Page 71 of Chasing the Other Woman

But if Sam decides the happiest version of her life is one where I’m not standing beside her, then I have to live with that.

I can hurt.

I can miss her until suddenly I waste away from the lack of her.

I can love her for the rest of my life.

But I don’t get to turn that love into a rope around her wrist.

I stand and go to the dresser mirror.

The man looking back at me is rougher than the one Sam married. More lines around the eyes. Split lip still healing. Stubble gone uneven because I’ve been doing a sorry job with razors lately. My shirt is wrinkled from sleeping in it.

On my wrist, the bracelet sits where it used to.

For a second, I see the blood again.

Then I see Sam’s fingers fastening the clasp. Sam laughing into her beer because I held my wrist up like she’d given me a Rolex. Sam telling me not to get too full of myself because leather was cheaper than diamonds.

I press my thumb to the worn place near the clasp.

The worst day of our lives took our baby.

It took pieces of Sam I didn’t know how to protect.

It took the man I thought I was and left a coward in his place.

And then I let it take more.

I fasten my watch on the other wrist. Grab my keys from the nightstand. Then I pause.

Sam’s paperback is still there.

I straighten it without moving the receipt from its place.

Downstairs, the house is quiet. I lock the door behind me and step into the morning.

I don’t know if Sam will ever notice the bracelet.

For the first time, that isn’t the point.

Seventeen

SAM

By noon, I know Brooks is gone.

I learn it because one of the recovery volunteers asks whether the Storm Posse lead truck is coming back to haul another load of tarps, and Hershel looks toward the parking lot where the truck is missing.

“Where is he?” I ask.

Hershel’s mouth tightens beneath his beard. Today’s shirt is Black Sabbath, faded nearly gray, which feels appropriate. “Left early.”

“Left where?”

“Didn’t say.”

I stare at him.