Chapter song: Whisper by A Fine Frenzy
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight
After his wife takes off down the steps of their deck towards the beach, he stays outside and watches her until the blowing marsh grass on the dunes takes her out of his view. He knows staying outside waiting for her to come back wouldn't be giving her the space she had asked for, so he reluctantly goes inside. He can't get himself to go any further than the living room. He's nervous about her being out by herself at night, so he sits on the couch and turns on the television, hoping for a distraction until he knows that she is safely back inside the house.
Early Sunday morning, he awakens with a jolt as loud claps of thunder shake the house. With a stiff neck and sore back, he sits up from his slouched position on the couch and turns off the television, completely disoriented and confused as to why he's in the living room and not in their bedroom. But, as his memory catches up with him, and everything about the night before rushes to the forefront of his mind, he stands up from the couch as fast as his sore body will let him, looking around in a panic. He hopes that nothing bad has happened to her, and that he just didn't hear her come in because he was sleeping.
As he approaches the sliding glass door, he notices that it's locked, giving him a sign that she did make it inside, but he won't be able to calm down his panic until he sees her for himself.
Making it up the stairs to their bedroom, he lets out a sigh of relief after quietly opening the door and seeing her asleep in their bed. Walking as silently as he can into the room, he undresses out of his clothes and tries to get into bed as gently as possible so he doesn't wake her.
Turning onto his side, he lies awake watching his wife as she sleeps, wondering how he's ever going to give her the space she needs. He fears that if he gives her too much, they'll just end up back to how they drifted apart in the first place. But, then again, he doesn't want her to feel like the only way she can get her space is by escaping the house whenever he's around. Eventually, his mind gives up on thinking, and gives in to the calming sounds of raindrops hitting the house, lulling him back to sleep.
He wakes up a couple of hours later, alone in bed, to the sun shining and the birds chirping. The weather is completely different from what he had woken up to earlier, but his mood is just the same; confused and a little panicked, not sure as to what the day will bring.
After showering and getting dressed, he makes his way downstairs and sees no one in sight, but hears his son's loud music coming from the garage. After fixing himself a cup of coffee, he makes his way out there, curious as to what his son is up to and how his weekend had gone camping with his friends. Upon entering the garage, he notices his wife's car is missing and in place of it is most of his son's camping equipment laid out across the floor. He still sees no sign of his son, but as he walks further into the garage, he sees him laying out the tent to dry it out on the grass next to the driveway.
Setting his coffee down on the tool bench, he walks over to his son and, as he begins to help him put it together, asks where his mom had gone. After his son tells him she went grocery shopping, their conversation turns into talk about camping and the big storm they all woke up to this morning.
After they finish with the tent, they work quickly cleaning the sand off of everything and putting it away, just in time for her to pull up into the garage. As both of the men bring everything into the house and help put everything away, she starts making everyone sandwiches for lunch.
They eat outside together, enjoying the warm sun and the cool breeze coming off of the lake as their son continues to talk about his weekend, oblivious to the tension between his parents. After lunch, he helps his son take down the tent and put it away before they decide to shoot hoops together in the driveway, as she starts on the laundry. The day, so far, seems like any ordinary Sunday in their household, and it makes him feel a lot less worrisome than he did this morning.
But, as soon as dinner is over and cleaned up, their son heads up to bed early, exhausted from the weekend, leaving husband and wife alone for the first time today. He quickly realizes that their son was the buffer that helped relax the strain between he and his wife as the tension in the air intensifies, making their large kitchen feel inconceivably small.
He starts to busy himself with taking the trash out of the bin, not knowing what to say, or if he should say anything at all, as she grabs the dish rags and heads to the laundry room. This was what he was worried about this morning; He doesn't know what the right thing to do is, and he's afraid that she'll mistake anything he does or doesn't do, as him not caring.
Just as he's about to take the trash outside, she walks passed him without a glance and tells him quietly that she's going to bed.
As the week wears on, he keeps his distance from her like she had asked. He doesn't wake her up before he leaves for work, choosing instead to leave her a note next to the coffee maker, which he also pre-sets for her. Instead of calling her while he's at work, he sends her a text everyday during his lunch just to tell her what time he'll be home and that he loves her, always getting the same 'Okay. Love you, too' text back from her. He anticipates her response every day, knowing it's the only time he'll hear it from her, considering that she hasn't said more than a few words to him since Saturday.
Every day he makes it home in time for dinner, even though she still chooses to eat alone, with the only exception being if their son is home. And, every night he still holds her while they lay in bed, but only after he knows she's fallen asleep.
By the time the weekend rolls around, he wakes up with her gone once again, only this time she's left a note on his nightstand.
Went for a run on the beach
As he lays back down into bed, he rubs his hands harshly over his face and then fists them in his hair as he stares up at the ceiling. Out of the entire time that they've known each other, he's never missed his wife more than he does now. During the first couple of years they dated in college, they would sometimes have to go weeks without seeing each other during the holidays or breaks. They used to talk on the phone during those times they were apart, and he remembers the feeling of missing her so much that he used to wish he could reach through the phone just to touch her. Still, none of that compares to what he's feeling now. Having her so close to him, but still unable to reach her, is far worse than anything he had ever felt back then.
With every day that has passed, she seems to have withdrawn from him even more and he's at a loss on what to do. He wishes she would just yell, scream, and fight with him. Anything is better than the silence, and he's not even thinking about it being better for himself. He can noticeably see how her holding everything inside is affecting her with how lost and warn down she looks. He knows, from past experience, that this is how she deals with things that upset her, and if he doesn't get her to talk about it soon, she'll drive herself crazy trying to figure it out on her own. In the past, it was sometimes like pulling teeth to get her to talk about what was bothering her, but this time it's different. He knows what it is, and he can't do anything about it besides waiting for her to come to him. The ball is in her court, and he feels like his hands are tied.
Unable to lie in bed anymore, he decides to get up and change into some shorts and a t-shirt, hoping to release some of his pent up anxiety by working out in the basement. Before he heads downstairs, he stops by their son's room to see if he wants to join him, but then remembers that he had to work early this morning.
Just as he walks into the kitchen to get something light to eat before he heads into the basement, his wife comes in from her run. He doesn't say anything until she has her shoes off and starts to walk pass the kitchen towards the stairs.
Hoping he doesn't scare her again, he softly says, "Good morning…"
Her steps falter a bit as she hears him, but she doesn't stop or look at him. As she starts to walk up the stairs, she replies, "Morning," in a tired, low tone, filled with no emotion.
Hearing the foreign sound in her voice, and seeing her thinning, tired body slowly climb the stairs makes something in him snap and he moves on impulse, forgetting about anything he had thought about just a few minutes ago.
He walks into their bedroom and stops a couple feet in, just as she's gathering clothes to take with her into the bathroom to change into after her shower. She hears him come in and stops what she's doing momentarily, but then continues on with her task as if she never noticed he came into the room.
Quietly, he says, "I'm worried about you…"
As she closes the drawer to her dresser, a little harder than necessary, she responds in a quiet voice, with a hint of frustration, "I don't have the urge to kill myself if that's what you're worried about."
Not expecting that response from her at all, his mind immediately conjures up the images from his dream that will forever haunt his mind, and his body involuntarily lets out a whoosh of air from his lungs before he stutters a response, "What? No, I mean- I'm just-"
"Look, Edward," interrupting him, letting out an exasperated sigh as she stands at the entrance to their bathroom, staring down at the clothes she has in her arms as she continues in a softer, yet tired tone, "I'm just really tired, and all I want to do right now is take a shower and go back to bed… So, just… don't."
As he watches her close the door to the bathroom, he's never wanted to scream so badly in his entire life.
He's frustrated and angry with himself, wishing he would have just kept his mouth shut and left her alone. He feels like they just took another step back from making anything work between them, which is hard to swallow since it seems like all they've been doing is taking steps back.
Leaving the bedroom, he hastily makes his way into the basement, hoping to take some of his frustration out in the home gym. He starts slow at first, knowing he hasn't touched any of the equipment in at least a couple of weeks, but once he's warmed up he pushes himself to his limits for the next two hours. The only reason he even stopped was because his stomach kept cramping up from not eating before.
After forcing a small snack down, he heads upstairs and quietly enters their bedroom. With his wife still asleep, he quickly gathers his clothes and decides to take his shower in the guest bathroom so he doesn't wake her.
He takes his time showering, letting his tender muscles relax under the spray until the water goes cold. After drying off and getting dressed, he makes his way downstairs and is surprised to see his wife in the kitchen, cleaning up what must have been her lunch. He was going to get himself something to eat, but he hesitates going into the kitchen, unsure if she'll want him in there with her right now after what happened earlier. But, before he can think about it much more, she swiftly grabs her purse and keys from the counter and takes off towards the door that leads to the garage. He watches her walk through the door, wondering where she's going, but afraid to ask. Just before she closes the door behind her, she quietly announces that she's going to the store. He didn't even know she knew he was there.
After eating his lunch, he tries to get the last bit of his work done that he wasn't able to finish the day before, but all he can think about is how he got here.
He's thought many times about what he was feeling when the affair had first started, and the only thing he really remembers is feeling anger towards his wife. He truly believed that she didn't love him anymore. He would come home from work and try to hug her, but she would tense up. At night, when they were in bed together, he would try to hold her and she would move away from him. After a while, he just stopped trying. When he tried to talk to her about whatever he did that made her angry with him, she would mostly have the same reply, "Don't worry about it. It's nothing." Normally, he would have approached her a few more times about it to get her to talk, but work got in the way and whatever it was that was bothering her was forgotten. He recognizes the mistakes he made by letting her problems with him get brushed under the rug. And he also recognizes that her pushing him away was because of that.
The sound of the garage door opening breaks him out of his thoughts, and he slowly gets up out of his chair to see if she needs help bringing in anything. His sore muscles protest with every movement he makes as he walks towards the garage, getting there just as she comes through the door with two bags in her hands.
Stopping just a few feet from the door, he asks, "Is there anything else that needs to be brought in?"
Closing the door behind her, she responds softly, "No," walking passed him towards the basement with her two bags, she continues, "I'll be in the darkroom."
As the weekend comes to a close, he realizes that her darkroom has become her new place to escape, and the only time she comes upstairs is to eat and sleep. Every day, the hours she spends down there grow longer, so that by Tuesday, he's going to bed before her.
Coming home from work on Wednesday, he opens the garage door and sees that his wife's car isn't there. As he enters the house, he sees his son sitting at the island eating, what looks like, leftovers from the night before.
"Hey, dad."
Setting his laptop case on the counter, he says, "Hey… where's your mom?"
With a mouthful of food, his son holds up a note written in his wife's handwriting.
I'll be downtown at the festival. Leftovers are in the fridge.
After his son swallows, he says, "I went with her this morning to look around while she set up her pictures in the little stations they have up everywhere in the park. That place was nuts. You goin' down there?"
He debates on whether or not he should go, unsure if she wants him there, but then decides that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would still want her there to support him.
"Uh, yeah… I'm just gonna go change out of these clothes first. You wanna go with me?"
His son snorts at him before replying in an amused tone, "Nope. I just got back from there. Like I said… the place is nuts. Good luck finding a parking spot. Oh, and I probably won't be here when you get back. I'm meetin' up with a few friends at the carnival by the river later."
"Alright… just text me or your mom if you decide to stay at someone else's house."
As his son gets up from his seat to put his plate in the sink, he replies, "I always do," before taking off downstairs, most likely to play some video games.
After hurrying up the stairs and quickly changing out of his work clothes, he makes himself a sandwich to eat on the way, knowing the price of food downtown will be insane.
A drive that normally takes about ten minutes turns into a half hour with all of the traffic everywhere and trying to find a parking spot. He starts to panic a little, seeing that it's already 6:30 and he's not sure what time they start closing everything down in the park. Luckily, he finds a space only three blocks away from where his wife should be, and it doesn't take him long to walk there.
After spending about five minutes looking around for her, he finally spots her about 300 feet away. As he starts to walk towards her, he notices how different she looks compared to what he's used to seeing of her these past couple of weeks. She looks relaxed and even happy as she talks to an elderly man as crowds of people walk by her station, observing her photographs of various pictures she took around the beach.
He loses sight of her for a bit as he fights through crowds of people to get to her, but as soon as she comes back into his view, he stops in his tracks as he sees his wife laughing at whatever the elderly man is saying to her. He hasn't seen her laugh like that in so long, that it makes him realize that it's only when he's around that she's unhappy. In an instant, he starts to fight back through the crowds to get away before she sees him, not wanting to ruin this for her.
Finally making it into his car, he pulls back into traffic and starts to head home. During his drive, he thinks about the mistake he was about to make by showing up there with her. If she wanted him to be there, she would have texted him to tell him where she was instead of leaving a note at home. Having that realization hurts, but he knows he deserves it after everything he's done. He just wants her to be happy, and he's not sure he can do that for her anymore. He doesn't want to lose his wife, but he's starting to think she's better off without him.
With that thought, he pulls over to the side of the road just before their street, and throws his car into park. He begins to curse at himself loudly, punching the steering wheel multiple times, as his eyes start to sting with tears that he refuses to let fall.
After a few moments, he rests his head down on the steering wheel, breathing out heavy, shuddering breaths as he tries to calm himself down. It isn't until he hears a car pass by that he attempts to move.
Sitting up, he moves on autopilot, putting the car into drive and slowly driving the rest of the way home.
Sometime after nine, as he watches television in the living room, his wife finally walks through the door. Noticing that she isn't wearing the same smile he saw on her earlier, and that she doesn't look as relaxed, his heart sinks as he watches her walk up the stairs without saying good night.
A/N: RECOMMENDATIONS:
Shattered Perfection by josabbiemommy Story ID# 6329159
I had more recs I was going to post, but I'm rushing to get this out…
Thanks goes to my awesome pre-reader, Crackylu, and to my wonderful beta, Allison Cullen.