“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.