“We’re really doing this?” My words couldn’t seem to come out stronger than a weak whisper.
“You tell me. You’re the one that started throwing around divorce. It’s not the first time you’ve asked for one, Kate. I’m frankly sick of trying to talk you out of it.”
“I just… I don’t know where else there is for us to go. Nick, we’ve tried. We gave it our best and now I think it’s better if we move on… away from each other.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Tried and failed, I guess.”
I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong and that we hadn’t failed, that there were as many good times between us as there were bad, but I couldn’t bring myself to put up the effort. He was right. We failed.
We were failures at our marriage.
When I didn’t say anything else, he grabbed his pillow and stomped downstairs to the living room. I rolled over in bed, pulled the duvet over my shoulders and cried until I passed out.
When I woke up in the morning, he was already gone.
Chapter One
8. My life will be better without him.
The bell rang and my stomach growled. I looked at my classroom, at the kids shoving papers and notebooks into their backpacks and the energetic chatter that warred with the high-pitched ringing of the fourth period bell, and wondered if I had some Pavlovian response to that sound.
I had been conditioned to know hunger, but I hadn’t felt it in months.
I smiled at my students as they filtered from the room and reminded some of them about homework they owed me, but I barely heard the words that fell from my lips or acknowledged the concise instructions I was notorious for.
Behind my smiling mouth and teacher responsibilities, I was made of brittle glass and emptiness. I was nothing but paper-thin defenses and sifting sand.
I had never known this kind of depression before. I could hardly tolerate my soon to be ex-husband and yet his absence left me unexpectedly battered.
Once my English class filled with a mixture of juniors and seniors had left me behind, I let out a long sigh and turned back to my desk. I dropped into my rolling chair and dug out my lunch from the locked bottom drawer.
I set it on the cold metal and stared at the sad ham sandwich and bruised apple I’d thrown together last minute this morning. I couldn’t find the energy to take a bite, let alone finish the whole thing. I’d lost seven pounds over the last four months, one for each year of my disastrous marriage. And while I appreciated the smaller size I could fit into, I knew this was the wrong way to go about it.
My friend, Kara, called this the Divorce Diet. But I knew the truth. This wasn’t a diet. I’d lost myself somewhere in the ruins of my marriage and now that my relationship was over, my body had started to systematically shut down. First my heart broke. Then my spirit fragmented. Now my appetite was in jeopardy and I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know if I would ever feel hungry again.
I didn’t know if I would ever feel again.
I used to eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge, but lately I couldn’t bring myself in there to face other people, especially my nosey colleagues.
Everyone had heard about my failed marriage. They stopped me in the halls to offer their condolences or hit man services with empathetic expressions or playful smiles. They watched me with pitying eyes and sympathetic frowns. They whispered behind my back or asked invasive questions.
But none of them cared. Not really.
They liked having someone to talk about that wasn’t them and a topic that didn’t dive into their personal lives. I was the gossip martyr. As long as they could tear apart my bad decisions and argue whether it was my frigidness or Nick’s playboy tendencies that hammered the last nail in our coffin they shared a macabre sense of community.
They didn’t care that each callous comment shredded me apart just a little more or that I could hear them cackling from down the hall.
They didn’t take into account their own divorces or unhappy marriages or faults or hypocrisy or shortcomings. They only saw mine.
And now so did I.
I should at least get a thank you for my efforts.
Or a spiked Starbucks.
Where was the gratitude?
The creaky door swung open and my best friend and fellow teacher/school guidance counselor, Kara Chase popped her pretty red head in the room. Her pert nose wrinkled at the sight of my untouched lunch and she smoothed down some of her wild frizz with a perfectly manicured hand. She had endless, luscious curls, but as the day went on and she dealt with more and more apathetic high school kids, her beautiful hair would expand with her impatience.
“That looks… yummy.” Her stormy gray eyes lifted to meet mine and I couldn’t help but smile.
I wrinkled my nose at her. “Don’t judge! It’s all I had.”
She walked all the way into the room and leaned against the whitewashed cement wall with her hands tucked behind her back. “You used to be better at going to the grocery store.”
The small dig cut deeper than it should have. “I’ve been busy.”
Her lips turned down into a concerned frown that I mildly resented. “You can’t wallow forever, Kate. Your marriage ended, not the world.”
But he was my world. I kept that thought to myself. Now was not the time or the place to sift through my complicated feelings regarding Nick. I wanted this. I wanted this divorce. I had no right to be this upset or depressed.
Deep breath. “You’re right,” I told her. “I just haven’t gotten the hang of cooking for one. Last time I went to the store, I ended up way over-shopping and then had to deal with rotten oranges and moldy cheese. Plus, I don’t want the Chinese delivery guy to feel abandoned.”
As gently as she could, she said, “You’ll get the hang of it.”
I pushed off in my chair until the back of it slammed against the whiteboard behind me. “I hope that’s true.”
Because if it wasn’t…
Had I just made the most colossal mistake of my life?
No. This was right.
But then why did it feel so… wrong?
“Until then, let’s sneak out and grab something better than… than whatever is on your desk now.” Her expression brightened until I felt myself smiling at her. We had been friends since we started at Hamilton High School eight years ago. We had that kind of natural connection you only find once or twice your entire life. We were instantly inseparable. Even though Nick and I were already together, we were only engaged at the time. Kara had been my maid of honor at our wedding and my closest confidant over the years. She knew the lowest lows of my marriage and the hard adjustment I’d faced since I ended it.
I didn’t want to think about where I would be without her.
I looked at my wrist and checked the time. “I have twenty minutes. Can we be back in time?”
“We’ll hurry.” Her kitten heels clicked against the polished floor as she moved to hold the door open for me.
She was the only teacher at this school that had any sense of style. Her expensive taste didn’t mesh well with her public high school teacher’s salary, but thankfully for her, her wealthy parents supplemented her meager income.
My parents questioned my choices and assumed I was a failure at life.
They might not be wrong.
And yet we both knew what it was like to struggle to please impossible expectations and feel insignificant in the wake of our parents’ cold assessments.
I might not have had a designer wardrobe, but at least my parents didn’t try to buy my love.
I grabbed my purse out of the same locked drawer I’d tucked my lunch into and straightened my pencil skirt as I stood. I felt my spirits lift immediately.
Kara usually had that effect on me. And it helped that we were sneaking out of our jobs, to do something forbidden.
I loved breaking rules.
Just don’t tell my students.
We were halfway down the h
all and laughing with each other when we were caught.
“And where are you ladies off to today? I’m certain Ms. Carter has class in a few minutes.” The deep voice made my skin feel too tight and my insides warm slowly.
I turned around and met Eli Cohen’s rich brown eyes and tried not to smile too big. “Checking up on me?” I raised a challenging eyebrow.
Eli moved closer. “I was just in the lunchroom and heard a pair of junior boys discussing their hot English teacher.”
That wiped the cocky expression off my face. “Gross. Don’t tell me which ones. I don’t want to know.”
Eli’s face split into a grin and a rich baritone rumble of a laugh fell from his full lips. “On one condition.”
“This is blackmail!”
He laughed at me again, but when he raised his dark eyebrows and gave me an expectant look, I couldn’t help but soften toward him. He was adorable. “Bring me back something from Garmans.”
I couldn’t believe him. “How do you know we’re going to the deli? We could just be… just be… going to the bathroom together.”
He shook his head slowly and grinned. “I see the determined look in Kara’s eyes. I know that look. She’s hungry. And she’s enlisted you to help her sneak out.”
“He’s good,” Kara mused. “I think our science teacher is a little too good.”
“I’m starving,” he admitted. “I’ve been watching the hall for five minutes hoping to catch a teacher on their way out.” He held out his empty hands. “I forgot my lunch at home today and I have a meeting in three minutes.”
I looked at Kara and tried to figure out what she was thinking. Eli had transferred to our school two years ago and over that time I had gotten to know him slowly. I could now say I counted him as my friend, but for a long time I had kept him at a distance. He was too good-looking, too perfect. His skin was nicely bronzed, his hair perfectly quaffed and for a science teacher, his body was surprisingly filled out. I had found him intimidating at first and then because I was married to a handsome man and supposedly in love with that man, I found it utterly ridiculous to be so affected.
I was a mess. Even back then.
But I had kept my distance until a few months ago. Until after Nick moved out.
“I suppose we can take pity on him,” Kara sighed. “He does look famished.”
I ran my eyes over his broad chest and flat stomach. “He’s practically starving.”
“Should I get you the cobb salad?” Kara asked innocently.
Eli pointed a playful finger at her. “Don’t you dare. I wouldn’t know what to do with something green. I’d probably make my students dissect it.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “You’re hilarious.”
He smiled at me, wide and carefree. “I’ll owe you one.”
“Sure you will.” Kara and I started walking again. “I’ll be sure to collect.”
“I’m counting on it.” His low voice followed us down the hallway and I had to turn around before he saw an inflamed blush spread across my cheeks.
I pressed my cold hands against my face and tried to ignore the burn in my abdomen. It had been a long time since I flirted with someone, even longer since that someone wasn’t Nick.
Kara’s elbow found my side playfully. “What was that?”
“A favor?” I turned my wide eyes to her and silently begged her to tell me it wasn’t as forward as I thought it was.
She pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “Sure it was.”
“We’re just friends.”
“And now you’re single.”
A shuddering breath shook my lungs. “Not really. Not yet.”
“Soon,” she argued. “When the divorce is finalized, you’ll officially be back on the market. Obviously, Eli knows that.”
The flirty tingle turned sour in my stomach and suddenly I’d lost my appetite all over again. The blush drained from my cheeks and I felt myself turn pale and translucent.
Kara noticed immediately. “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to… to upset you. I just thought… It’s been four months, babe. Nick hasn’t even reached out to you. Not really, anyway. I thought you might be ready to move on.”
Ready to move on after four months? Was that all it took to get over the last ten years of my life? To delete seven years of marriage? I had been with Nick in some form or capacity for a decade, but I was supposed to erase him completely from the important parts of my heart in four months?
How?
I wasn’t against the idea. In fact, I would have loved to forget about him and the poisonous relationship we’d created. I would love for this pain in my chest to dissipate and the sickness that seemed constant and unrelenting to ebb.
But it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t shake our relationship or the hold he had over my heart.
Not everything about him was bad. In fact, most of him was good and beautiful and right. But with me, he wasn’t those things and I wasn’t either.
But how was I supposed to let go of him? I loved him. I loved him for ten years and knew nothing else but loving him.
How could I walk away from him and even entertain the idea of another man after everything I had been through? I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to date again, let alone so quickly after my last relationship failed.
No. Epically failed.
Nick was supposed to be my forever. Nick was supposed to be my “until death do us part.” And now that the rest of my life had taken a sharp, life-altering turn, I didn’t know where I was headed anymore.
I was lost.
I was rudderless.
I was floating in a sea of confusion and hurt. I needed something to tether me, to pull me back to shore. But I knew, more than anybody else in my life that I wasn’t going to find that with a new man.
“It’s okay,” I told Kara with a throaty whisper. “I just wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting that from him.”
She squeezed my forearm and gathered her thoughts. “I know that what you’re going through with Nick and everything is intense, but you’re still young. You’re still gorgeous. You still have a lot of life left to live. I don’t want you to give up, just because the first try wasn’t successful. You’re a catch, friend. You have to know that Eli isn’t the only man lining up to take advantage of Nick’s colossal mistake.”
“The divorce was my idea,” I reminded her. “I’m the reason we ended it.” The words felt like stones on my tongue. I felt their gritty, dirty wrongness and I wanted to spit them out and wash my mouth out with something cleansing.
Something like bleach.
Or battery acid.
“Yeah, maybe,” she sighed. “But he should never have let you get away with it.”
Something sharp sliced against my chest. I felt the same way too. If he had really loved me, he wouldn’t have let me go through with it. Right? If he really wanted things to work out between us, he wouldn’t have moved out.
He wouldn’t have stopped talking to me.
He wouldn’t have left.
Desperate to change the topic, I pushed through a back door and blinked against the bright fall sunlight. “So, lunch?”
“Yes!” She smiled at me. I could see the concern floating all over her face, but she held her tongue in an effort to keep me together. “Garmans has the freaking best pastrami on the planet.”
I would never understand how Kara could eat so much and stay so thin. She didn’t have to do what the rest of us did, which was an insane amount of cardio and a universal ban on sugar. She could eat whatever she wanted.
I looked at a piece of chocolate and my thighs started jiggling.
It was like an alarm system for my flab.
Well, until recently.
We hurried across the lengthy parking lot and busy Chicago street until we reached the tiny corner deli that boasted whole pickles with every purchase and sandwiches the size of my head. It was a favorite spot for everyone that worked on this block, but especially for the teache
rs at Hamilton. When given the choice of bad cafeteria food, a quickly packed lunch from home or a thickly-meated, moist-breaded, delicious deli sandwich from Garmans, the choice was obvious.
But after an incident last spring, in which a group of students had left school to corner and threaten a teacher off school grounds, our administrator had banned teachers from leaving campus during the school day and so technically we were sneaking out and breaking rules.
Hamilton was located in one of the under-privileged sections of Chicago. We were firmly in the city proper, not skirting the affluent suburbs or near a wealthier area of downtown. No, Hamilton was directly in the middle of gang violence, low-income housing and race wars.
I’d been offered jobs at some of the more stable schools in the city and even one at a prestigious private school in a well-off suburb. But when I chose Hamilton, it was with my heart. I had examined all of my options, and I knew that taking this job was a risk professionally, but I couldn’t deny that I felt something meaningful for these kids.
I wanted to make a difference. Not the kind that you see on TV or that moves you in a heart-warming movie, but a real difference. I wanted to empower these kids with knowledge that would never leave them and tools for a future that was beyond this neighborhood. I wanted to inspire something inside of these neglected teenagers that had all of the odds stacked against them and had to fight to just show up on a daily basis.
I fought a losing battle every day and I was exhausted. But it was worth it.
I could feel it in my bones.
Kara’s heels clicked against the broken sidewalk as we hurried to Garmans, mingling with the sounds of angry traffic and city melee. The warm sun heated my exposed arms and face and I lifted my closed eyes to soak it in.
There was healing in this industrial chaos. There was a beautiful surrender to the noisy madness that felt cleansing and therapeutic. It wouldn’t last. I would pay for my sandwich, go back to my desk and the reality of my broken life would come crashing down on me.
But for a few seconds, I had the flirtatious smile of an attractive man in my memory and a minute of reprieve from the demands of my life. I sucked in a full breath, taking in the exhaust and grit from the city. And yet, my lungs felt full for the first time in as long as I could remember.