Page 70 of The Thinnest Air
I still love Andrew.
And now he wants a baby.
“This is your fork in the road,” he says. “This is your chance to get out while you still can. I don’t get it, Mer. What the fuck changed?”
Over the past few months, Harris has been steering me in the direction of divorce despite my insistence that Andrew’s been treating me better than he ever has.
When I first solicited Harris’s advice, it was because I knew he would be unbiased. Somewhere along the line, I guess he decided he liked me as a human after all, and he wouldn’t stop pushing for me to leave my husband. He’s just like Greer, and now I don’t even know if I want to talk to Harris anymore. All we do is have the same conversations fifty different ways because he refuses to accept the fact that things between Andrew and myself have improved.
“Maybe I don’t want to get out anymore,” I say.
“That’s not what you said a week ago.” His tone is terse, and I imagine his jaw is clenched tight. “God, every other week it’s something else. Make up your fucking mind, Meredith. Stop waffling.”
After a while, I got tired of Harris’s lectures, so I’d let him yammer on while saying, “Yeah” and “Mm, hm” and “Okay” to show I was still listening, which in retrospect wasn’t a good idea because he actually thought I was agreeing to do all the things he said ... which in a nutshell was leave Andrew, move back to the city, and start fresh as soon as I could access my trust fund.
“Why are you being like this?” I ask. “We’re friends. Support me. Support my decision. Be happy for me.”
“We’re not friends.” His words sting. “I’m your voice of reason. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand,” I say. “But I still love him. And neither of us is perfect. And I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.”
“But a week ago you were,” he says. “You caught him flirting with your waitress when you came back from the bathroom.”
“Yes, and we discussed that in couples counseling,” I say. “It turns out he knew her. She was the daughter of one of his clients. They were laughing because he’d made a joke about her father. When I saw them, I just assumed they were flirting.”
“I can’t fucking believe this.” In other words, he thinks I’m an idiot.
“I don’t know why you care so much. The only reason I started talking to you about any of this was because I thought youdidn’tcare.” I pace my living room. Andrew’s going to be home any minute. “I wanted your objective opinion, but it seems like you can’t even give me that anymore.”
He’s quiet.
I’ve struck a nerve.
He knows I’m right.
Heknowsit.
“My objective opinion has nothing to do with this,” he says. “I’m trying to guide you in the right direction. Prevent you from making the second biggest mistake of your life.”
“Second biggest? What was the first?”
“Marrying him.”
Rolling my eyes, I check the street, watching for his car. I need to wrap this up.
“Don’t call me again,” he says.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I’m tired of the hemming and hawing,” he says. “Get a fucking diary. I’m done.”
“Harris.”
“You know what, Mer? You’re just as flaky as your mother. But at least she had enough sense to get out before she was up to her elbows in someone else’s bullshit.”
“Now that’s just mean. I’mnothinglike her.”
“You’reexactlylike her.” His voice is a low sneer laced with revulsion and darkness.
