Second Chance - Jane Green [130]
‘When I told you how unhappy I am!’ Holly whirls on him. ‘When I said I didn’t feel that I had a marriage, or a partnership. I told you I never see you any more and that I’m not happy. That I can’t carry on like this.’
‘How can you say that?’ Marcus says, and she thinks he has finally heard. ‘How can you seriously say that? We have an amazing marriage. I love you, Holly. I mean I really love you. I love you more than I love anyone, and we have two beautiful children and a wonderful life together. I don’t understand. It just doesn’t make sense to me, how you can even think of throwing all this away.’
‘I know it doesn’t make sense to you,’ Holly says. ‘It doesn’t make sense to you because you never listen. You refuse to hear anything you don’t want to hear. I’m tired, Marcus. I’m tired of trying to explain to you why I’m not happy in this marriage and why I need some space. I just–’ fear dwindles her voice away to almost nothing–‘I just don’t think I can do it any more,’ she whispers.
And Marcus starts to cry.
Holly stands awkwardly, watching him. She has seen him cry only a few times before, and she doesn’t know quite what to do. It would feel wrong to reach out to him, to try to comfort him when she is the cause of this pain, yet it feels more wrong and more awkward to stand here doing nothing.
She reaches up and puts her arms around him. He buries his head in her shoulder, sobbing, and she strokes his back, feeling his pain, suddenly realizing how hard this is going to be. How hard to see someone in so much pain and to be the one who has caused it, knowing that you’re not able to do anything about it, not if you are to be able to live your life and be happy.
Not if you are to be true to yourself.
Marcus has let go. His defences are well and truly down. So rarely has Holly seen this side of Marcus, seen him vulnerable, and when she has done, in the past, those were the times she tried to convince herself that everything would be fine.
Marcus, so caught up in being a big shot, being important, needing to be seen as someone who is worthy of respect, is suddenly, alone in this field as the sun goes down, a little boy.
No more arrogance and pretence, just a scared little boy, terrified of the future, of his life being turned upside down, of not being the one in control.
And even as Holly attempts to comfort him somewhat with her hug, she knows there is no going back. If, at points during the last few days, even for a split second, she has ever thought of staying married to Marcus for the sake of the children, perhaps until they go to college, as she stands here with him right now, she knows she cannot.
She feels the strangest mix of emotions: sorrow, grief, relief. She feels Marcus’s pain almost as if it were her own, and despite seeing the real Marcus, seeing the frightened little boy, she means what she said.
She is done.
‘Please think about it,’ Marcus sobs, pulling away to look her in the eye. ‘Please come back. I miss you. I miss us. We have so much to look forward to, you’d be throwing away so much.’ He stops, unable to go on, and takes a few deep breaths before continuing. ‘I’m a divorce lawyer,’ he tries again, a different tack. ‘I see what this does to children and I see what it does to families. Our children don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. Whatever the problems are in our marriage, none of them is insurmountable. I can be home more, maybe work from home on Fridays. We can do marriage guidance counselling. I mean it, Holly. I’ll do whatever you ask me to do. I’ll do whatever it takes.’
‘Okay,’ Holly whispers, nodding, not knowing what else to say, hating causing him so much pain, hating that she knows she will only cause him more. ‘I need to think about it.’ Not true, but she is buying time, knowing she can only hurt him so much at a time.
‘I’ve booked a room,