Page 39 of Shame

“You don’t get it, do you? We were done a long time ago. That’s why you had an affair. I even made a sculpture about it. I guess you’ll see it on Friday night. There, that’s something I haven’t told you yet. Surprise.”

My chest heaves. “What?”

“There’s a…” She gasps. “It’s kind of pathetic, really. I mean, the whole show is a love letter to a man who never deserved any of it, but it’s a tragic kind of love letter, and the final piece is calledDeath of a Marriage.”

“When did you…”

“Months ago. I told myself it was just art, inspired by the world around me, and I was telling a story. But I wasn’t. Okay? Every piece I have ever made has been about us in some way, and that part of me knew we were over before…this.”

“Or…” My chest hurts, but I fucking plow on. I have to. “Maybe that wasn’t the end of us. Maybe that was the death ofa marriagebut notus.That was the crisis point, and now we’re on the other side of that, and we’re going to be okay. That’s possible, too.”

“We aren't going to be okay.”

“We are going to be better than okay. We are going to be amazing. With a fractured past but a dazzling future.”

“That sounds like something you read in a book.”

“It is.” I look right at her, and hold her gaze. “I’ve been doing my research about repairing from an affair.”

“That also sounds like someone else’s words.”

“Then here are mine. My wife is an incredible artist. The toast of the town. You said that you think I’m bored around you? I felt dull and boring next to you. Notbored. Boring. I don’t know what to say about your art, because it’s beyond me. But knowing that it’s based on us? I can’t wait to see it, Grace. I want to seeDeath of a Marriage. I’m not scared of that. I’m scared of losing you, but I’m not scared to look at my mistakes.”

“Why?” She laughs, but it’s the edge of hysteria, the edge of tears, and I feel the same. “Why now? Why not sooner?”

“I don’t know.” My cheeks are wet.

She turns around again and looks back at downtown. “We should go back.”

And that’s how the conversation ends. We walk all the back in silence.

When we get back to the building, I ride to the eighth floor with her, and she doesn’t tell me not to.

Baby steps.

At her door—our door, our loft, our home, that I lost—I reach for her. She freezes. At first I don't think she's going to let me touch her.

“You need a hug,” I say quietly.

“Not from you.”

“Maybe not. But I’m here. I’m offering.”

“I don’t need a hug,” she says stiffly.

“Look, you said you don’t want gentle from me, not anymore, and…I hear that. But you’re a hugger, Grace. I get that I didn’t give you enough in the past. I promise I hear that. I’d really like to make up for that at some point. But right now, I see my best friend tightly wound, and I’m thinking she hasn’t had a hug in weeks.”

“Alex hugged me yesterday.”

“I stand corrected.”

But her gaze lingers on my face. Wary, uncertain.

Wanting.

“Was it a bone crusher, though?”

She bursts into tears. “Luke…”

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