Page 36 of Buttons

The simple contact, shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend, nearly undoes me. “He can’t hurt you anymore, El. Not unless you let him.”

But he can, and that’s the truth I can’t admit aloud. Julian knows exactly how to hurt me. He could do it through our children, through rewriting our history to make me the unstable wife who couldn’t handle his success. The headlines are just the beginning. Even if he had no part in writing them, he still played his part.

“Did you see the one where they called us ‘ill-matched from the start’?” I ask. “Eight years of my life reduced to a footnote in his epic love story with Carmella.”

Sarah’s hand covers mine, warm against my ice-cream-chilled skin. “People who know you won’t believe that garbage.”

“Who really knows me, though?” The question slips out before I can catch it. “I’m not sure I even know myself. Meanwhile, as far as the public is aware, Julian has irrevocably moved on with the woman he was always meant to be with.”

Sarah doesn’t have a ready answer for that. Instead, she squeezes my hand, and we sit. After a while, Sarah gathers the tabloids into a stack and shoves them back into her grocery bag. “I shouldn’t have brought these. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pour salt on the wound.”

“It’s alright. I know where your heart was at.”

Sarah stands, stretching her arms above her head. “I’ve got to run. My shift at the shelter starts in twenty minutes, but I’m coming back tomorrow with more calories and less depressing reading material. A cozy mystery, perhaps? Maybe some Nancy Drew or R.L. Stine?”

I laugh while she hugs me tightly. “You’re stronger than you think,” she whispers against my hair. “And when you don’t feel strong, I’ve got enough anger for both of us.”

The door closes behind her, and the apartment falls silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator. I stare at the half-eaten pint of ice cream in my hands, the chocolate beginning to melt around the edges. Now that she’s gone, the pressure building behind my ribs has no outlet, no release.

I set the ice cream on the coffee table with deliberate care, my hands perfectly steady. The magazines may be gone, but their images remain burned in my memory. Julian and Carmella are the perfect couple that were always meant to be.

A testament to how thoroughly I didn’t belong. I was a secretary for a wife.

My hands begin to shake first. A subtle tremor that starts in my fingers and travels up my arms, vibrating through my chest. I stand abruptly, grabbing the ice cream carton and carrying it to the kitchen like it might save me if I put it in the freezer. If only I could freeze my sadness, too.

I reach for the freezer handle, but my trembling hand misses, knocking against the refrigerator door instead. The ice cream slips from my grasp, landing with a softthudon the linoleum floor. I stare at it for a long moment, watching chocolate ooze around the container. With the mess on the floor, my legs give way. I slide down against the refrigerator, the cold metal seeping through my thin shirt as I crumple to the floor beside the sticky dessert. And then, finally, I allow myself to shatter. There are no children to stay strong for, no gala, or coworkers, or neighbors to bear witness. It’s just me, Ben, and Jerry.

I curl forward, arms wrapped tightly around my knees, making myself small as the sobs wrack my body. I haven’t cried like this in years. “Real problems are solved with logic, not theatrics,” Julian would say. Now they pour out unchecked.

I weep, not just for the marriage that’s ended, but for the woman who disappeared inside it. The woman I’m still struggling to find beneath the perfect shell Julian created. The woman whose wavy hair and button nose and real smile are only now reemerging.

And most importantly, I weep for the woman who had to lose her marriage to even begin to find herself. Because at the end of it, I still love him. I still love Julian Plaza.

Chapter 15

Elowen

Even in a daze, I know the kids are coming home at any minute, so I pick myself up from the floor and clean up the ice cream. The softclickof the front door barely registers through my cleaning, and I’m too lost in my own collapse to notice the small footsteps moving through the apartment. It’s only when Leo calls, “Mom!” that reality fully snaps back into focus. His backpack slides from his shoulders, landing with athud.

“Leo? Meredith?” My voice emerges hoarse. I swipe hastily at my cheeks, making sure all evidence of my sob fest has been effectively erased. Meredith calls out that she has to go “potty.”

Leo enters the kitchen alone. “Welcome home, sweet boy.”

He approaches cautiously, moving one small step at a time, the way he does with nervous cats at the shelter. With watchful eyes, he keeps his body language deliberately non-threatening.Then, he stops an arm’s length away, his small hand reaching out to touch my shoulder. His gentle fingers are cool against my skin. “Are you sad about Daddy’s pretty friend from the pictures?”

My breath catches in my throat.Keep it together, Elowen.“What pictures, Leo?”Please don’t let them be the pictures from last night’s gala. Let them be anything else.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, Julian’s calculating expression crossing his small face. “The ones on social media. Grandma was looking at them. She tried to hide them, but I saw.”

My stomach turns to ice. “Your grandmother was looking at pictures of your father and his friend?”

“I am so sorry, Elowen,” my mother’s voice sounds from the doorway. I look up to see her wringing her hands, her face etched with guilt. “I took them to the park this morning and was reading an article on my phone. I had no idea Leo was right behind me.”

Leo nods.

My mother steps fully into the kitchen. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I say, the deflection automatic. “Let’s just focus on Leo right now.”