Jude
I wait for hours in the ER waiting room as Corinne is checked out.
The fluorescent lights shine on me, turning my skin a pale green, and I’m numb.
I’m numb.
My brother is dead and my wife is traumatized and I’m alone.
When she finally emerges from the swinging double doors, Brock walks her out and hands her off to me.
“She’s okay,” he tells me, his voice low. “She’s in shock, and obviously, she’s upset. But physically, she’s okay. And the baby is okay.”
I feel like hugging him, but I shake his hand instead.
“Thanks, man,” I tell him, and my voice cracks. He nods, sympathy in his eyes, compassion in his voice.
“No problem. Take care of her.”
Corinne won’t even look at me, and the ride home is quiet as she sobs in the passenger seat, her forehead pressed to the glass.
I’ve never seen her so broken, not even after mass deaths in the ER, and I don’t know what to do. So I stay silent.
Everything is broken. My marriage, my wife. My brother is dead. I don’t even know which way is up anymore.
I help Corinne into the house, and she yanks away from me and stalks to the shower. She’s in there a long time, and when I finally feel like it’s safe to check on her, she’s curled up in bed on her side.
“Corinne?”
She blinks but doesn’t answer.
I sit on the end of the bed, hesitant to speak, hesitant to breathe. I know I’ve wronged her, I’ve devastated her. What I don’t know...is how to fix it.
“How could you do this to me?” she finally asks, her voice so quiet in the dark. I have to strain to hear her.
“I don’t know,” I answer simply. “It didn’t start out this way. It evolved into more than I could handle. It honestly started out at the diner.”
Corinne looks away. “I thought you were just hungry. I guess you were hungry. For something. Just not for me.”
“Christ,” I mutter. “Corinne, I’m so sorry. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I felt alone and neglected, and she paid me so much attention. I...guess I got carried away. It’s no excuse. I have no excuse.”
“No, you don’t,” Corinne says icily, her back still to me. “She may have been targeting you to get to me, but our marriage should’ve been rock solid. You should have said no, Jude.”
“She meant nothing!” I’m exasperated now. “I swear to God, Corinne. You’re all that matters. She was nothing... She was a mistake!”
“Jesus, Jude,” she snaps. “A mistake is tripping and falling into her with your dick. You didn’t do that. You purposely created a relationship with her. You gave her bits of you, and that kills me, Jude. It kills me. Out of everything that’s happened, this is the worst.”
Her voice cracks, and tears fill her eyes and tumble over, hot and wet.
“God, Co,” I croak, and I rush to put my arms around her. She doesn’t resist. “I didn’t give her anything. She was an incident. She was a fucking incident. An error in judgment born out of desperation and a bad situation. I put myself in that situation and I know it and I’m so fucking sorry. If I could change it, I would. I swear to God I would.”
She cries into my shoulder and her fists flail against my back and I let her. I let her hit me hit me hit me until she doesn’t have any strength left. I deserve it.
Finally, she falls into me, and her tears are gone, and her eyes are a void, a void free of her love.
“She wasn’t a relationship,” I tell her again. “I gave her just enough to carry out the charade, to keep her giving me what I wanted. All I wanted was the fantasy of it, Co. I wanted the thrill, the dopamine. She filled that need.”
“She was a girl, damaged by a terrible event,” Corinne tells me, like I don’t already know. I’m a therapist, for God’s sake. “She was molested as a child, and Lord only knows what else. She targeted her rage on me because I’m still alive. When I think of you...with her... I...I just can’t right now, Jude.”
She closes her eyes, and her sobbing racks her body. I want to hold her, but I know she’d push me away. I sit helplessly next to her instead.
“You’re my life,” I tell her when her sobs finally lighten. “I’ll do anything you want me to do to prove it to you. If you let me stay with you, I swear to God, I’ll never hurt you again. I swear it.”
She’s silent and her hand shakes as it curls around the edge of the sheet.
I place my own over it, stilling it, and she closes her eyes.
“God, I wish I could hate you.”
“But you don’t.”
I don’t know if I’m hopeful or if it’s a fact, and it’s a couple of minutes before she answers.
“I don’t know what I feel. I’m overwhelmed...by everything.” Her voice cuts off and she swallows hard.
“I don’t want to live without you,” I answer, and I’m resolute. “I’ll do anything you want. Can I sleep here? I’ll even sleep on the floor. I just want to watch over you and make sure you’re safe. Please, Corinne.”
She nods and hides her face and then cries herself to sleep.
True to my word, I stay on the floor with a pillow and blanket. I watch her sleep, listen to her even breaths and replay the events of the past month in my head. I don’t know how we even got here, how it got so far.
My brother is dead, and I can’t tell her yet. It would devastate her.
Like it’s devastated me.
Corinne is on a precarious ledge, and one more thing would push her off, and she might break.
I grieve alone, in the night, the darkness concealing my pain.
Corinne wakes in the night once and calls my name.
I’m up in a second, holding her hand as I kneel next to the bed.
“Was it a nightmare, Jude?” Her voice is small and hopeful. “It wasn’t, was it?”
“No,” I answer regretfully. “It wasn’t. But it’s going to be all right, Co.”
She pulls her hand away and turns over.
“Is it?” Her words are painful and hopeless.
I return to the floor.
I stay there until morning, finally falling asleep, and when I wake, Corinne is watching me, perched on the side of the bed.
I sit up and rub the sleep out of my eyes.
“It happened,” she says darkly, her words heavy. “It was real.”
I nod.
“Can we ever get past it?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “I can. Can you?”
“I feel like I never knew you at all,” she says, her voice cracking. “The Jude I knew...he wouldn’t have done any of this.”
I sit next to her and gather her into my arms and rub her back as she cries. “The Jude you know is flawed,” I tell her. “He’s a mess. But he’s going to get help, and he loves you more than life itself. If you give him another chance, he swears he won’t hurt you again.”
“Why is he speaking in the third person?” She sniffs.
“Because he can’t comprehend that he did this,” I admit. “It feels like someone else. I can’t believe it. I just can’t. If I admit it happened, then it’s real. I don’t want it to be real.”
“We have to admit it and figure it out, if we’re ever going to heal,” she points out.
“I’m the therapist here,” I tell her, attempting to lighten the mood, but it’s too soon for that. She looks away.
A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t seem to swallow it.
“It’s my fault,” I admit. “It’s all my fault. I was supposed to protect our marriage and I failed. But if you give me another chance, I swear to you...I won’t fail you again.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she answers quietly. “I offered myself to you, and you took my heart and annihilated it. You know I have issues because of my father. You know, and you still destroyed me...my heart. I don’t know if I can ever trust you with it again.”
“You’re safe with me now, Corinne,” I tell her, and in this moment, I mean it. “You’re safe. I’ll protect your heart. I’ll never hurt you again. I swear it.”
“I need some time,” she says woodenly, and now she won’t look at me.
“Take all the time you need,” I tell her. She nods, and I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I resolve to put one foot in front of the other, and go through the motions of my life, and keep my head above water.
It’s all I can do.