“Only one secret.”
“Sharon.”
“Don’t.”
I walked into the bathroom and locked the door, which is the marital equivalent of a warning shot. I sat on the edge of the tub in a hotel robe with my grandmother’s advice in my ears. She was the one who used to say, “Watch what a man does, honey, not what he promises.”
My hands were shaking when I pulled out my phone.
“I think I married the wrong man,” I typed to Marisol. “I think the whole thing was a lie.”
The three little dots appeared instantly.
The marital equivalent of a warning shot.
Don’t miss
On the other side of the door, I heard Ian’s footsteps, slow and careful. He didn’t try the handle. He just stood there.
“Sharon,” my husband said through the wood, so gently that it made me angrier. “I’m not going to lose you now after all we’ve accomplished and been through.”
I pressed my forehead against the cold tile and closed my eyes.
A soft knock came against the bathroom door. I didn’t answer.
He didn’t try the handle.
Then I heard something slide softly across the floor toward my bare feet.
He’d slid an envelope across the tile toward my foot.
I picked it up with shaking hands and opened it. Inside was a photo of a ring I hadn’t seen in almost a decade. My grandmother’s engagement ring.
