Chapter 7: The Boyfriend Rule

"Two years," I said to the parking lot.

Nate stood with his hands open at his sides.

"I sat at my mother's bedside once a month and thought she was fine."

"Roxy."

"You sat there every week. You knew what she looked like. You listened to her breathe." My voice cracked. "And you let me find out from your father."

"My father told you?"

"Over tea. With a lemon wedge."

His face went white and then hard.

"I'm going to kill him."

"That's not helping."

"I know."

"You don't get to be the one who is angry at him tonight," I said. "I'm angry at him. I'm angry at you."

"Say it all."

"I will."

"Say it."

I said it.

I said all of it, standing between a minivan and a flowerbed in the last of the evening light.

I told him about the shift I'd worked with a fever because the nursing home billed on the first.

I told him about the nights I'd called his phone and let it ring until it went to voicemail, just to hear him say his own name.

I told him that I had stopped crying about him in March and started again in June.

He didn't defend himself once.

When I ran out of words, my throat hurt and my face was wet.

"You told me not to come home," Nate said, very quietly.

"I was twenty and furious."

"You said, 'Don't come back until you can say my name to your father.'

"And then Rita called from the floor.

"I knew that if I walked into your apartment, I'd have to tell you everything.

"So I decided to earn the right first. I'd get free of him, then come home and say your name out loud, and tell you the rest."

"Two years."

"I'm a coward," said Nate. "I wasn't a liar. I was a coward, and the worst part is I can't tell the difference."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Husband Played Stranger, So I Took Off the Ring from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.