I miss you¸ I didn’t tell him, typing it with no intention of sending it.

I backspaced through it.

I fucked us up, baby, and I’m so fucking sorry.

I didn’t hit send, but I also didn’t erase it.

Like it could just exist and he’d somehow get it without me giving it to him, I left it there, closed down my phone, tossed it on the nightstand, turned to my side, closed my blazing eyes, and did not sleep.

* * * * *

Garrett

Tuesday Night

Getting home after work, Garrett sifted through his mail at the kitchen bar, wondering how the fuck he got so many catalogs when he’d never bought a thing from a catalog in his life, and in the same time, he’d never made an online purchase.

Bills. Credit card applications. Life insurance offers.

And there it was.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, staring at the handwriting.

Solely out of curiosity, he opened the envelope.

Upending it, an eight-by-ten color glossy slid out on his bar, face up. Stuck on it was a bright pink Post-it note in the shape of a heart.

It read, I messed this up. I didn’t work for it. I’m going to work for it, baby.

He read the note and looked at the picture.

In it, he was sitting on a barstool in Vegas. Mia was in a clingy dress he’d liked a fuckuva lot, standing next to him, hanging on him. She didn’t have to hang; he had his arm around her, holding her close.

On the bar was a three hundred dollar bottle of champagne. They were both holding filled flutes. They’d splurged because he’d just won seven thousand dollars at the craps table.

They’d taken a few sips before Mia had asked someone passing by to take that picture.

Then they took the champagne to the reception desk and did what they did. Not planning for a future, living in the now, doing it wild to pack in as much as they could, they blew almost all his winnings, got upgraded to a suite, and made short work of moving rooms.

The rest of the time they were in Vegas, three days, they didn’t leave that suite. They got room service if they needed to eat. But if they weren’t eating or sleeping, they were fucking, whispering, or laughing.

He’d never been happier.

And that was when it began. He felt it. He felt it their last night in Vegas when he laid on his back in the bed in that suite with his naked wife curled sleeping at his side.

He’d felt the fear.

They’d been three years in their marriage—three good, strong, solid years—and the minute they stepped foot off that plane onto Indiana soil, he’d started pulling away.

She’d let him. She hadn’t fought it once. She’d been confused. Scared. Hurt. She’d let that show. It had killed him, seeing that, seeing what he was doing to her, but he didn’t quit doing it. He didn’t once cease in his efforts at driving her away.