“Then you had a wife.”
“Yes, Cadence. I had a wife. Now are we finished with this topic?”
He knew he was saying the wrong things, but he couldn’t stop himself. All he could think was, Not my terms. Not my terms.
“What the hell? No, we’re not finished with this topic!”
He took a deep breath. “I was going to tell you today.”
“Ha! You really expect me to believe that?”
He stared at her blankly.
“You were married, and we’re gonna talk about it!”
“I . . . I can’t.”
“Stop being unfair to me! I’m your girlfriend, and you’ve kept this from me for over a year! I deserve to know about your past. I’ve shared mine with you!”
“Your past?” He laughed derisively. “You have a past?”
“Fuck you! I’m a person! I have feelings, and I have a past, and stop making me feel like my experiences aren’t important!”
“They’re not important!” he roared. “Not next to mine! You’re nineteen, for Christ’s sake! What the fuck do you know about a past? About experiences?”
Cadence reared back, stunned. The tears crept into the corners of her eyes.
“Why do you think I went after you, huh? Why do you think I wanted to make you mine? Because you’re complicated? Because you’re seasoned? No, Cadence. I fell in love with your non-history! I fell in love with you because you’re brand new and shiny. Blank slate. Easy.”
“Stop it!” Cadence cried. “Why are you being so mean to me?” She wiped the tears coursing down her cheeks.
“You wanted to talk about it—”
“Not about me!” she screamed. “About your wife!”
“My wife is dead! Okay?!”
Cadence gasped.
“She died three years into our marriage,” Mark said softly.
“Oh my God.”
“No. God took that day off,” Mark said.
Silence.
“You need to tell me what happened,” Cadence said finally.
“She hemorrhaged during childbirth.”
Cadence looked up. “What?”
“When you hemorrhage, you—”
“I know what hemorrhaging is.” Pings of clarity. Little by little, like the light breaking through the cracks. Mark’s wife died giving birth. Mark doesn’t want children. He called a baby a parasite.
“It was a stillborn. And it decided to take the mother with it.” He didn’t intend to say it that way, but the bitterness permeated his heart. Just as new and raw as the day he lost her.
Cadence stood up. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. But now you know. I had a wife. And now I don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Cadence whispered, hanging her head. “I understand.”
Mark snorted disdainfully. She understood. What the hell did she understand? All right, Cadence. You understand.
Cadence snapped her head up at the sound of his bitter laugh. “I meant that I understand why you reacted the way you did to my pregnancy scare. And why you said that thing about babies. I get it now.”
“Do you?”
Cadence nodded.
Despite his efforts to suppress it, the bitterness twisted around his heart and turned him ugly. She didn’t understand shit. But she was about to.
“Oh, I don’t think you do understand. Okay then. Let me explain. I’m a fucking jerk. I don’t see cute and cuddly when I look at a baby. I see a parasite. Something that feeds on its mother—its host. Without the host, it can’t survive. It feeds. It demands. It drains. And in some cases, it kills.”
“You’re not being fair,” Cadence said.
“Stop, Cadence. Don’t talk to me about fair. This is my experience. Weren’t you just crying about how your experiences are valid and important? Well, so are mine.”
“I’m not saying you didn’t go through something horrible.”
“Good. I’m glad you get it.”
“But you’re angry.”
“Yes, right now I am. I didn’t wanna talk about it.”
“You just said you were going to tell me tonight!”
Mark rubbed his forehead. “Like this. I didn’t wanna talk about it like this.”
“Oh, I see. You didn’t want me to discover this on my own,” Cadence fumed. “So you get to throw insults at me because I beat you to it?”
“What insults?” Mark asked.
“Telling me I don’t have a past! That there’s nothing really there! That my youth invalidates any experiences. It’s bullshit!” Cadence screamed.
Mark sighed. “I didn’t mean it. I—”
“You should have told me you were married,” Cadence interrupted. “You should have told me from the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you do when you’re in a relationship! You tell your history!”
“Whose rules are those?”
Cadence blinked.
“I have every right to stay silent about my past.”
“The hell you do! It affects ME! You realize how stupid I feel right now? Making dinner for your fucking friend who sat across the table from me, knowing all about your wife and not saying a word? Attending church with you and your mom like one little happy family? God! She wouldn’t even tell me! Nobody would tell me! Why? I deserved to know!”
“Cadence . . .”
“You made me look like a fucking fool!”