Noah’s never-ending grin the moment he stepped out of the school doors as I was there to collect him would be forever burned into my memory, but I was still in panic mode. I wasn’t sure exactly what Damien had done, but the post on instagram was gone along with the article — but there were lingering effects scattered across the internet. I didn’t know how long it would take to be scrubbed, and every passing second and vibration of my phone sent anxiety coursing through my veins. So when I picked up Noah and gave him the biggest bear hug I could muster outside of the school gates, only to be interrupted by the chiming phone in my back pocket… I wished that wasn’t tied to the memory.
The moment I noticed that it was a text from Damien, the panic calmed just a tad.
Damien: Spoke to Ethan. He said he can’t give a firm timeline, but assured me that it’s in the right hands and it shouldn’t be too much longer. We’re still working on the photo. I’m sorry.
Another two came through a moment later.
Damien: I’ve got a lot to work on tonight with Ethan about the custody case. It’ll be a while until I’m home.
Damien: Caroline said she was having enchilada night with Lucas. She extended an invitation to you and Noah if you want some company. I can meet you there later.
I sighed and shoved my phone back into my pocket as I hurried Noah back to the idling car. The driver stood by the backseat door, his suit and tie for once not looking out of place in a sea of rich children’s drivers, and Noah practically ran to dive into his carseat.
“I made four new friends!” he said excitedly to Paul, parroting what he’d already told me. “Alex, Sarah, Muhammad, and Talon.”
“Talon?” Paul asked quizzically, his gaze turning to me as one brow raised.
“Rich people.” I shrugged.
————
“If I speak super fucking honestly about my life, will you tell Damien?” I asked, clutching my glass of red wine like a vice. Carrie and I sat on the back deck of her house, looking out across the rolling hills and green. It reminded me almost too much of how nice it was back up near Seattle before it all came to a shattering halt. Through the crack in the sliding glass door, a robotic voice droned on offering cake as some kind of reward, and Lucas spoke over it, explaining to Noah that the robot was lying.
“Nah. I have no problem keeping secrets from my brother,” she laughed. “Unless you tell me you killed someone. Then I might need to tell someone because, you know, Noah.”
I stabbed the cut off bit of shredded, Mexican style chicken encased in a tortilla, dipping it into my little pile of sour cream. “I haven’t killed anyone,” I chuckled, popping the bite in my mouth before following it with a sip of wine. “At least not yet. My parents are likely to keel over the moment they see that image.”
She winced. I’d already explained to her how I’d been raised, how I viewed certain things, how they viewed everything else. And I’d shown her the image — she thought it was cute.
“I think everything is starting to hit me,” I sighed, setting my fork down. “All of it. The accidental marriage. The photo. How much I care for Noah.”
I paused, and she waited, as if she knew exactly what I was going to say.
“How much I care for Damien,” I added, biting back the knot in my throat. “I don’t think I could bring myself to admit it to him. But it’s… there.”
“It’s okay to have feelings for him,” she offered, her voice a little quieter, a little softer. “You’ve basically been flung into the thick of married life with him out of nowhere. It would happen to anyone.”
Fuck, why did that hurt? She wasn’t wrong, of course, but it felt like more than that. It felt higher than a circumstantial thing, it felt like more. “I don’t think it’s just because of the time we’ve spent together,” I said.
Her mouth popped open as she quietly gave me an, “Ah.”
“It’s just making this all so much harder than it needs to be. This has to end, but I keep finding myself wishing that it won’t,” I admitted, my stomach churning again from far too much honesty. “I know I’m a people pleaser. I know I do a lot of things for other people that I don’t need to. I’m starting to wonder if me wanting the annulment is just another aspect of that.”
“You’re still going through with it?” she asked, her gaze fixing on mine as she lifted her glass to her lips.
I nodded. “I don’t have much of a choice. And I thought… this sounds stupid, but I thought I was doing it for me. I thought I was going through with the annulment because I wanted it, because I couldn’t see myself marrying someone just to sleep with them, because I didn’t want that to be my story. But it feels more like I’m doing it so that my parents don’t disown me. It feels more like I’m doing it because it’s what would be expected of me. And if I had a choice here…”
“You don’t know if you would?”
I pursed my lips as I thought it over. “I think I would. But I’d want to start over, do it right, and come back around. And I don’t think that’s on the table with him.”
“Do you want my opinion?” She set her drink down on the table, and inside, Noah prattled on about whatever they were doing in their video game that wouldn’t be possible in real life.
I nodded.
“I think you should stay married,” she sighed. “With everything going on… the custody battle, the court cases over at Blackwood, the chaos of it all… I don’t know. It’s just adding more stress for both of you. And in reality, as much as he probably doesn’t want to say it, staying married would almost certainly help him in the custody fight.”
I swallowed down another sip of wine before setting the glass on the wicker table. I’d barely had half a glass, but I just didn’t want it. “I can’t push the annulment back. Even if it’s not what I want, the stress of it all is making me sick, literally. I need to do this the right way.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile and took my hand gently. “I understand that.”
“Everything is upside down.” The backs of my eyes burned as I glanced in through the glass door, watching as Noah stood far too close to the television with a controller clutched in his hands. “I didn’t plan on any of this for my life. And I’m not upset about it, I’m really not, because I don’t even think I’d want to change what I have right now. But I don’t… I don’t even know if Damien feels the same. For all I know, he could be absolutely fine to drop me back at my apartment and delete my number the moment the annulment goes through.”
“I don’t think he’d—”
“I don’t either. But I don’t know how much of how he is with me is just because I’m the closest person he can pour that into.” My jaw quivered as I took in a deep breath, trying desperately to steady myself. “And if he doesn’t feel that way toward me, then I can’t keep going like this. I’ll break my own fucking heart if I do. I need the annulment, and if he wants to continue things, then we’ll go from there. But for now, that has to be what I do. For myself.”
