“Brooke, are you telling me you’re dissatisfied with my performance? I apologize. I did my best considering what I was working with.”

“You could always just turn off all the lights if you get desperate enough.” My cousins’ words. Sharp stabs of pain sliced through me and I did something I have never done in my entire life—resorted to violence.

Landon

Her slap was an unexpected sting on my cheek. “Get out!” she screamed. Her eyes welled with tears her voice full of pain and emotion. It was then I realized I hurt her. I truly hurt her. Guilt filled me.

“Brooke I… I didn’t mean…”

She shoved at my chest and shouted again, “Get the hell out!”

Her shove did not manage to move me, so she started pounding her tiny fists against my chest as tears streaked down her face. I stepped back. Not because her blows hurt. I barely even noticed she was hitting me, but because she was crying. In the entire year we have been married, I have never seen my wife cry.

She went to stand up but got tangled in the sheets. I reached out to helper, but she just shoved at me some more. “Get out, you bastard!” Shove. “I hate you!” Punch.

Her fury seemed to grow with her tears. The more violent she got, the more tangled up in the sheets she got. I tried to hold her up, but her insistent blows kept blocking me, and eventually she fell.

“Brooke.” I reached down to help her, and she released the most heart-wrenching sob.

“I hate you. I hate you.” Her words were a small whisper now.

“Brooke, I’m sorry I didn’t mean it. Let me help you up.”

“No, don’t touch me! I hate you. Isn’t it enough that every time you’ve ever touched me in our short marriage you leave me feeling ashamed and whorish?” Her sobs were becoming almost uncontrollable. “You’re so disgusted by me you have to get drunk and plan a two-week vacation for after the fact as if you have to wash me away from your memory, leaving me here to think of all the women you fuck after you have done enough to maybe impregnate me. As if I am nothing more than a broodmare. And how stupid am I that I actually long for your touch.”

She wiped at her eyes, trying to stop the flow of tears. “And what’s worse of all is that I don’t actually hate you. I respect you too much to hate you. And I hate myself for it.”

Her last words were so soft, her body slouched, resigned to the thought. I could feel my throat closing. I swallowed the bile I felt rising in my throat. “Brooke… Beagchaithnini sneachta…”

“Just go away.”

Maybe it was the coward’s thing to do, but I did just that. I got up and I left.

*****

Brooke

Landon has not tried to get me to come back to the master room after that. Part of me hurts for how easily he let me go, while the rational part of me reminds me it is what I wanted. I push away from my drawing table, no longer able to concentrate. I pace around the room, my eyes constantly landing on my computer. I have immersed myself in research for days. I have created an entire manual on everything Landon will need. A list of the safest car seats, strollers, and cribs; the best doctors and the order in which they get their shots; a timeline on when the big development milestones are supposed to start, like when to turn the car seat from rear-facing to front-facing. I keep telling myself I do not need to keep adding to it, but every day I find I cannot help it.