One Last Time by Corinne Michaels
Chapter One
Kristin
“Just leave then!” I scream at my husband as he tells me, once again, how worthless I am. I’ve had it. Years I’ve stayed by his side, but I won’t do this anymore. No one should feel this empty and unloved.
“I’m not leaving this house, Kristin. If you want this to be over, then pack your shit and get the hell out of my house.”
I stare at the man I’ve loved since I was twenty-two. The father of my children. The person I thought I’d grow old beside. The man before me is a mirage of that man. Scott has changed so much in the last fourteen years that he’s unrecognizable. Now, he’s just someone that I used to love.
The man I knew would never throw me away so easily. He would’ve done anything to make it work.
“This isn’t just your house, Scott. I’m your wife!”
He shakes his head with a smirk. “I’m the one who pays for it. How will you afford your designer lifestyle without a job?”
Designer lifestyle? I can’t remember the last time I bought myself anything. Mostly because I’d rather not listen to how stupid I am.
“I’ll get a job and do what I need to. I’m not moving out because of that.”
He rubs the bridge of his nose. “So, now you’ll work, but not the last ten years?”
“You wanted me to stay home with Aubrey and Finn! You told me to quit my job, you don’t get to throw it back in my face!” I slam my hand on the table.
It’s like Groundhog Day with us. The same fight, over and over, with nothing ever reconciling. I have a master’s in communications, and it’s the one thing neither of us does well.
Scott demanded I quit my job as a reporter when we found out I was pregnant with Finn. I was always traveling, covering breaking stories, and he felt I wouldn’t be able to devote enough time to being a mom.
At first, it made sense. I always wanted to be the kind of mother who baked cookies or sent the kids off to school with a kiss on the cheek and their lunches made. My mom was that way, and I have the fondest memories because of it. I think she might have been part alien because, most days, I’m lucky if my kids wear clothes that match and have enough money in their lunch accounts.
My life is nothing like I thought it’d be. Instead of baking, I’m running around trying to keep the house clean so he isn’t angry. I spend an hour at the gym so Scott doesn’t tell me how I’ve let myself go. Between trying to look like the perfect wife and mother and actually being one, I’m drowning.
And Scott is holding my head under as I gasp for air.
Scott grips the edge of the table and stares at me. “I’m always the bad guy here. I made you leave your job. I made you have kids. I made you be the miserable woman you are. I’m the one who made you cold and bitter, right? I did it all. So fucking go!”
Tears spring up in my eyes as he slashes my heart apart. “I’m that expendable to you?”
Scott’s eyes fill with rage. “You’re the one who wants to leave, Kristin. It’s you standing there, all high and mighty and telling me to leave. God forbid, I want a wife who actually likes me. When was the last time you actually wanted to have sex with me? When have you given me what I need, huh?”
Once again, we move to the next part of the argument. “It’s hard to want someone who makes you feel like shit.”
“And how do I do that, Kris? By telling you the truth about your issues?”
My issues. It’s always my issues, even when we talk about his. It’s me who causes his reactions. Scott has no accountability for anything that happens in our life. It’s always bounced to someone else. I’m so damn tired of being the reason for everything wrong in his life, of feeling small.
“Sure, Scott. That’s it.”
There’s no point in arguing. I’ve tried so many times, and nothing I say matters.
Our kids are with my parents, and this was supposed to be a weekend for us to reconnect. My mother knew we were at the breaking point, and I wanted to try one more time. I thought that if we could spend some time together, just us, we’d find a way.
It seems I was a fool once again.
“I’m so tired of having to fix everything in this marriage,” Scott says as he paces around the room. “You keep saying you want to make me happy, but then you do everything wrong. It’s exhausting repeating myself.”
Yeah, it’s exhausting, all right.
I feel myself start to drift to that place in my head to protect myself. There’s only so much I can take before I’m completely shattered. “Stop,” I beg.
“When will you learn, Kristin? If you gave a little more effort, I wouldn’t be so disappointed.”
I do nothing right. Nothing. I don’t dress the way he thinks I should, raise the kids the way his mother did, look the way I did when he fell in love with me, and Lord knows, I don’t please him in any way.
“I guess I’ll never learn,” I say to pacify him.
“I guess not.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me.
My husband was once a good man. He doted on me and told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever beheld. Everything about us seemed to just fit. Two years after we were married . . . it changed. No longer was I perfect for him. Instead, I was difficult and needy. It was a snowball that kept growing bigger the farther it rolled. I thought I could make him happy, so I tried harder and failed more.