I stand under the chilly stream, letting myself be punished. My face is numb. My body. I curl my fingers against my palm and feel the dents my nails made earlier. It’s time to get out of the shower, but I can’t quite make myself. It’s the only place I can weep without anyone hearing me. Why am I crying? Why laughing? Why is my heart pounding so fiercely I swear I can see the pulse of it in the swell of my bare breast?

Love is what we tell ourselves will hold back the pain, but isn’t it love that brings us the agony in the first place?

I’d always told myself I married Ken because I loved him, and I did, at least in some small way. The truth was that he’d charmed me, and I’d always been susceptible to a man who could do that. We met at a gas station. I was trying to buy cigarettes, but I didn’t have enough cash. Ken was fixing the cash register. He covered the cost of my bill in exchange for my number. I had no direction in life, and he gave me one. He rescued me, and, as they say, it became a happily ever after.

Christian, on the other hand, has never saved me. He has never loved me. He will never love me. But if he thinks he can ruin me, he’s the one who will regret it.

I turn off the water. Both the shower head and the tub faucet leak. The curtain catches on the rod as I push it back. Dripping, I step out onto the bathmat and reach for my towel. Both are scratchy and faded, and I close my eyes as I press the fabric to my face. I want softness under my feet and against my body. I want unlimited hot water. I want a new life.

The choices we make stay with us long after we make them. My son will grow up and move away. My husband will lock himself in his office when he’s here and travel for weeks on end, and one day I suspect he will leave me for one of the women I’m convinced he has in other towns. But me? I will stay here until I literally die.

“What are you doing?”

Ken’s voice startles me into a squeak of a response. I pull the towel from my face, grateful he didn’t find me weep-laughing in the shower. I wrap the towel around my breasts, tucking in the ends to keep it up. There was a time when my husband would’ve tried playfully to tug it off me and see me naked, but he barely glances at me now as he goes to the toilet and urinates in a long, hard stream. His back is to me. He’s asked me a question he doesn’t even seem to care if I answer.

“Taking a shower,” is my reply. Duh.

He looks over his shoulder with a frown at my tone. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”