreams.
I wonder if he’ll apologize tonight.
I wonder if he actually has anything to apologize for.
I don’t know why I’m suspicious. It started the night he came home too drunk to remember it the next morning and the suspicion continued to last Thursday, when he came home and didn’t smell like beer at all. I’ve never been suspicious of him before this month, even after the trust issues Ethan left me with. But something didn’t feel right this past Thursday. He came straight home and changed clothes without kissing me. And it hasn’t felt right since that night.
The fear hit me hard today, right in the chest. So hard, I gasped and covered my mouth.
It’s as if I could feel his guilt from wherever he was in that second. I know that’s impossible—for two people to be so connected that they can feel each other even when they aren’t in each other’s presence. I think it was more of my denial inching its way forward until it was finally front and center in my conscience.
Things are at their worst between us. We hardly communicate. We aren’t affectionate. Yet still, we walk around every other room in our house and pretend we’re still husband and wife. But since that drunken night, it seems like Graham stopped sacrificing. The goodbye kisses started becoming more infrequent. The hello kisses have stopped completely. He’s finally stooped to my level in this marriage.
He either has something to feel guilty for or he’s finally done fighting for the survival of this marriage.
Isn’t that what I wanted, though? For him to stop fighting so hard for something that will only bring him more misery?
I don’t drink very often but I keep wine on hand for emergencies. This certainly feels like an emergency. I drink the first glass in the kitchen while I watch the clock.
I drink the second glass on the couch while I watch the driveway.
I need the wine to still the doubts I’m having. My fingers are trembling as I stare down at the wine. My stomach feels full of worry, like I’m inside one of my nightmares.
I’m sitting on the far-right side of the couch with my feet curled beneath me. The TV isn’t on. The house is dark. I’m still watching the driveway when his car finally pulls in at half past seven. I have a clear view of him as he turns off the car and the headlights fade to black. I can see him, but he can’t see me.
Both of his hands are gripping the steering wheel. He’s just sitting in the car like the last place he wants to be is inside this house with me. I take another sip of wine and watch as he rests his forehead against his steering wheel.
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 f
rom 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.
All Your Perfects Page 12
