The Space In Between

Chapter Thirty-Six

I DIDN’T KNOW why, but Kyle had made it completely clear I had to meet with Iris. He said I needed to clear some things up before he and I could start handling the big issues.
I sat in the chair across from her in the apartment. As far away as possible. The last time I saw her, she was blackmailing me to stay married to her, so I had enough reasons to doubt this was going to be a pleasant visit. “What’s going on?” I said with a dark tone. I didn’t have any need to be polite to her.
“I need you…” she said, looking down towards her hands resting on her ever-growing belly.
“Iris, seriously.”
“You never asked me,” she whispered as she looked up at me. “You never asked me how it was after the miscarriages.”
I hadn’t. But I hadn’t been able to bring myself to talk about it. It hurt too f*cking much. We dived into work, wrapped our worlds around material things, and forgot—together. Iris never showed any signs of breaking. She kept going strong. Doing her job. Holding up her appearance.
“How was I supposed to know? You never cried, you never talked, you never said…”
“I’m your wife!” she bellowed. “Did it really need to be stated that I was broken? That the one thing I knew you wanted more than anything in this world, I couldn’t give to you?”
I thought of what Walter had told me during ‘Thanksgiving’ dinner—what it took to make a marriage work. The secret is to listen to what she doesn’t say. Iris had been crying out to be heard. She’d been screaming, and I hadn’t noticed. She buried herself into the reality show, never talking about our loss.
See what she doesn’t do. I hadn’t seen her. I had been so wrapped up in my own grief that I didn’t think I could have seen her. How did I not see she was not falling apart? That should have been the first warning sign. No one that went through having two children in their body and having them ripped away could be all right.
And hold her when she doesn’t cry. I couldn’t even think of the last time we’d held hands, unless it was being filmed and the producers had told us to or if the paparazzi were around and we had an image to uphold. Otherwise we’d walked past each other.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it.
“I wasn’t going to tell the tabloids about your dad,” she whispered. “I would never…Cooper. I’m so sorry. I was afraid you would never come back to me after…” She glanced down to her stomach.
I didn’t think she was that evil. She informed me she’d told Kyle that just to make me meet with her. She knew it was low, but she was in a low place. How far would I go to keep the woman I loved around?
Andie…
Hell, I had flown to a different state to keep Andrea. I felt terrible for Iris, but I knew our relationship was over. It had been over for years now; we just never spoke of it. The comforting look she gave me informed me that she, too, knew it was over. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Don’t worry. I haven’t been following you.” She smiled as I moved over to the couch and took it from her. Divorce papers. “No sense in dragging it out.” A short laugh escaped her lips.
I took her hands and pulled her into a tight hug. It’d been so long since I’d held her. “Thank you, Iris,” I said as she pulled away and wiped her eyes. I made her promise me she would take care of herself and her baby girl. And if she ever needed anything, money included, she should contact me. She refused. Said she didn’t deserve it.
“You really like this girl?”
A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I nodded, “I really do.” Iris burst out into more tears, sobbing uncontrollably. “Iris. Shit, please don’t cry. I wish things were different…but…” I tried to get my words together. Dammit. I wish English teacher Eric were here to speak on behalf of me.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…I did something wrong. And you are going to hate me,” she said. Her eyes fell to the ground and she cussed under her breath. When she looked up to me, I saw the way her lips turned down. There was a tiny twitch in the lower corner of her mouth and she said, “I’m so sorry.” I knew exactly what it was she’d done by the sound of her voice.
And I was f*cked.
“When does it come out?” I asked. If it came out later, I could somehow do some damage control. I could talk to the right people, and move things around a bit. Not to save my ass, but to save…
She shifted on the couch, uncomfortable, but she knew she had to answer. “They came out this morning.”
They?
“Us Weekly. Star Magazine. And People. I didn’t know what to do! The night we talked and you stormed out, I was still so angry with you and I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said, ashamed.
My mind was on the fast track. I didn’t need Andrea to find out like this. I needed to tell her what was happening before someone else did. I needed her to know the truth behind the magazine articles, not just glimpses of truth she might read in those bullshit tabloids.
I knew there would be some terrible things said in those magazines about me, and I was prepared for that. Hell, I was used to that. If I looked at a person wrong, the magazines tagged me as the next Hitler. But Andrea…
Andrea’s name was about to be pulled through the mud because of something I did.
She was about to be exposed.





SHE WAS GONE when I got back to the hotel room. I wasn’t surprised. I was sure she’d found out by now. I went to her apartment and banged on the door, praying she would open it, but she didn’t. I could hear her sobbing on the other side. F*ck! My forehead fell to the door and I closed my eyes. Praying for her to let me in. “Andrea…Please…” I whispered into the crease of the door. When it opened, my eyes washed over her. First I saw her bloodshot, puffy eyes. My heart was ripping into pieces…I did that to her. Then I smelt his cologne. No words could form in my mouth. This ever-growing feeling that I was losing the one damn thing that made sense in my world took over me. My palms became clammy as I saw the last thing—I saw her wearing his sweatshirt and pants again. “Andie…no…”
She was closing herself off. She was retreating back to the land of Chaos all because of my f*cked up issues. She didn’t say a word, but her lips parted. I watched as her bottom lip began to quiver and her knees began to shake. She moved her lips again but choked on the air as a wave of fresh tears started to pour out. My arm reached for her, but she shook her head back and forth.
I couldn’t be the wall that needed to hold her up that night. Because I was the one who pushed her off of the ledge, she was falling because of me.
She looked to the ground and wrapped her arms around herself tight. Her voice was soft, drenched in sadness. “Go away, Cooper.”
I returned to the hotel, and kept trying to call and text her. As I picked up my phone and dialed again, I sighed, listening to it go straight to voicemail. I listened to Derrick’s voice on her voicemail and felt a twinge of jealousy, but I instantly felt like a dumbass and left my pathetic message. “Hey—it's me again. We need to talk...all right? Well, otherwise the plane leaves tomorrow at 10:15 a.m.” My head dropped to the ground as I continued my message. “Andie…please call. I just want to know you’re okay.”