False Step

by Victoria Helen Stone

It turned out that frantically gluing the broken pieces of a marriage back together didn’t make for the tightest hold. The seams had eventually given way and left her sitting in a giant, messy pile of hurt and anger and memories.

It was Johnny’s big night. Veronica wouldn’t cause trouble. She wouldn’t kick Trey out. But God, how had this become her crowd?

Funny how the lens of childhood always cast adults with so much freedom and strength. She’d been far freer as a child. Happier too. And she’d damn sure been more determined. Now it felt as if all her strength went into making it through the day. Just one more day. They added up eventually, or so she kept telling

“You’ll get lonely.” “No. No, I don’t think I will. I have everything I want here and no one I have to cater to. I don’t have to pretend about . . . well, anything. It’s not even worth talking about, sweetheart. I’m not lonely. At all. I’m just relieved. And I like cooking for myself. I make whatever I want.”

wasn’t love. She knew it couldn’t be love. But it was life, and she craved this knowledge that she was still alive. Still vibrant. Still a risk worth taking. With Micah she wasn’t a mom or a wife. She wasn’t the responsible one in the relationship. It wasn’t a relationship at all. It was just . . . this.

She was the one using him, surely. He was her drug, the antidepressant that stopped her from breaking apart and running away forever. Every week, if she was patient enough, Wednesday would come around again, and she’d get her fix, and she’d be fine for a little while.

She didn’t want to be his wife. And he had zero interest in being a husband—or stepfather—to anyone. She’d never spent the night with him. Never tended him through illness or disappointment. This affair was a fantasy. She couldn’t love him. Not really. But she still turned her head and brushed her lips over his shoulder with a sigh.

She wasn’t above suspicion so much as below notice, and these days that was just fine with

She hated grocery shopping more than any other chore. Something about it felt insulting. Probably because it was basically doing the same chore four times. First you moved the groceries into the cart, then onto the checkout belt, then into the car, and finally into the house. Hell, it was really a fifth time if you counted putting everything away once you got to the kitchen.

She loved having secrets. She loved that no one in her life knew everything about her. She was a puzzle, and only she had all the pieces.

And when she was alone, she’d be truly, blessedly alone. It would be so much less lonely than living with someone who’d ruined the love you’d once had.

Children were naturally selfish. Their selfishness protected them from noticing the rough currents of life that pulled in all directions. But they noticed the rapids. They knew when they were being sucked under.

She wasn’t this careful. Maybe Johnny had more to lose. Oh, she deleted texts from Micah eventually. But not right away. She needed to savor them first. But whatever Johnny was doing, he wasn’t sentimental about it, apparently.

The world didn’t stop turning, no matter what happened. Even during the darkest tragedies life went on, unaware and cruel, completely unconcerned with whether you could manage to catch up.