7
Cooper doesn’t come home. With each hour that passes, I don’t know whether to be mad or worried. I don’t know whether or not to believe the darkest thought of all: that Cooper’s not staying away just to punish me. That he’s really gone. But he can’t be gone. Not for real. Not for good. He has our whole lives planned out. He wouldn’t just walk away from that. Would he?
At dawn, I drive by Cooper’s practice, but the parking lot is empty on the weekends. So I call Stephen, but he doesn’t answer his phone. I go into the hospital and chart, distracting myself from the anxiety spreading and splintering beneath my rib cage. When morning turns to afternoon and the Saturday silence in the clinic becomes unbearable, I shower, change and head home to face the silence there.
I confirm before I walk into the house that Cooper still isn’t here. His car isn’t in the garage. The lights are off. The warmth is gone. It doesn’t look like he’s been home at all.
I let the puppy out in the backyard, where there’s an ugly gash down the center of it, carved by Reese’s shovel. He has made considerable progress on it, but for now it’s torn apart for anyone to see, myself included, hidden scars revealed, imperfections exacerbated. It will get worse before it gets better.
If it gets better.
I let the puppy into the house, then walk back to the yard, searching for solitude. I extend my toes into the grass. It reaches to mid-shin, and it’s wet, dampening my pant legs and squishing between my toes as I walk from one side to the other, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything. So long ago, I placed a screen between what I think and what I feel. I can see it on the other side, but I can’t touch it, and it can’t touch me. I often blame Abby’s death for that, but even when Abby was alive, she would urge me to open up and let people in.
“Do you even like guys?” I remember her asking me one breezy afternoon next to the lake. We’d bundled up in sweaters and blankets out on the grass in our backyard to watch a houseboat party out on the water. It was the beginning of April and after she and Christian had been dating for a couple of months. I could tell they were getting more serious but she insisted I was making more out of it than was actually there. I was tempted to answer her question with a “no” because at that moment, I didn’t like what guys were doing to our relationship.
“Of course I do,” I snapped. I knew what she was really asking. But I didn’t like her tone, and it hurt that she had to ask at all. She knew me better than anyone.
Abby curled her loose Medusa strands behind her ear in an attempt to tame them against the wind. It didn’t work.
“I’m just asking. I don’t care either way. You don’t have to be so snappy.” She moved a little closer to me. “Why don’t you ever go out with anyone?” she asked. “Why don’t you make friends with people? I know you’re fun to hang out with. And you’re really interesting to talk to when you aren’t putting up the Great Wall of China.”
I pursed my lips at her. “What’s the point? People are assholes.”
She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Dylan. You know that’s not true. You’re just looking for the bad in people instead of looking for the good. You don’t want to have people in your life, and I don’t know why.”
“I’m too different, Abs. I think in...numbers, and cause and effect, and logic. People at school are more worried about who is dating who, and who said what to whom. It’s all drama. I don’t get other people. They don’t get me.”
Abby laughed. “Don’t worry. Once you get out of high school, they’re going to love your no-bullshit attitude. Mystery is sexy.”
“I’m not mysterious,” I said. I was being contrary to demonstrate my resentment toward her friends and the fact that she would be leaving for college soon, but secretly, I hoped she was right.
Abby frowned, finally seeing the seriousness on my face. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders. A group of people on the boat burst into laughter. The sound traveled across the water and was a whisper by the time it reached us.
She lifted her chin and urged me to do the same. Us against the world. “So prove them wrong,” she said.
The sound of the back door opening pulls me from the memory. I look up, and Cooper stands in the door frame. At least, I hope he does. I pray I’m not imagining him there. From this distance, I can see he’s wearing the same jeans and T-shirt from the night before, but I can’t make out his expression. I can guess at a frown, though, because every muscle in his body seems too heavy for him to carry. It’s the same defeat I saw in Stephen when he came over after he moved out of his house with Megan. I don’t know yet if it’s the rawness a man exposes because it’s over or because he doesn’t want it to be.
I wait, watching for the first sign of movement from him like a deer being stalked by a mountain lion. I listen, ears perked, for the words to determine our fate. Cooper leaves the stoop and wades through the grass toward me. I feel the space close between us as if it’s bowing under the pressure. His eyes are locked with mine. His strides lengthen with every step closer until he’s right in front of me, and his arms are around me and he lifts me off the stepping-stone to put us back on the same ground. Relief releases me into his arms. I rest my head on his shoulder, nuzzle my face into the soft skin of his neck and hold him to me like we’re on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall. Maybe he can forgive me.
“I’m so sorry, Dylan,” he says, but I shake my head. I won’t let him take the blame for this. I was trying to protect him, or maybe myself, and instead, I turned what should have been one of the most magical nights of our lives into a night that almost drove us apart for good. He doesn’t deserve to carry that on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” His skin prickles at my breath on his neck, and he pulls me closer until I’m almost unable to breathe, but I let him hold me. He can hold me forever as long as he doesn’t leave.
“I don’t want to ruin us,” he whispers. “I want to fix us.”
I nod, my jaw rubbing against his. “I know. Me, too. I know.”
“I don’t know what’s going on anymore—”
“I know,” I say. “Things have gotten so out of control. But I do love you, Cooper. I’m just glad you’re home.”
“I know you love me. I shouldn’t have given you an ultimatum. I’m more sorry than you can know.” He chokes on the words. I pull back to look at him, and his eyes are bloodshot, his skin ashen. A single night has aged him a decade.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Dylan—”
I place my fingers across his lips. Every time he apologizes, it only makes me feel worse. He’s so high above me. When he lowers himself, it pushes me farther down.
I allow my fingers to slip down until the lips I’ve kissed thousands of times are revealed. There’s a hollow space between us before he speaks, and then he says, “You’re it for me, Dylan. That won’t change, now or ever.”
My mouth is on his almost before he finishes the sentence. His hands cup the back of my head, and he kisses me so hard there’s no room for the playing of lips or teasing of tongues. It’s not about lust, it’s about the love we’ve lost the ability to convey to each other. But the connection in this moment is so strong, it’s as if the energy in him and the energy in me flows together until we’re humming as one. I’ve always tried to be strong, but with him I melt. He brings out the softness in me that, alone or with anyone else, I can’t touch. Losing him would have meant losing myself.
But he’s here, and he’s staying.
I pull away from him, light-headed from lack of oxygen. “Come on,” I breathe. I weave my fingers through his and lead the way back through the grass. We sneak inside silently as if we’re in someone else’s house, trailing soggy footprints on the hardwood behind us like bread crumbs.
The bedroom is orange with the sunset, and hazy—an overexposed photo. I guide Cooper to the bed, and he sits on the edge. His knees are against mine, his rapid breath palpable between us. He doesn’t look up at me, but at my hands, examining them like he wonders if they are strong enough to hold us together, or maybe wondering how they’ll change over the years. They’re shaking with emotion and nerves. It’s been so long since we’ve made love, and this time, it feels more important than ever. I take in a quivering breath and tell myself it’s just like riding a bike. We’ve always been good at this part.
I reach for the hem of my shirt and pull it up over my head, the neck loosening my ponytail as it goes. I pull the band out and let it fall around my shoulders. Cooper tilts his head up to me and sucks in a breath like he’s seeing me for the first time. With my heart pounding, I unclasp my bra and let it fall to the floor.
Cooper places his hands on my hips and moves me to stand between his knees. With me closer, he runs his hands up my back, then down to my buttocks. He takes big handfuls of them and hums his contentment against my belly button.
“Mmm. You smell amazing,” he says. “Just you. Your skin.”
I smile and lace my fingers through his hair. I lean forward until my nose is buried in the soft strands. He smells good, too.
“I love you,” he whispers. In response, I tilt his head up and kiss him like the girl he first fell in love with, when I was reckless and hungry. I try to channel the assurance I had back then that Cooper saw me for who I wanted to be instead of who I was. That as long as I remained that mysterious girl, he wouldn’t know the secrets buried underneath. With my secrets so close to the surface now, though, I know better than to be that naive. I take this moment for what it is: a hope, not a promise.
Cooper pulls me on top of him, and we scoot ourselves across the bed. I press my body against him. He runs his hands up and down my backside from my thighs to my hair. Any place he can reach. I slide my hands underneath his shirt and clumsily pull it up until he’s forced to sit up to allow me to remove it, revealing his broad chest and shoulders. He fights off the rest of my clothes, then I pull off his. Every earned muscle of his body glistens in the dim light. His once-tight stomach has softened slightly over the years, but I love it even more for that. His kisses turn harder, almost angry. His erection is noticeably absent, but before I have a chance to decide what this means, he pulls me down on him again and into a kiss that leaves me breathless.
We wrestle like this for a long time. Kissing and caressing. Touching and moaning. At one point, I take him into my mouth. All to no avail.
“Are you okay?” I whisper in the gray light before the dark.
“Yeah.” He’s panting. He pulls me into another deep kiss. This one is furious, but I recognize it for the desperation it is. He bites my bottom lip too hard, but I don’t allow myself to make a sound. When our teeth clank together awkwardly, his passion dissolves. He covers his eyes with his hand, and what I can see of his face has turned red.
“Coop, it’s okay,” I say. “It’s been a long couple of days.” I try to reassure him, but in truth, any hope I had flutters off my heart and lands in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s not you at all, I swear. I don’t know...” He tries for an explanation with a pained expression on his face. When it doesn’t come, he rolls off the bed and disappears into the bathroom, closing the door to emphasize the barriers that still stand between us.
“Cooper?” I call, but my voice is so frail, I know he can’t hear me. He’s gone to a place where I can’t reach him. I pull the blanket up to my chin to cover my nakedness and dampen the fabric with my tears.
* * *
In the days that follow, Cooper pretends the mishap never happened—pretends life has gone back to normal. He’s so good at it, he almost convinces me, but there’s an underlying tension I can’t shake—my intuition telling me this isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
I find an escape in the garden, just like Cooper intended. It becomes habit to wake up fifteen minutes early each morning to have an extra cup of coffee. I carry it with me as I walk barefoot around the yard to admire Reese’s progress before he shows up. His appearances are sporadic, but even so, digging a moat alone appears to be a slow, strenuous job. I’m careful to sneak back to the house when I hear Reese’s truck pull into the driveway.
One afternoon, I come home early to get some rest before an expected delivery, and Reese reappears. I assumed he’d left for the day since his truck wasn’t in the driveway when I got home, but he surprises me while I’m sitting on the back stoop, watching the puppy prance from one side of the yard to the other.
“Are you avoiding me?” he asks before I’ve noticed him. I start, spilling my glass of water on the step next to my feet. I cover my heart with my hand and let out an exasperated sigh. “Sorry,” he says with a laugh and that smile.
“No,” I say, still trying to get my bearings.
“Did I upset you?”
“No,” I say. The truth is, something about Reese makes me nervous. He looks at me too closely. I open my mouth to come up with some other excuse, but I can’t think of one. He continues to look at me now with his eyes squinted from the sun.
“Can I show you something?” he asks.
I look at my watch, wondering how much time I have, but more concerned about the conclusions he’ll undoubtedly make about me if I don’t go...or why I even care. I set my water on the stoop and stand. Reese walks me to the side of the house.
The puppy follows us. As we walk, Reese reaches up to rub the back of his neck, making the muscles in his arm and shoulders tighten and my cheeks flush. It’s then that I realize what’s really bothering me about him.
I find Reese attractive.
It’s been so long since I’ve looked at a man in that way, I didn’t recognize the feeling for what it was. But it’s undeniable—his light eyes in contrast to his dark features, his full lips, his lean muscles. Despite my reckless youth, since I met Cooper, I haven’t assessed a man in any other way than to decide whether or not they were competition for promotions.
I see it now, though.
Understanding and labeling the feelings toward Reese makes them easier to control, and almost immediately, the wild energy surrounding him dulls.
“What do you think of these flowers?” he asks, pointing to a small assortment of plants in nursery pots. I don’t know much about flowers. Mom would know the name, species and recommended amount of water and sunlight for each.
“They’re pretty,” I say.
He laughs. “Okay. What’s your favorite flower?”
“I don’t know many, but I’ve always loved Stargazer lilies.”
When I was younger, Mom knew how much I loved them, so she always let me plant the bulbs, even though I had the habit of burying them upside down. It never ceased to baffle her that in the spring, they would break through the soil anyway and bloom more beautiful because of their longer journey. At least, that’s what she told me.
“Good choice. I’m thinking of putting these ones on either side of the back door, against the house.”
I shrug. “Sounds good to me. I trust your judgment.”
“You do?” he asks with a laugh.
I narrow my eyes at him. “On landscaping,” I say, but even I can hear the skepticism in my voice.
“I’m just about to get started. Do you want to help me?” he asks.
“You mean garden? Trying to get out of doing your job?”
“No. Trying to get you out of yours.”
He stares into my eyes, and this time I don’t break contact. I haven’t given him enough credit for how much he sees.
“It’s not your job to worry about mine.”
“Just trying to help.”
I scoff and turn away. There are enough people in my life who judge me for my work ethic. I don’t need it from him, too. I almost make it to the back door when I hear Reese call from behind me, “Do you ever wear anything that doesn’t have ‘doctor’ written all over it?”
I stop midstride, bite my lip. I can feel him grinning behind my back, so proud of himself. He already knows the answer, as I do. I look down at the scrubs I’m still wearing from surgery this morning, and then up at the sky. Is being a doctor really all I have the space to be?
I turn around and say, “I have twenty minutes.”
He gives me a smile.
Reese turns the soil he’s already fertilized and lines the plants up along the house where they will be transplanted. The puppy nips at the leaves, and I repeatedly nudge him away. Reese gives me a trowel to clear out a space for the roots and shows me how to bury them deep enough. I let him direct me. He talks with as much passion for his work as I do when talking about mine.
Once we fall into a pattern, we work in silence for a while, but it’s a comfortable silence, especially for someone who makes me so uncomfortable when he speaks. I lose myself in the motion of digging, the sounds of nature and the feeling of my muscles, powerful beneath my skin. I’d forgotten how addictive it is. It slows some of the gears in my mind.
“So you never told me what made you such a good doctor,” Reese says.
Our last conversation was weeks ago. I can’t believe he still remembers. I laugh, shake my head. “You’re one of those people who doesn’t let things go, aren’t you?” Just like Abby.
“Not if I think there’s something interesting there.” He glances at me without turning from his work.
I remind myself that once the yard is done, he’ll go his own way and he’ll take his opinions about me with him, and then I say, “My sister died when I was sixteen.”
The words feel so foreign on my tongue. The only other person I’ve told the story to since it happened is Cooper, and I didn’t tell him everything. I haven’t told anyone the whole story. Not even my parents.
My hands stop moving, and I wait for the usual “Sorry for your loss,” or “She’s in a better place now,” but Reese says neither of those things. He says nothing. Just nods as if to say, I understand your pain, and surprisingly, I believe him. So I tell Reese the same thing I told Cooper—the “official” story.
“She was eighteen, just about to graduate high school. She was pregnant, and one night she wasn’t feeling well. She went to the hospital because she was having abdominal cramps. She told the ER doctor she was pregnant, but because she wasn’t bleeding and a stomach virus had been going around, the doctor assumed that’s what she had. Without any further tests, he told her to go home and stay hydrated. She died that night.”
In clinical terms, I explain what an ectopic pregnancy is and how it took her life. That part is easier, when I can pretend it’s something I read out of a book, instead of something I lived through. As if a life can be extinguished and the rest of us can simply turn the page.
“Wow,” he says when I’ve finished. “That must have been really hard on you and your family.”
“It was.” After a breath, I say, “It is.”
“So now you want to help other pregnant women,” Reese says.
“Yes,” I say. “My patients mean everything to me.”
Reese watches me with an amused expression until I realize I’m digging with unnecessary vigor, and I’ve shoveled more dirt into the grass than the flower bed.
“Oops,” I say, and stop.
Reese laughs and comes over to help me move the dirt back to where it belongs. His face is just inches from mine, and our fingers brush once, twice as we sweep it aside with our hands. Once we’re finished, I scoot away from him.
“I’m covered in dirt,” I say, rubbing my hands together in a vain attempt to clean them.
“What’s wrong with dirt?” He smiles and smudges the black soil across one of my forearms. Before I can react, he says, “Let’s step back and see how it looks so far.”
We both push off the ground and stand next to each other. I hold my hands out awkwardly at my sides so as not to smudge my pants. I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips as I take it all in. The colors and sizes and the way Reese arranged the flowers has come together beautifully.
“Those aren’t evenly spaced,” I say, pointing to the section I planted.
“It’s fine.”
“It won’t take long to fix.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder like he thinks I’ll lunge at them before he can stop me.
“They don’t have to be perfect,” he says. “Life isn’t about perfection. Doesn’t make it any less beautiful.” He turns to me with a look in his eyes that makes my chest flush.
“Who are you? Buddha?” I ask seriously, but when he bursts into laughter, my hardened exterior crumbles and I laugh, too.
“So are you ever going to introduce me officially?”
I furrow my brow, and Reese points to the puppy.
“Oh,” I say. “He doesn’t have a name yet.”
“You’ve had him for weeks.”
I shrug. “He’s not mine to name.”
“Well, if I hear you call him ‘puppy’ one more time, I’m going to name him.”
I smile. “Fine. I’ll tell Cooper to name him.”
“I’ve always liked the name Spencer for a dog.”
“I’ll have him take that into consideration.”
The sun, getting hotter every day, beats down on the back of my neck, and a line of sweat trickles down between my shoulder blades. I’ll need to shower before I head back to the hospital.
“Twenty minutes is up,” I say.
* * *
“Where are we at with mom in room 1217?” I ask Enrique as I exit a delivery room and pull off my gloves. I blink as my eyes adjust to the bright lights of the hallway.
“Nine centimeters,” he says. He’s wearing his how are you going to pull this off grin, as if overseeing two deliveries at once is a challenge I’m being scored on, and there’s a prize at the end.
“Shit.”
Enrique and I step closer to the wall to allow a band of nurses to rush past, each one of them fighting to be heard over the other.
“Room 1215?” he asks.
“Eight. But it’s not going well.” The baby is still anterior, and it’s getting lodged farther into her pelvis with every contraction. I think we’re going to have to cut, but she’s insisting we wait. “I’m going to give it twenty more minutes. That’s as much as I can comfortably give her and even then... Any chance 1217 is going to shoot this thing out?”
Enrique snorts. “Crazier things have happened.”
I stop to take a breath, scratch my forehead in frustration with my scrub sleeve. “Shit,” I say again, shaking my head. Enrique offers me new gloves, and I let him put them on me. He follows me into the delivery room two doors down.
After performing one C-section and one assisted delivery, stitching up two women and waiting long enough to be sure neither of them showed signs of a hemorrhage, I miss Cooper again. I find him asleep in bed with his glasses on and a tattered copy of Lord of the Rings on the bed next to him. I pick up the book and slide his glasses off his face. My thumb brushes his cheek—the first time our skin has touched since our failed attempt at lovemaking. We’ve been walking on eggshells around each other, polite and cautious. Both of us waiting for the other to make the first move toward something more natural. As usual, my work schedule gets in the way, along with my guilt. I take solace, for tonight, that I’m not on call tomorrow. My phone rings in my hand—one of my dad’s occasional late-night calls, when he’s feeling lonely—so I slip out of the room quickly before I wake Cooper.
“Do you remember the night of the grand opening at the pizza parlor?” Dad asks without preamble, his deep voice filling my heart with warmth from his first word. I close the bedroom door behind me and muffle my laugh. Dad has brought up this memory so many times that I’m not sure I remember the day so vividly from my own experience of it or because the detailed recounting of his own memory has been so frequent that it’s permanently stitched to mine.
“Of course I do,” I say, but I don’t stop him from reciting it again. It was one of the happiest days of my childhood, and I love going back to it as much as Dad does, even if it’s only in our minds. I don’t think I’m the only one who wonders if life would have been different if we’d stayed in the city, living to the beat of our own drum. It was as if, when Dad chose to accept his predetermined path as heir of the family business he’d never really wanted, we all felt we had to do the same.
“I locked up after the final customer left and turned up the stereo, and you, Abby, Charlie and your mom all danced on the tables to... What was it?” he asks. He knows, but he loves to hear me say it.
“‘Dancing Queen,’” I say, a grin pulling at my lips. I open the back door and walk out into the warm night. The croaking of the frogs along the creek is so loud it almost overpowers Dad’s voice, but I move farther into the yard anyway, walking along the ditch that grows longer with each passing day. The colors of the flowers Reese and I planted together are muted in the dark.
“That’s it,” Dad says, and I can hear his smile through the line. I imagine him in his bed, buttoned up in his striped pajamas, leaning against his headboard, looking the same as he had when we’d talked so many times during my teen years, on the nights I couldn’t sleep either. I could always count on Dad to be awake, too, both of us with too many thoughts running through our heads to get a good night’s sleep. He would sigh and tell me I was so much like him, as though he was proud of me and sad to have passed on the curse at the same time. “You girls looked so beautiful in those matching dresses your mom found. Your skirts swirled through the air.”
“Charlie hates that story,” I remind him.
“He danced to it, too!” Dad objects.
“Exactly,” I say, another giggle bubbling up from my chest.
“It was your idea, you know. The dancing. We were all tired and stressed out from the long day, but you wanted to make sure we remembered what a special day it was. You’ve always had that way about you. You could just change the direction of things, shift the mood entirely. Abby was always the center of attention, but you...you sneaked right in there under the radar and could change the energy of the whole room without people even realizing it. You’re a true leader, Dylan. I miss having that around here.”
“I love you, Dad. You’ve always seen me as better than I actually am. But I need that sometimes,” I say with a laugh.
“Uh-uh. I’m your dad. I’ve been watching you your whole life. No one knows you better than I do. Plus, I don’t care how old you get, what I say goes.”
“Ha!” I burst out. But then I say, “Yes, sir.”
Dad sighs, and I stop my pacing to look up at the sky. The moon is almost full, and so bright. For a moment, I feel so far away from everyone and everything that it’s like the moon and I have a divine connection. Like she’s trying to remind me of what’s really important, and the answer is on the tip of my tongue.
“You still have that skill,” he says, as if finding the words for me. “Don’t forget it.”
I smile. “Yes, sir.”
“So how are you?” he asks. He never dwells on anything serious for too long.
I turn my back on the moon and look through its reflection on my bedroom windows to see the outline of Cooper’s sleeping form on our bed. I feel so many mixed emotions, but the most prevalent is...grateful.
“I’m good, Dad,” I say. Taking his words to heart, I add, “I think things are going to be good.”
The next morning, I wake without my alarm before the sun has risen, though I stayed up late talking to Dad. I look at the time: 5:17 a.m. I watch the light creep into the sky until it’s rimmed with gold, and I hear the tentative chirp of the early birds outside.
For the first time in a long time, I allow myself to lie here and enjoy the comfort of my bed, the tepid air on my legs where they peek out from beneath the blanket. Soon, though, a quiet whimper comes from the other side of the room, letting me know the puppy is ready to go outside. I roll over and am shocked to see Cooper sitting on the edge of his side of the bed. I hadn’t felt him move, hadn’t heard him make a noise. He’s facing away from me, his body hunched forward. His breathing is so shallow I can’t hear it. I reach my fingers across the bed, and my arm is just long enough to allow me to brush the hem of his shirt.
“Hey,” I whisper. “Do you want me to take him out?”
I wait for him to tell me he’s already up, he might as well do it. Cooper may have been up many times during the night with the puppy already. So far, having a dog doesn’t seem all that different from having a child.
“Coop? Are you okay?” I ask when he doesn’t respond.
After a pause, he looks over at me. His face is puffy and swollen. His eyes are red.
“Cooper?”
His face crumples, and he hides his eyes again. I shoot up to a sitting position and push myself across the top of the sheets until I’m right next to him. Sweat prickles under my arms as I wait for him to tell me someone has died, or is in the hospital, or that he’s sick and hasn’t worked up the courage to tell me.
I run my hand across his shoulders, and my voice is firm when I say, “Cooper, tell me what’s going on.” I hate the speculation. My mind can run through a dozen things that are worse than the truth for every second that passes. Over Cooper’s shoulder, I see the puppy stand and stretch. He wags his tail, oblivious to the tension.
Cooper turns his face to me, his eyes closed, and rests his chin on his shoulder. He opens his eyes, leans forward and presses his lips to mine. It should reassure me—if someone was hurt, he’d tell me right way—but this stall tactic, instead, makes my stomach sink lower.
“Cooper, you’re scaring me,” I whisper, his face still so close our breath mingles together.
“I have to tell you something, Dylan.”
I stop breathing. They’re the words no one wants to hear, and yet, I still have no idea what he’s about to say. Is he leaving me after all? Did he finally realize he deserves more than what I can give him?
“I...” His breath catches, and I see the effort it takes him to continue in the crease between his eyes. He presses his lips together so tightly they turn white, then he opens them and says, “I slept with someone else.”
My head sways. My blood runs cold. My stomach churns.
No one died, I tell myself.
No one’s in the hospital.
Everyone is fine, so I wait to start breathing again, but I can’t.
My lips tingle, my fingers tingle, my lungs ache from lack of oxygen, but still, I can’t make myself exhale. Darkness invades the outer edges of my vision. Surely I misunderstood him.
With that small amount of hope, I breathe, “What?” The puppy whimpers again, but neither of us looks in his direction.
When several minutes pass, it becomes clear Cooper has no intention of repeating what he said, unable to force the words from his mouth again. He only stares at me, waiting for me to react, waiting to see how I feel about the fact that he lied to me—he has ruined us. There’s no fixing this.
“You slept with someone else?” I ask. My voice is surprisingly steady. I want to make sure there’s no chance of any further confusion. I want to make sure, before I walk out the door, that I heard him correctly and that I’m justified in driving away from our life together without looking back.
But this is Cooper. This is the man who promised me he would never hurt me. The man who proposed marriage to me and told me I was it for him. There must be some mistake.
Cooper bites his lip, and tears leak from the corners of his eyes. He gives a slight nod—such a small movement, but it changes everything. Absolutely everything.
“Right,” I say.
I look out the window without seeing anything as my mind searches for the piece of the puzzle I somehow missed. I thought I knew everything about the man sitting so close to me that I can feel his heart beating, but with one revelation, I realize I know nothing. I know nothing about what’s going through his mind, what must have been going through his mind when he made the choice to do something we’d never be able to recover from, and I know nothing about how to cope with this. So I crawl across the bed and stand.
“It was just one time,” he says, reaching for me, but I shake him off. “Dylan, wait. Please. I never meant—”
But I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. Who she was, when it happened, what he was thinking. None of it matters.
I lock myself in the bathroom, dress and brush my teeth. The entire time, I try to remind myself of what my dad told me the night before. I could change the direction of things. I could shift the energy. But not in this situation. In this situation, the damage has already been done. Our relationship is already broken. So when I leave the bathroom, I walk right past Cooper, out the front door, and I don’t look back.