Theo felt as if he’d swallowed gasoline. His insides burned, as if every lie he had ever told was itching to come to the surface, guilt he’d never let consume him before reared its ugly head in the face of Josephine’s crumbling reaction. Her biting remark of his reasoning lit the fuse and when his wife’s body broke, doubled over as if he’d physically raised his hand and struck her, the rest of his resolve went up in flames around the back of his eyeballs.
Knowing his reaction would do nothing to help his wife, he rubbed the burning behind his eyes away and hoped his nerve lasted long enough to see this conversation through without resorting to a blubbering mess he caused. Some man he was. He couldn’t tear his eyes from her, flinched when the sob clawed it’s way through the fingers that covered her mouth, and when the silence came, he was ready for it. He worked on steadying his breathing, not willing to overstep by doing anything other than watching her until she spoke again.
Her words moved through him, words he all but expected, but didn’t really understand the impact they would have. “I don’t want to be with her, Jose, I don’t-” his own voice as betraying him. His worst fears were coming to fruition right in front of him, and though she still didn’t look at him, he didn’t need to see her eyes to know the pain she was in. “Stop, just fucking stop, please,” he stood up, moving around the table to kneel in front of her on the couch.
Theo grabbed for her hands, uncaring if she wanted him to or not. He would fight about this, take his punishment, but he didn’t want to lose her. “Josie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and he was. He was so sorry he could barely stand it, but in the heat of the moment he wasn’t sure if it was because she was threatening to leave him or if it was for the affair altogether. “I can’t lose you. I can’t lose us. I’m just starting to get you back, I-” He wanted to tell her how much he’d missed her over the last few years, but he didn’t because of the way she’d reacted to his explanation earlier. “I love you. Please tell me you know that.”
She felt stupid and she felt weak and Josie didn’t know which one of those things she hated the most. The levee had broken and her tears were bursting through now, and though she told herself that she wanted to stop crying, willed herself to do so, she couldn’t. She understood what it was like to lust after someone. She’d done the same thing, and with a student, for fuck’s sake, but Josie hadn’t reached the point of no return and she hadn’t told Kyle she loved him, and that didn’t make Josie better than Theo but she didn’t feel unjustified in her grief at least.
She also understood what it was like to fall in love with Theo. She knew how easy it could be to give in to his eyes and his smile. How nice his hair felt when you ran fingers through it. Maybe if Josie hadn’t been so stupid and forgotten, then Theo wouldn’t have forgotten about fidelity and wouldn’t have felt the need to pull away.
Theo was suddenly right in front of her and although Josie’s hands were hard to pry away, she let him do so. She kept her head down for a while, sobs now whimpers, until she finally lifted her gaze to his. He was blurry through her tears, and Josie knew she looked ugly. Mascara was probably streaming down her cheeks, which were undoubtedly blotchy and red, and she couldn’t do anything but squint. She didn’t really want Theo to see her like this, she wanted to be angry and stubborn still, but he was cutting through all of that.
“How can I know, Theo?” Her voice was barely audible, and the part that was was gravel. Her breath shuddered as she sucked one in, hard. “This is my fault. I fucked us up. It’s my fault.” She sat forward, hands slipping over his cheeks, thumbs running along the beard at his jaw. Fuck, how much she loved this beard. “I kept you out. I didn’t talk to you.” The tears were starting up again and Josie thought that there was a good chance Theo would file for divorce right after this conversation, just because of how stupid and pathetic she was.
“You didn’t have another choice, really. I couldn’t have driven you into her arms any quicker if I’d chased you out of our bed with a taser. I hate myself so much for what I’ve done to us, and I hate myself for not being able to give you a baby. You’ve always been too good for me, Theo, and it’s about time you learned it, too.”
