The Restarting Point Read online

  “Use a coaster,” she said. The words came out cracked and barely loud enough to be heard. But he did as she said and moved his drink onto the ceramic circle meant to protect the table’s surface.

  As he did, Jade chided herself for the stupidity of the demand. She’d just caught him in the process of leaving her, and the first thing she said was to use a coaster. His belongings were packed, there was another woman in her home, and she was worried about rings on the table. Really?

  “How’s your leg?” he asked.

  “Apparently better than my marriage.”

  He looked away and blew out his breath again. That was his go-to move when he was anxious. Over the course of her treatment, he’d sat beside her, lost in thought, heaving those breaths thousands of times. Every time, she’d offer him a weak smile, a squeeze of his hand, and soft reassurances that they were going to be okay.

  Clearly, she’d been wrong.

  “I, um…” he started. “I…”

  Tears burned her eyes as she narrowed them at him and said through clenched teeth, “What?”

  He frowned and gave her another sorrowful look. “I didn’t want you to walk in on this.”

  “What is this?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. She’d already done the math. She’d already solved the puzzle. But the answers weren’t making sense. Knowing the truth and understanding it were miles apart in her mind. Part of her still insisted she must be misunderstanding.

  “I’m leaving,” he said with the confidence of a man who had a plan. A man who’d thought things through. This wasn’t a rash decision or a spontaneous moment. He’d been planning this. For how long?

  The uglier side of reality was something Jade had faced far too many times since hearing the word cancer slip from her doctor’s lips. She had the scars and a patchwork body to prove it. Now, apparently, she had a lying husband to add to the list. A husband who had spent weeks at a time by her side in the hospital, holding her hand, drying her tears, reminding her how much she had to live for. She had assumed he was including himself in that list. But he’d told her to live for this. To watch him leave. With someone else.

  “Why?” she asked. “After all we’ve been through. Why?”

  At least he had the sense to be ashamed. He looked down and raked his fingers through his dark hair. When he lifted his head again, his eyes were sad. She’d seen that look while lying in a hospital bed, when her hair had begun falling out, when the reality of her deteriorating health had hit him. The look was a mixture of hopelessness, fear, and defeat. The look had broken her heart when she’d been sick, but seeing it now lit a spark of anger.

  “Why?” she screamed as tears pricked her eyes.

  “Jade.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I…”

  “Don’t you dare tell me how sorry you are,” she seethed.

  “I…”

  Marching across the room toward him likely didn’t have the same impact since she was using crutches. But she stopped right in his face. “You’re cheating on me?”

  “Jade… I… I am sorry, but I’m not in love with you anymore.” Once again, he blew out his breath. This time, however, he didn’t look like anxiety was getting the better of him. This time, he looked like the weight that had been holding him at the bottom of the ocean had finally released him and he could escape. “I love you, but not like a husband should.”

  His words, which clearly brought him relief, felt like a thousand knives carving out her heart. She was glad she had Darby’s horrid crutches to hold her up. Otherwise she might have crumpled at Nick’s feet.

  “I deeply care about you,” he said. “I always will. We’re family. But… I don’t want to stay married to someone I’m not in love with. I don’t want to keep pretending I’m happy when I haven’t been for a long time.”

  “I’ve had cancer for a year, Nicky. I don’t think that’s a good gauge of happiness for anyone.”

  He lowered his face, and her knees once again grew weak as understanding dawned on her.

  “You were cheating before then,” she whispered.

  “I was going to leave after Owen graduated. I wanted him to get through school, but then you got sick…”

  Jade’s diagnosis had been handed to them five months before their youngest son finished high school. Seeing him graduate had been one of the goals that had given Jade the strength to keep going. Living the rest of her life with Nick, being a better couple, being more attentive to each other, and focusing on their happiness rather than their careers, had been the other.

  “How long have you been screwing her?”

  Nick looked away.

  “Oh my God.” Angry tears filled in Jade’s eyes. “You coward,” she whispered with trembling lips. “You fucking coward. You’ve been screwing around while I was fighting for my life, and then you couldn’t even leave me to my face? I had to catch you?”

  “I was going to tell you, Jade. I wasn’t expecting you back for a few more days. You’re supposed to be on vacation,” Nick said.

  “So are you,” she responded softly. “We were supposed to go together. That was your suggestion, remember?” A lump formed in her chest, making it even more difficult to breathe. “Oh God, Nick. This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? To send me away so you could pack your belongings while I was gone. Oh, you really are a chicken shit.” She laughed bitterly. “Deny it. Please, deny it. Please tell me that you didn’t send me away so you could move out behind my back.”

  “I can’t,” he said as the shame on his face returned. “That was my plan. I didn’t want to put you through watching me go. I was… I was going to go to Chammont Point at the end of your vacation and tell you so you were prepared when you came home. I thought that would be less painful for you.”

  “Oh, that’s so noble of you. If you knew you were leaving, why did you spend so much time talking about what we were going to do when I was healthy? If I ever was healthy.” Another one of those ugly reality slaps hit her, and she scoffed. “You were just… You were just being nice. You didn’t mean it.”

  “Jade.”

  She glared at him. “Stop saying my name like I’m a child who just found out there’s no Santa Claus. Jesus, Nicky. I deserve better than this. I deserve better than to have you sneaking out like a criminal.”

  “I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere; she’d give him that. And the sorrow in his eyes seemed real. “I never wanted you to find out like this. I wanted to be kinder when I told you.”

  “Are you sure about that? Are you sure it was about me? Or did you stay because only assholes leave their cancer-stricken wives, and God forbid you ever look like the bad guy?”

  A flash of anger lit his eyes. One of the ongoing fights they’d had as a couple was that Nick was always the one to pacify the kids, while she was the one who had to enforce the rules. If Nick didn’t want to say no, he told them to ask Jade. If Nick didn’t want to go out with their friends, he made an excuse that put the blame on Jade. He’d always made her out to be the naysayer. She was his scapegoat. She had been for years.

  “I stayed because I would never leave you to fight for your life on your own,” he stated. “I might not be in love with you anymore, Jade, but I do care about you, and I never would have walked out when you were sick.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet. You want a gold star for that?”

  His shoulders sagged. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  Nick shook his head at her like he was so disappointed. Jade couldn’t remember a time when she wanted to kick him in the balls as much as she did right then. He was slipping out of their marriage like a thief in the night, and he had the nerve to look at her like she was being unreasonable.

  “I don’t know when you got so hard, Jade,” he said, taking her aback, “but you did. I don’t know when the job and the status and having the biggest, best accounts at the firm began to mean more to you than our marriage, but they did. And that changed you into someone I d
on’t want to spend my life with anymore.”

  Once again, his words were like a knife. Another slap of that ugliness life seemed to be throwing at her in abundance lately. He wasn’t wrong. She had clawed her way to the top of the marketing firm. She’d fought hard to become an executive. She’d worked long hours and missed so much of their lives. And she had changed. She had become hard and distant like he’d said. But then she’d gotten sick and realized how far from her old self she’d gotten. She’d seen the truth, and she had told him she was going to be better. And all the while, he’d known he wasn’t going to stick around for that. He’d lied and let her make a fool of herself.

  However, Nick seemed to have forgotten that part of the reason she’d had to work so hard was because of his big dream. His aspiration was to own a company, to be a businessman, and she’d supported that, not just by being a cheerleader, but financially as well. Someone had to work to support him and the kids while he spent years building his dream from scratch. She’d done so gladly, because she’d wanted his dream to come true too.

  “You know it’s usually the men, right?” he asked with a sad smile. “The men become so focused on their careers and working their way to the top that their wives feel neglected and unloved. It’s the wives who need someone to make them feel worthy. This is just an old cliche, but the roles are turned.”

  “I had to work—”

  Nick nodded. “To provide for us. I know. I know,” he said gently. “You did have to pick up the slack so I could build my company. I know that. You did a great job, Jade. You provided us with a great life and gave me and our kids amazing opportunities.”

  “And you cheated on me because of it.” She waited, but he didn’t argue. She blinked, hoping to stop her tears, but they fell anyway. “That’s great, Nick. I’m glad I gave you that opportunity too.”

  He flinched but recovered with a shake of his head. “I wanted us to have this life we created, but… You left me a long time ago, Jade. You chose your career over our family a long time ago.”

  “Don’t you dare blame me for this.” Anger boiled deep in her belly and sent heat to her cheeks. “You could have talked to me. You could have helped me fix this. You could have told me you were unhappy and given me a chance to be better. You chose to lie and deceive me. You chose to screw around. That was your choice.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “And then you tried to run out behind my back. I deserve better, Nick. Even if I wasn’t the wife you wanted, I deserve better than this.”

  “Yes, you do. I wanted you to have a few months of recovery time after all you’ve been through.”

  “Ah. Giving me a breather between cancer treatment and divorce court. How courteous.”

  Instead of responding to her jab, Nick took the high road and said, “You’re right. I was being a coward. I’m sorry.”

  God, how she wanted to punch him for that. She would feel a lot better about unleashing her anger on him if he got down in the mud with her, but he was restraining himself. He always had been the one to fight with a soft voice instead of letting his real feelings show. He had a way of being passive until she felt guilty for allowing her feelings to flow freely. Not this time. She wouldn’t feel bad for giving him hell this time.

  “I want us to find a way to work through this,” Nick continued. “The boys are grown, but this will still impact them. I want us to…”

  “Be friends?” she asked with a sarcastic lilt to her words.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Someday I want us to be friends again. Because I do care about you, and I want you to be happy. We haven’t been happy for a long time, Jade. Neither one of us.”

  “You haven’t been happy, Nicky, and you should have had the courage to tell me. You should have let me try. You’re just walking out.” She hated how her tears resurfaced and her voice cracked. She was losing everything she’d fought so hard to stay alive for. “You’re not even giving me a chance. So go ahead, pat yourself on the back for holding my hand when we thought I was dying. Give yourself credit for suggesting I take a long vacation to give you time to slink away. Tell everyone how you nursed me back to health and stayed for the kids and all the other things that make you feel better. But at the end of the day, Nicholas, you’re a liar. Just like your father.”

  Nick reared back from the emotional grenade she’d hit him with. His father had left. He’d started a new life and was rarely heard from again. Nick had become the so-called man of his house at the tender age of seven. That wound had never healed, and she’d just intentionally poured salt on it. She didn’t even feel remorse. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel remorse because she was so close to cracking, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  For a moment, he looked like he was going to retort, and she silently dared him to.

  “I hurt you,” he said in that annoyingly calm voice he always used when they argued. “You’re allowed to lash out.”

  She scoffed. “Stop trying to be the better person here. You’re not. Not this time. I may have lost sight of us, of our marriage, but I never lied. I never cheated, and I never wanted to leave. Even if I did, I never would have let you find out like this. I never would have destroyed the life we built like this.”

  The shame on his face returned. She’d hit the mark. Good.

  “I don’t want us to be like my parents,” he said. “It may not feel like it right now, but I do want what is best for you. I stayed with you because you needed me to. You don’t need me anymore so I’m going to… I’m going to have the life I want now.”

  “The life you want? What about the business you built with the money I earned doing the job you resented? What about this house that I paid for because you had to reinvest in your company? I gave you the life you wanted, Nicky. And now I’m paying the price because you weren’t man enough to tell me you weren’t happy.”

  “Stop,” he said putting his hand over his heart. His wedding ring was gone. He’d already removed it.

  Bile rose in her throat. She had to swallow hard to force it back down.

  “Please,” he said softly. “Before one of us says something that can’t be taken back.”

  “Oh, I think it’s too late for that.” She looked around the living room. Though she’d worked long hours and hadn’t spent as much time in this room as he had, she had memories here too. Good memories. Laughs and tears and fights. A life. She’d had a life here too. Fuck him for destroying that.

  He lowered his head and brushed his brown hair from his forehead. For a moment, she saw the boy she used to know, the one who had promised to love and cherish her forever. She really wanted to punch that boy in the face right now for being a liar. And most of all for being a heartbreaker.

  Finally, he looked at her again. “I want a divorce.”

  She laughed lightly before sarcastically responding, “Oh, wow. I hadn’t figured that out yet. I was hoping you and your girlfriend would want to stick around.”

  “I think we should sell the house and put the profits toward the kids’ college expenses.”

  The house where they’d raised their family. The house where their life had been created. For a moment, she wanted to push back and fight him for the memory of what was. But as quickly as the urge came, it fled. What would she do other than wander the empty rooms and think about what had been?

  “I’ll take responsibility for the loans we took out for my business,” he continued.

  “You’ve really thought about this,” she said as he went down his leaving-his-wife checklist.

  Tell Jade I want a divorce. Check.

  Tell her how it’s her fault. Check.

  Pretend to be concerned about her happiness. Check.

  An emotional fist closed around Jade’s throat, cutting off her ability to breathe or speak, as another ripped what was left of her heart from her chest. She did her best not to respond, but she was quite certain her already pale skin had lost even more color.

  She’d believed his
sweet words as he’d whispered through the background noise of machines and voices over the PA system in the hallway of the hospital. She’d found comfort in him as doctors and nurses floated in and out of her room like she was some kind of science experiment. She’d dried his tears when they’d been told they should get her “affairs in order.” She’d fought for him. She’d fought for their family and the life she’d taken for granted.

  And now he was walking away. Just like that.

  Like the fight they’d won meant nothing.

  The emotion that had filled Jade’s throat left in a laugh that seemed to surprise both of them. Even though she was laughing, hot tears fell down her cheeks. She glared at him and shook her head. “You know, as hard as you think I became, as distant as you think I was, you are and always will be the bigger asshole for throwing our marriage away without a fight.”

  She looked at the platinum and diamond rings on her finger and easily slid them off. She hadn’t even been healthy long enough to gain back the weight for her rings to fit properly. She held them out and waited for him to take them. “Hawk them,” she said. “You’re going to need the money because your so-called business is going to fail without the safety net I’ve provided you, and you sure as hell won’t be getting any kind of spousal support for you and your girlfriend.”

  “Jade,” he said.

  She gave him one resolute shake of her head. “I’m going back to my vacation. When I get home on Saturday, your things need to be gone. All of your things.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said one more time.

  “Fuck you, Nicky,” she seethed before heading for the door.

  Much like she had earlier in the day, Jade sat staring at Tranquility Cabin, wondering what she should do. The sun was sinking behind the trees and dusk was settling over the cabin, making it seem much more welcoming than it had in the light of the day.

  She’d told Darby to cancel her vacation, and now she was going to have to ask her to change the plans again. She didn’t think Darby would mind. Somehow, Jade doubted the owner of the cabin was a stickler for rules and regulations. Once Jade explained that she didn’t know where else to go or what to do, she was certain Darby would let her stay.