Slip of the Tongue

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Finn,” I say, but I don’t know what to follow it up with. Okay, sure, why not? How do I even begin this process?

  He hangs another shirt in the closet, dinging the metal bar, and turns me by my shoulders. “Look at what he’s turned you into these last couple months,” he says earnestly. “I want to be patient, but when you cry in my arms because he can’t be bothered to come home for dinner on a weeknight, well . . . it pisses me the fuck off. He doesn’t know what he has. I want to take it from him.”

  There’s determination is his voice and sincerity in his eyes. Right now, I want to hug and kiss and lose myself in him. But do I want that every day for the rest of my life? Can I even know that after a few weeks? “Do you think it’s possible to love two people?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit.

  I sense his disappointment, but it’s gone quickly. He rubs his thumbs against my biceps. “I’m not asking you to love me tonight. All I want is a chance to show you love without conditions. I want you now—mattress-on-the-floor now. Half-painted-rooms and empty-hangers now. If you say yes, I’ll fix this place up in no time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you here tonight in the mess.”

  I look around the room. Finn probably thinks its emptiness makes me wary, but I actually see a clean slate. There isn’t anything I don’t love about my own apartment—Nathan and I created it together. But that’s what also makes it such a cruel reminder.

  “I’m not saying no,” I say, “but it feels fast.”

  “Not to me. My marriage is what I’m trying to save you from, Sadie. There’s too much resentment there. I’m ready. Believe me, there’s no benefit in drawing these things out.”

  Getting out of a bad marriage takes guts, any way you cut it. I’m sorry there’s a child involved, and I’m sorry Kendra doesn’t want this—but Finn has a point. He can do more harm to them both if he stays. Finn will be the villain no matter what he does.

  He touches his forehead to mine. “So?” He kisses me softly, then runs his tongue along my bottom lip. “Will you stay, sweet Sadie? Sweet, sexy Sadie?”

  I hug his neck and kiss him back. He’s a beautiful and smart man who cares about me. I can feel it in his arms around my body, his lips on mine, his hands on my skin. He feeds me hope with his kiss. We can do this. It won’t be easy, but don’t some of the best things in life come from pain and struggle? I want this. I want to start over. Our kiss ends because I’m smiling too hard.

  “Is that a yes?” he asks into my mouth.

  “It’s a yes.”

  Now, we’re both grinning. He tightens his arms around my waist and lifts me up. We laugh between pecks as he walks me back to the mattress. He lays me down on it, our giddy kisses turning hungrier, harder.

  “Here?” I ask, glancing around as he nibbles my jaw.

  “Where else? It’s not much of a bed, but I’ve waited a long time to have you in it.”

  “But have you and Kendra . . .?”

  “No. Not a chance,” he says, resuming his assault on my tender neck.

  My breath escapes me along with my protests, and I wrap my legs around his waist. Finn and I are still new to each other, explorers mapping out each other’s bodies. He doesn’t know me the way Nathan does, but—I lose my train of thought when he thrusts his hips into me, his hardness stroking my clit. I hiss at the unexpected sensation and drawl, “God, Nate. Yes.”

  Finn stills instantly, but I continue to writhe under him, my heart pounding so hard, he can probably feel it. It takes me a moment to hear my own words, to realize my mistake, and when I do, I fall back to Earth hard.

  Finn lifts his head and looks down at me. “What’d you call me?”

  “I-I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly. “It slipped.”

  His eyebrows lower, and each second he stares at me becomes more charged. I shouldn’t think of Nathan when I’m with Finn, but after seven years with only him, how can I not? Finally, he says, “It’s okay.”

  It doesn’t sound okay. I cup his cheek. “It doesn’t mean anything, Finn.”

  “I know.” He sniffs. “One of us was bound to do it, I guess.”

  I thumb his bottom lip. “Don’t stop kissing me.”

  He angles his face away from my hand and scratches his beard. “We should probably take a timeout.”

  I chew on my bottom lip. “You want to stop?”

  “Want to? No.” He smiles. “But I think we’d better. You came here in tears, and we made a big decision tonight. You’re vulnerable. I don’t want to take advantage of that.” Finn looks down at me openly. Adoringly. He could love me already, or maybe he thinks he has for a while. He’s leaning all his weight on a moment that could’ve just as easily never happened. On a moment that led me to Nathan. Then led me back to Finn.

  My brain hurts. Even though I was worked up a second ago, my body loosens, as if Finn gave me permission to relax. Suddenly, I’m overwhelmingly tired. I nod. “Maybe you’re right.”

  He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my cheek. “Besides,” he whispers, “sleeping with you in my arms sounds better than anything right now. Even sex.”

  I can’t contain my smile, so I don’t. My eyes already feel droopy. “It does sound pretty good.”

  He gets up to switch off the light. Moonlight streams through the window as I watch him walk barefoot back to the bed and peel off his shirt. I do the same, tossing mine on the floor with his. He slips in next to me and pulls my back to his front.

  We don’t need a blanket. He’s hot, and I’m not cold. He tugs a sheet over us anyway and snuggles his face into the crook of my neck. This is messy. And strange. But it feels a little—natural. The way spending my first night in a new home should feel.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Even though the apartment building is heated, I shiver in the early dawn, standing in front of my door. Finn is a heavy sleeper and barely moved as I slipped out from under his arms. I left him slumped over nothing, as if I’d melted into the mattress beneath him. Or as though I was never there.

  I unlock the front door quietly, even though Nathan has to be up for work soon anyway. Ginger greets me as if she were nearby. The apartment is warm, the lights still on from when I left, and thick with tension. Even Ginger is subdued.

  “I’m sorry I left you alone, baby,” I whisper into her fur. I prance across the tile entryway with bare, cold feet, seeking solace in the carpet, and nearly scream when I see Nathan on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees.

  I cover my pounding heart and take a deep breath. “Jesus, Nathan. You scared me.”

  His bloodshot eyes track me as I walk farther into the room. “Where the hell have you been?”

  It takes me a moment to remember my anger, but the evidence is all around us. The melted down candle wax and untouched tableware. The neat lines in the carpet from the vacuum. The calla lilies, stretched and open like they’re laughing at me. “Where have I been?” I ask. “Where were you?”

  “Right here. All night.”

  “Funny. Then I guess I didn’t sit alone for hours, watching dinner get cold.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t start with me. You don’t know the night I’ve had.”

  “Nope, I don’t.” I walk to the table and start stacking our unused plates.

  He stands in drawstring pants and a Henley. “I called Andrew looking for you. I called Jill.” I feel his glare as I move onto gathering silverware. “I called my dad’s hospital. I was getting ready to call the police.”

  I glance up. “You haven’t slept?”

  “Slept?” He reels back. “You think I could sleep without having a damn clue where you are?”

  I press my lips together unnaturally hard. He acts as though he didn’t put me through the same thing—hours of waiting, agonizing, stewing. I’ve gone through too much trouble for his attention to have him not even bother to show up for dinner. “You weren’t the only one who was worried.” Gin
ger sticks her nose in my hip the way she always does when one of us gets loud. I pick up the dishes and shoot him a look. “But you know what? I’m not going to worry anymore. Starting now, you can do whatever the hell you want.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks, following me into the kitchen.

  I return the forks and knives to their places in a drawer. Nathan isn’t the only tidy, angry person in this relationship. “Which part?”

  “I can do what I want? What, you still think I’m out having an affair?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Sadie, look at me.”

  I put the dishes in a cupboard and turn to him. He’s massaging his temples with one giant hand, and I have to bite back the instinct to ask if he has a headache.

  “You don’t come home all night, and you’re not making any sense,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  I slow-blink at him. My simmering anger heats to a boil. For months, he’s acted as though I don’t exist, and he can’t even handle the same treatment for one night. “What’s going on?” I ask through my teeth. “You tell me. I’m just following your lead. Why do you get to spend the night out, and I don’t? You already checked out of this relationship, and I’ve just realized I can do the same.”

  “I have not checked out, and you cannot do the same,” he shoots back. “We made love not even two nights ago. What about that?”

  I glance away, because I know I can’t hide from my face the memory of how it felt to be in his arms again. How could I have been so connected to him if there was nothing on the other side? “It didn’t mean anything.”

  His laugh is cruel. “You don’t fool me for a second. You think you could ever fake that with me? You think I don’t know when your heart is wide open?”

  “I think you do know when my heart is open,” I say evenly. “And you know exactly how and where I’m vulnerable.”

  He shuts his mouth as the meaning behind my words sets in.

  I’m not innocent, but this marriage is dead because of him. Nathan spent seven years getting me to feel safe with him, and then he turned around and used it against me. He rejected what I tried to give, physically and emotionally. Hurting me that way is worse than sleeping in another man’s bed. “I’m done with this. With you.” I take a few steps toward him. “Whatever I did to you, I hope it was worth our marriage.”

  His eyes change as his frustration vanishes. He draws his head back. “Done?”

  I hold his gaze. I hold my tremble inside. I hold my ground. He doesn’t get to see weak anymore. “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He’s frozen to the spot, so I go around him into the living room.

  “Wait,” he says, turning with me. “We need to back up a second so I can explain.”

  I scoff, packing up the table linens. “Sorry, you’re about two-and-a-half months too late. An explanation might’ve helped a week ago—or even yesterday morning. You could’ve called me last night while I sat here alone, waiting. But I guess you were too busy in Brooklyn to think of that.”

  “I didn’t go to Brooklyn. Well, I did, but not—”

  I shake my head, focusing on my task. Brooklyn stings, as if he’s talking about his mistress. “Of course you did.”

  He takes a placemat out of my hand and throws it on the ground. “Would you listen to me?”

  I cross my arms and turn, but I can’t look at him.

  “I got on the L after work,” he says, “but my head was all over the place. I was still mad, but being with you again felt so fucking good. I was confused about how I felt. So I stayed on the L longer than I should’ve, because I needed to sort it out before I faced you.”

  “And you decided to get off at Bedford and bowl instead.”

  “No, actually. After a half hour riding the subway the wrong way, I switched trains to come home, but as soon as I got on, there was an accident on the tracks. We were stuck for three hours, babe. I couldn’t call because I was underground with no service.”

  I turn my head to the table. The L train is notorious for service interruptions, so I don’t question his story. I’m just not sure why it matters at this point.

  “What is all this?” he asks gesturing around us. “The flowers? Candles?”

  My jaw tingles. The feeling of having my hopes crushed remains as strong as it was last night. “You were right,” I say. “The other night meant a lot to me. I took work off yesterday to make you ribs and clean the apartment. I had it in my mind that we would finally talk. Figure this out.”

  He frowns, his eyebrows furrowing. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “It was a surprise.”

  He looks around. “I would’ve come straight home.”

  “But you didn’t.” I uncross my arms and look up at him. “You knew how much it meant to me to have you back in bed. You said it yourself—I was open. On cloud nine. And you let me down again.”

  He opens his mouth, but his protests seem to die on his tongue. He looks around. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I swallow the lump in my throat before I continue. “Maybe it’s for the best. It helped make some things clear to me.”

  I don’t elaborate, because I see the wheels turning in his head, and I think wondering might be worse for him. After a few moments, he says, “I didn’t do all this to hurt you. I’m hurting too. I’ve been so confused, and, yeah—I haven’t dealt with it well.”

  “You think? You shut me out completely. You know how hard it was for me to let myself love you. I didn’t want to end up in a shitty marriage like my parents, angry and resentful. And that’s exactly where we are, but the worst part is that I don’t even know why.”

  He swallows, his lips tight. “It just . . . got out of control.”

  “I don’t care anymore. You can shove your excuses.” I show him my palms. I’ve made my choice, and going down this path will only make it harder to tell him that. “You had plenty of chances to talk to me, and you didn’t. At this point, I’m more exhausted than curious, and I just want to be done with you.”

  He grabs a fistful of his hair, and I don’t even think he realizes he does it. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I’ve had a long night. I’m going to take a shower, call in sick, and go to bed. You should go. I don’t care where. Later, though, we need to talk about what we’re going to do.”

  “Sadie—”

  I turn and walk toward the bedroom.

  “Sadie, wait,” he says. “I know about the baby.”

  I stop. The baby? But there was no baby, and it’s impossible that he knows about the abortion. My brother is the only one I’ve told the entire truth, and he wouldn’t betray me. I turn back to face him. “What?”

  “I know you had an abortion,” he says calmly. “And I know the baby was ours.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  My heart thuds at the base of my throat. When I had the abortion, I promised myself I’d tell Nathan. Maybe not that day, or even that year, but if our relationship made it, one day I’d work up the courage. Yet here we are, seven years later. I never thought he’d figure it out on his own—or that I wouldn’t be there to explain it when found out. “That’s what these past few months were about?”

  “Yes,” he says, “and no.”

  It makes me sad I wasn’t there when he learned the truth. I understand why it would upset him, but couldn’t he have come to me sooner? “You should’ve told me you knew.”

  “And you should’ve told me it happened.”

  I glance at the ground. He has a point. I kept this from him much longer than he shut me out. “I was scared of how you’d react.”

  “You’ve made huge decisions—and not just this one—without me. You don’t get to pick and choose what I know. That’s not a partnership.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “By accident. I was using your computer to research abortion clinics for one of the girls at the shelter. Around the time we went back on birth control,
you’d done some searches about abortions—like whether or not having one could affect future pregnancy.”

  I nod. That night, I’d read probably ten articles on the subject. “I was worried that was the reason we couldn’t get pregnant.”

  “There’s no link between the two,” he says. “I read the research.”

  I curl my toes into the carpet. Maybe not, unless that’s just how life works. “But what made you think it was yours?”

  “I remembered a conversation I’d overheard a couple years ago at Bell’s birthday party,” he says. “You and Andrew were watching Bell play in the backyard with some other kids. I was bringing you a slice of cake when you said to Andrew, ‘Isn’t it weird? They would’ve been the same age. Imagine them here together today.’”

  I close my eyes, remembering the moment exactly. Nathan had come up behind me, and I’d worried he’d heard something. It was so long ago, though, and he never mentioned it.

  “Andrew told you not to think like that,” Nathan continues. “I didn’t understand, but I never forgot that. When I saw that search, I put the pieces together. Bell was born over a year after our first date. Then there was that week, after we’d only been together a few months, when you shut me out completely. You disappeared off the face of the planet. I thought it was over. I beat myself up trying to figure out what I’d done. I was scared you’d met someone else. And then one day, you came back to me in tears and wouldn’t tell me what you’d been through. I was too happy to push you to talk, afraid you’d disappear again.” He scrubs his hands over his face, through his hair. “That’s why you left, isn’t it? You had an abortion. By yourself.”

  I wasn’t by myself, though. My brother had taken me. We’d sat in the freezing-cold waiting room, looking at magazines without turning the pages. That’s the kind of family we are—Andrew being there was enough. I didn’t need him to hold my hand or assure me I was doing the right thing.