Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino (classic fiction TXT) 📗

away and Lena had gone home, I asked Mom to take care of the kids so Theo and I could cross the street and sit by the water. The time had come to purge myself, and a bench near the lake might provide the comfortable yet neutral setting I wanted. The old teak seat wasn’t right on the shore, but it set close enough to enjoy the not-quite-frigid breeze wafting off the lake and to watch the late evening waves make their marks on the beach. The journey only used up four minutes on the clock, but by the time we reached the bench, Theo slumped onto the seat and leaned his head back, as if the walk had exhausted him.

Choosing to focus on the water’s wake and the slow descent of the sun over the horizon, I didn’t speak right away. Signs of the approaching evening filled the air, and months from now, my voice would compete against those of the crickets. But this was November, and most insects had taken shelter for the winter. The silence stretching between Theo and me became deafening, and I knew, in that instant, Theo had to suspect something or had to be questioning the mounting tension from the last couple months. Why he hadn’t said something confounded me. Was he trying to push it from his mind and bury his head under the pillow?

In the buzzing quiet of my happy place, I asked myself, what is the best way to tell a man you used to love that you want to be free to love someone else?

I thought back to my conversation with Jackie, who encouraged me to write up my initial encounter. That had been months before, when the idea of loving anyone other than Theo was someone else’s story, not mine. A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it, almost choking myself in the process.

In the end, under the eggplant-colored sky, I revealed almost everything to Theo. That I’d met Andrew, the state of heart, my talk to Kate. He was the third person to whom I told the story when he should have been the first. Tears welled up in my eyes as I concluded my litany of words, adding the reason I had fallen at the library was because Andrew MacKinnon happened to be Pickles Martin’s son and—even worse—he had stopped by the cottage that afternoon.

My heart ached with my last admission, and if Theo had turned to me with fury and rage—even hate—written across his face, I would have understood. But he didn’t. Theo’s lack of response, his complete apathy, gutted my soul. I sat still, listening to the rush of blood in my ears as he said, and did, nothing. Finally, my resolve broke. “Say something.”

His troubled gaze met mine. “I...I don’t know what to say.” Another turn of his head dismissed me and my problem. His viewpoint was now of the water—calm, strong, even—unlike our relationship.

We sat there in a thick, suffocating silence, but if I walked away, we would have solved nothing. “Theo?”

“Anything I say isn’t going to make this any better.” He didn’t meet my gaze this time.

“I know. But what do you think?” Willing myself not to vomit from the pain in my gut, I placed my shaking fingers under my thighs to steady them and took a deep breath through my nose.

“What I think? What I think is the woman I loved is attracted to another man, and the thought makes me feel fucking awful. I think I don’t know you anymore, and I wonder when you changed. I think I’m fucking tired, and I’m fucking angry this happened. That you let it happen.”

“I didn’t let anything happen! It just happened. I—”

“Seriously? Didn’t let it happen?” Theo’s cheeks blazed pink in the dim light of the streetlamp, and his fingernails dug into the wood of the bench. “Did you kiss him? Have you fucked him?”

His anger infuriated me, and I rose to my feet. “No and no. And even if I did, we’re not married anymore, haven’t you noticed? You live with us because you need us, because you need the help. But we’re not an us. We’re not what we once were. We aren’t, and you know it.”

Theo took a breath through his nose. “Technically, that is true. But what if I’m not ready to let you go?”

What? Why the flip-flopping of hearts? A year ago, I was ready to help him heal, to stay no matter what, but he fast forwarded the plan to dissolve. I didn’t—

“Do you think I even look at other women?”

Against my thigh, I clenched my fists. “You should be, dammit! If we’re not together, and we’re clearly not, then why aren’t you?”

It took Theo a while to answer, and I willed every muscle to unknot, every line of tension to ease, before the conversation took a complete turn for the worse.

“I don’t know, Sadie. I don’t know. Fear? Maybe I’m afraid of hurting another woman like I hurt you. Or I’m afraid I won’t find anyone. Or I’m afraid after everything is said and done, I was wrong, and I still love you.”

Oh God. An excruciating pain radiated throughout my entire body, stabbing my heart. “You...you can’t say that now and expect me to pick up where we left off—”

He shook his head. “That’s true. But tell me. Where’d you find him? And how’d you find him?”

I fell back into the seat, wanting to be anywhere but there, near the water, having that conversation, and I tried to explain myself. “I can’t...one conversation at the grocery store...I can’t explain it, I just found him. This PTSD is hard on you, but it’s hard on me, too. I thought I could live with you in the house, but everything’s different. Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize we haven’t been the same.”

He faced me again. “What do you mean?”

“We’re not the same couple we were when we got married. We’re not even the same