Page 43 of Everything After
“Youdomatter! More than anything. Help me out here because I don’t know what you want me to do,” she hurled out in frustration. I cast her what I believed was a cynical look with one brow raised, and she huffed in frustration. “I don’t feel complete until we’re together. But the band is my career. If I worked in an office, I don’t think we’d be having this fight,” she argued.
“Damn straight we wouldn’t because you’d be home in my bed more often.”
“Is that what this is about. Sex? You want to have more sex… or an open marriage?”
“If this was solely about sex, I might have been tempted to fuck other women already,” I snapped. “I get pussy thrown at me every day, Lily. I’m not interested in one-night stands. I did that all back in the day and it got old damn quick. You were the one girl that changed me.”
“Yeah? So, what was Zoe? I know you said neither of you were invested, but you kept her around for some time.”
During one of our breakups while Lily was still in college, Zoe came into my life. She never could have replaced Lily, but she made me hurt less for a while. It was the same friends-with-benefits relationship that Lily and I had started out with, until ours turned into something more.
“I kept her around because she was fun and supportive, and she wasn’t dramatic. Plus, I was tired of women hitting on me. I’ll admit the sex was a bonus, but I never caught feelings for her.”
I watched her wince like the idea of me having sex with someone else wounded her.
“And Sienna? Why are you in contact with her after all this time now? Is that to hurt me because you think it will scare me into doing what you want?”
“Scare you? Oh, my, you have a low opinion of me. Fuck, Lily, I could screw every woman I met, and you’d never find out if I had a mind to be deceitful. I wouldn’t because I’d never disrespect you like that, and I’d never risk ruining us. Have I felt tempted, yes. Plenty of times, but for human contact more than anything else. I’m flesh and blood after all. That’s why as soon as there’s been an opening, I’ve flown to wherever you are.”
“For sex?” she suggested again.
I shook my head in disbelief. “So, I’ve endured two eighteen-hour flights at times to grab forty-eight hours with you, withthe sole intention of staying faithful to you? Fuck you, Lily. I’ve made those journeys because I missed and loved you. I always came for you because you wouldn’t come for me.”
Lily’s face fell and when I saw her lips pout my heart sank to my stomach. It was the moment I saw she knew she’d fucked up, by taking our marriage for granted.
“Why are we married?” I asked, gauging her reaction to my question.
“Because no one else could come close to the love we share and we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives,” she replied without hesitation.
“And are we—together? Sixty-six days says we’re not really. It says to me, that if I hadn’t made all that effort to see you, you wouldn’t have seen me at all. With the exception of the two week break we had in Cancun at the end of your tour last summer.”
“It’s been hard…” she began and stopped talking again.
“I didn’t leave because I’ve fallen out of love with you, Lily. I left because of your indifference about us.”
“I am not indifferent. You’re my world?—”
“No, XrAid is your world,” I argued.
“How do you know what I feel in here?” she countered, poking a finger between her breasts. Her beautiful green eyes haunted me with the hurt held in them.
“I fucking don’t. You never show me you care,” I countered.
Lily’s eyes immediately shone with tears, and she chewed at the inside of her cheek, like she was trying not to cry. Suddenly I felt cruel, but I needed her to understand how affected I was by her inaction.
“Look, I’m going to bed, it’s been a long day. These conversations are exhausting. I’ll take one of the spare suites and we’ll pick this up in the morning,” I said, sounding flat. Standing, I wandered over and plucked my jacket from the back of a chair.
“You’re not coming to our bed?” she whispered. The disbelief in her tone made me look at her again.
“As much as it pains me to say it, no, I’m not. We’d have sex… and I figure the least we muddy the waters between us, the sooner we’ll iron this situation out.”
I swear I died a little inside when my eyes met with the desolation in hers. My first instinct was to reach out and hold her, tell her I was sorry, and that I’d make everything right between us. But I’d come so far and I couldn’t fall back on my word, because I still believed I was fighting for our survival. So, we both went upstairs, said our goodnights and went into our separate rooms.
Once in bed, I realized that that too was a pointless exercise because my only thoughts were about Lily, how sad I was making her and how difficult life felt for myself. She was only feet away and knowing I could take her pain away by showing up only made the path I had chosen much harder.
After a restless four or five hours where I’d lain awake, wondering how the action I’d taken would end, I finally fell into a fitful sleep.
A low groan woke me with a start. It was still dark and at first, I’d thought it had been me, making a noise in my sleep. However, once I heard it again, I threw back the comforter and padded out into the hallway.
