“So why is that suddenly a problem?” he asks.
“Because everything else is important too! And you can’t control it all, no matter how much you want to. You can’t stop some things from happening.”
“I’m the one who got you pregnant when we hadn’t planned it,” he retorts.
“Oh, right, it was your fault, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t use a condom! You got pregnant, you had all these doubts, you suffered a miscarriage… whose fault was that, if not mine?”
“I’m part of this marriage too, Dean! You’re not fucking a wind-up doll when we’re in bed together… you’re so damn good at sex because you know how to control it, but you’re doing it with me, not to me.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you don’t want to admit that I have an equal responsibility for everything that happens in this marriage, both good and bad.” A shudder ripples through me, and I’m suddenly cold. “If you admit that, then you have to accept that I’m also at fault.”
“None of this is your fault,” Dean mutters.
“It’s my fault that I kissed another man.” I almost wince when the words come out.
A wave of anger radiates off Dean. My heart seizes. Dr. Gale blinks.
“We should talk about that, Liv,” she suggests gently. “When did it happen?”
Before I can respond, Dean shoves off the sofa and goes to the door.
“Dean…”
He stalks out, slamming the door. I throw Dr. Gale a look of apology, then take my coat and satchel and hurry after him.
“Dean!”
He’s halfway to the parking lot when I catch up with him. I grab his arm. He yanks away and keeps walking, his boots crushing the packed snow and ice.
“Dean, please.” I come to a halt, watching his broad back as he gets farther away, his stride long, his whole body rigid with fury.
He stops by the car. I approach him. A cold wind blows his hair across his forehead. He shoves it back and turns to face me. His eyes are black as night.
“What, Liv?” He spreads his hands. He’s trembling. “What now?”
“I don’t know! I’m trying to figure it out. That’s why you need to come back in and talk to me.”
“I don’t want to do this in front of the doctor,” he snaps.
My breath comes out in hard puffs of white. Dean didn’t button his coat, and the lapels flap open in the wind. He must be freezing.
“Then come home and talk to me,” I say. “Please.”
He doesn’t respond, but he goes around to the passenger side and yanks open the door. I get inside. He slams the door and gets behind the wheel. We’re both silent as he drives back to Avalon Street. His frustration and anger are tangible.
I have a sudden memory of our first meeting. Of him crouching beside me on the sidewalk, his fingers brushing the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Of him standing by the street, hands in his pockets, all relaxed, masculine confidence. The breeze ruffling his thick hair, the way he gave me that easy smile, white and striking.
Now I can’t remember the last time he smiled.
He puts his hand on my lower back to guide me over patches of ice as we walk to our apartment. Inside, we shed our coats and I go to turn up the thermostat. I watch my husband as he paces to the window. He digs into his pocket for a loop of string.
Tenderness fills me. Only Professor Dean West has a habit of making complicated patterns when he doesn’t know what else to do. After another few twists, he unknots the pattern and wraps the frayed string around his fingers.
“I never…” He shakes his head. “I never thought you were less.”
“I know you didn’t.”
I brush at a stray tear. I haven’t thought about Tyler Wilkes, my former cooking instructor and the man I made the mistake of kissing, since long before Christmas. I think about him now, though. Not in a romantic way, but because I finally understand why I was drawn to him when for so long Dean was the only man I wanted.
Tyler believed I could do something when I didn’t think I could. Granted, he believed I could cook a soufflé, not climb Mount Everest, but he wanted me to try, fail, try again, fail again, and finally succeed. He didn’t try to shield me from disappointment because he wanted me to believe I could do it too. And he made me prove it when I was doubting everything about my life.
Dean has always loved me, always supported me, always tried to protect me. But he has never challenged me to rely on myself.
“You just always wanted to give me the safety I never had,” I tell him. “But life isn’t safe, no matter how hard you try to make it that way.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Dean, I… I spent a lot of years doing what my mother told me to do.” I have to push the words past my tight throat. “Being quiet, trying to cooperate. When I left her, I thought I’d finally be able to stand on my own. But living with Stella and Henry was so repressive. And even though I did well in high school, that whole mess at Fieldbrook…”