Page 4 of The First Love Myth
“I’m sorry, Liz,” he says with feeling. “I don’t know what else to say.”
I love youwould be a start, but I know, somehow, that it’s not coming. I stand and walk back to the punching bag. I hit Play on the stereo and slip my hand guards on. At no point do I look at my cheating husband.
“You can sleep in the guest room,” I say and then throw my first punch.
Chapter 3
Liz
Our bed hasn’t felt as empty as it does now in all the time Julian was away. It’s too cold without the comforter but stifling under it. My emotions boomerang between fury and melancholy and uncertainty. His absence weighs heavy in the air, and an unbearable ennui suffocates me. Both my options seem wrong—leave Julian or make it work. We’ve been here before, and I know deep in my soul that we will be here again. Julian will break us and fix us and break us until we’re unfixable. But to him, we’ll never be unfixable.
I toss off the comforter again. The chill from the air conditioner cools the burning in my cheeks. I swipe away a few tears and sigh as my eyes land on Julian’s book and reading glasses. Every night for exactly twenty-five minutes, Julian reads. But tonight—the first night I’ve ever banished him to the guest room—the book sits unopened. An hour ago, the washer buzzed, so at least I know he’s not sleeping in his travel clothes. Not that it would matter. I don’t care if he’s comfortable. He deserves much worse than the guest bed.
Standing up before I can decide otherwise, I grab his book and glasses and walk across the hall. The door is partially open, but I knock before entering. Julian lies across the bed, one hand cocked behind his hand, the other holding his phone. He squints up at it, trying to read, I assume. He hates reading on his phone. He must have finished whatever book he brought to St. Louis.The thought brightens my mood marginally. If he had time to finish a book, he didn’t spend all his free time with Sheila.
“I brought your things.”
He stares at me from his prone position, his body tense and rigid. “Thank you.”
I hold the book against my chest like a shield. Tears dance under my eyelids. Even at our worst, we’ve always been comfortable with each other. The second the thought crosses my mind, I know it’s not the truth, but there’s never been a moment like this. Mainly because Julian never stayed around to have one. He leaves, and I pick up the pieces. He comes back, and I welcome him with wary-but-open arms.Don’t cry, don’t cry.For once, my body obeys.
Julian comes around the bed to stand in front of me. He stops a few feet away, his eyes downcast, arms crossed protectively across his chest. “Can I... Can we talk?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think we can.”
“Can you listen, at least? Please?” He says it in a pleading sort of way, and even though I’m tired of listening to him, I nod and sit at the edge of the bed. Nothing he says will make a difference. Not really. Julian will leave. If not right now, eventually. It’s a truth I haven’t considered in years. After the wedding and the miscarriage, he never wavered.Until now.
He takes the book and glasses from me and tosses them back toward his pillow. The glasses clink against the headboard, and I cringe at the sound.
“Those are new.”
“They’re fine.” He links his fingers through mine.
The familiar tingle that accompanies his touch is still there. A shiver passes through me, and my insides rumble. My heart hiccups. All I’ve wanted for the last three days is his hands on me, his lips on mine...Absolutely not.
“I should go, Jules,” I say, pulling my hand from his.
“I love you, Liz.” It’s a shout into the void that keeps me rooted in place. Finally, the words he should’ve said all night. “Those words don’t even properly convey what I feel for you, but they’re the best I have.”
Untrue. There are at least seven films about our love on his computer. But I’ll take the words. For now.
His eyes search mine. “That’s why nothing happened with Sheila. Not because I was scared or because there wasn’t the opportunity because, well, honestly there was. But I love you, and I vowed to love you forever. And I meant it.”
He takes my hand again, and I allow it. Desire ripples through my body again, but it’s different. It’s not the ache of days alone but the overwhelming need to be intimate with my husband. To feel the connection he’s desperately trying to save. It would be easy to jump into his lap and smother the rest of his speech with my lips, but I refuse to move. He deserves to grovel.
“I have no intention of breaking our wedding vows—any more than I know I did today—not tomorrow or next year or thirty years down the line. Everything I told you on that rooftop before our wedding still stands.”
An odd memory to recall in this moment. He means it in a good way, and of course, our wedding is a marvelous blur of a memory. But that moment on the roof of the hotel where we had the wedding, when I was uncertain if Julian was planning on making the ceremony or slinking out into the night again, was awful. He’s always claimed that he wasn’t running or even thinking about it. That he simply needed a moment—several long moments—away from the cameras and the pressures and all of it. I chose to believe him then. I want to continue to believe him now.
“I choose you, Elizabeth Grace Madden. Always.”
He kisses me then. It’s not soft or slow or repentant. It’s possessive and desperate and so hard that my entire body spikesto life, as if I’ve touched a live fuse. My fingers curl into his hair, and when he nudges me back onto the bed, I let him. I should stop this. It’s a mistake. His lips touched someone else’s only hours ago. But I can’t. I love him. I’ve always loved him.
He hovers above me, eyes darkened with passion and his desire obvious where our bodies touch. “God, Liz. I love you so freaking much.”
I freeze at his words. They aren’t helping. No, if he talks, I’ll remember why we’re making up. If we’re even making up. This isn’t like any make-up sex we’ve had before. It’s better, which leads me to believe that things are much worse than they’ve ever been.
I hold a finger to his lips and pull him down to me. “No more talking.”