Amelia wasnt sure what shed face when she got home. She left her car parked in the driveway and went in through the front door instead of popping the garage door.

Sure enough, Mike lay sprawled in his chair, eyes closed, TV on one of the ESPN channels. A hockey game from what looked like the 1980s was playing on TV.

Yep, there was the banner, saying the game was from 1987.

He started awake. You just getting home?

Yeah. For a few minutes. Marcia invited me to come over tonight, go out to dinner with her, and spend the night. A bunch of her friends are going to brunch in the morning.

Oh. Okay. Have fun. He leaned over to see past her, where she was blocking his view of the TV.

She didnt even know how he hadnt turned into a puddle of lard yet. He didnt hit the gym. Yes, he carried a couple extra pounds more than he did when theyd first met, but so did she.

Thanks. She headed back to the bedroom, struggling not to cry as she quickened her pace down the hallway.

Apparently he hadnt even noticed that she wasnt wearing her wedding or engagement rings. They were now tucked into a zippered pocket in her wallet.

She didnt feel right wearing them any longer. It felt like a lie.

She grabbed an overnight bag from under the bed and quickly packed, grabbing her travel kit from the bathroom. She was a systems troubleshooter for a local tech company who dealt with custom retail software packages. Sometimes she had to travel out of town to do site visits, for installs, or for when a client had issues that couldnt be corrected from their end by remotely logging into the system.

That was about the only travel she ever did, and then only for business. Maybe once or twice a month, if that, and usually only one or two days at a time.

She and Mike never traveled. Shed asked him plenty of times in the past, even to do something like drive over to the east coast and spend a weekend in a hotel there, or down to the Keys, orsomething. Anything.

Nope.

They had perfectly good beaches here, and a house to sleep in. Why spend the money? Why drive a couple of hours?

Why give a rats a.s.s about his wife being miserable?

She sank onto the bed and pressed one hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

That was why she didnt even notice Mike until he was standing in the bedroom doorway.

You okay? he gruffly asked.

She shook her head.

Look, I dont understand what your problem is. Maybe you need a night away with your girlfriends to shake some sense into you. Marcia and Derrick have been married longer than we have. Theyll tell you the truth, that this is what its supposed to be. Not some stupid garbage book thats fantasy. They make that escapist s.h.i.t up for a reason. Its not real life. Its so people who are miserable can read that s.h.i.t and get out of their heads for a while. Its not meant to be a blueprint for life, Amy.

Strangely enough, it was his last word that snapped her out of her mood.

She reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a handful of tissues to blow her nose. Youre right, she quietly said. Its not real life. She stood and grabbed her overnight bag, afraid for a second that he might not get out of her way when she headed for the doorway.

But he did.

Have fun, he said as she headed down the hall. Ill see you sometime tomorrow. Hope you feel better when you get home.

Yeah, she said. Sometime tomorrow. She grabbed her laptop bag from where shed left it last night on the dining room table when shed returned home from work and headed out the front door.

I d.a.m.n sure wont feel better when I get back here. Not until Im out of this situation and finally living life again.

She made it to Marcia and Derricks five minutes before the worst of the rain moved in. Standing there in the front hallway, she sobbed in Marcias arms for a good five minutes before her friend got her maneuvered into the living room and sitting on the couch.

Mel related what happened to her friend. Its like hes completely oblivious. He thinks everythings fine, so I should think so, too.

Thats exactly what he thinks, Marcia said. So the question is, what are you going to do about it?

Mel took a deep, hitching breath. Im going to set up an appointment with Ed for next week and get started filing for divorce.

Well need to move your stuff out of the house before that, Marcia said. You dont know what he might do. While he probably wont react like an a.s.shole, you never know. Better to get your stuff before the papers. .h.i.t.

I can take a couple of days off next week. My workload is flexible right now. After next week, weve got a new client that will keep me wrapped up for a while.

Perfect. Ill ask around tonight and get a crew put together. Well shoot for Wednesday.

I cant believe Ill have to go back and sleep in the same house with him. She shuddered. I cant believe a couple of weeks ago I was trying to get him to touch me. Now I can barely stand the sight of him.

You did what you had to do. If you hadnt, you might have been second-guessing yourself later. At least this way you know there wasnt any other option. You gave it your best try.

He is really convinced that Im the one with the problem.

Let me play devils advocate, Marcia said. Not to say hes right, because hes not. Hes not meeting you halfway, here. But what if the situation was reversed, and you were perfectly happy, for years, and suddenly he came out of the blue and told you he wasnt?

She thought about it. Id feel pretty s.h.i.tty.

Im not trying to make you change your mind, Marcia emphasized. And Im not trying to make you feel guilty. Im also not saying you handled things wrong. All Im saying is that communication broke down a long time ago between you two. So when youre dealing with him, keep in mind hes painting you to be the bad guy for his own skewed reasons. He also might not want to admit hes wrong. Or any number of things.

Now Im even more confused. Should I stay and keep trying to work things out?

Not what Im saying. Im trying to give you perspective to help you combat your anger. Because anger will eat you alive, if you let it. Ive seen it happen before. When you deal with him, try to do it with compa.s.sion, no matter how much of a raging doucheball a.s.shole hes being.

That finally made her smile. Raging doucheball a.s.shole?

People react badly, sometimes, when their perfectly constructed fantasy is shattered. Are you absolutely sure hes not cheating on you?

Positive. I doubt hed have the willpower to follow through. Hes got a routine. He does his forty hours at work, punches his timeclock, comes home, does his ch.o.r.es, and sacks out in front of the TV. Thats the sum of his happy little universe. That is his greatest aspiration, to have TV time.

And he wasnt like that when you met him?

No. Were we wild and crazy? No. h.e.l.l, if hed not stopped wanting to make love to me, I could have dealt with the boring. But I cant even get him to cuddle with me anymore. I cannot remember the last time I had an o.r.g.a.s.m I didnt have to give to myself.

What about him?

What about him? I dont think the man m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es, unless he does it in the shower. And I doubt he is. He just has no desire.

I really wish hed go to the doctor, Marcia said.

So do I, but he got almost as angry at that suggestion as he did when I asked about counselling. If hes not willing to try, Im done with the one-sided war. The fact that he refuses to admit theres a problem, and is putting it all on me, that Im the one with the problem, only seals the deal. Its time for me to leave before Im so angry with him that I hate his guts.

Which is exactly what I was warning you about.

Once Mel got herself pulled together, Marcia led her back to the guest room that would be her temporary digs. Shed have to find out how much the divorce would set her back, get her paycheck set up for direct deposit into a different bank account So much to do.

We havent even talked about rent, Mel said. How much do you want me to pay?

Nothing. Chip in for groceries, if youd like. Help out with ch.o.r.es. Im guessing you wont be here more than a couple of months before you figure out your next move. I know you. You are a take-charge kind of person who doesnt like leaving things up in the air. And you like your freedom too much.

Yeah, that is true. Ive felt anything but free lately. Which is stupid.

Why do you say that?

Because here I thought by staying home with him, it might fix things. I thought that by limiting what I did, itd bring us closer. All it did was cut me off from people I never should have distanced myself from. He couldnt give a s.h.i.t where I go or what I do. h.e.l.l, hed prefer it if I just went and did things and not ask him to go with me. I stopped being me somewhere along the way and tried to be half of a broken marriage.

That never works.

Boy, I learned that the hard way.

Mel still wasnt sure how to get out of going home tomorrow night. She might just have to suck it up and deal with it.

Maybe steal a page from Mikes playbook and fall asleep on the sofa, spend the night out there, and claim oopsies.

Her back probably wouldnt tolerate her doing that more than two nights in a row before it started protesting, though.

She grabbed a shower and changed into the black and purple dress shed brought with her to wear tonight. Shed originally bought it on a whim a couple of years earlier, thinking it was pretty and had a flirty kind of vibe.

Mike had, predictably, hated it.

Makes you look like one of those New Age witches or something, hed said.

So no wonder it was the one piece of clothing she made sure to wear tonight. Loose and flowing, it would look perfectly in place at the restaurant or later, at the club.

Not like shed be playing at the club, anyway. Just watching.

She wasnt about to cheat on Mike, even if the marriage was effectively dead. All she wanted to do was feel alive for the night, like there were actually people out there who didnt mind talking with her or spending time with her.

All this started with a book club.

She couldnt even remember how that conversation had started with Marcia, but shed ended up hooked up with Shayla"who turned out to be one of Marcias kinky friends in the lifestyle"and their book club group.

Just being with people had made her feel lighter every week.

And then shed bought a Kindle and started buying recommended reads theyd already devoured.

Wasnt like she had any other hobbies at that point. Until shed brought up her dissatisfaction with her marriage, Mike hadnt had any problem with her going to book club meetings, or buying the Kindle, or any of that. It meant more time he could spend, in peace, in front of the TV.

She was ready to leave for dinner when Derrick and Marcia were. Do I look okay?

Marcia hugged her. You look beautiful.

Thank you. Im glad someone thinks so.

Chapter Four.

Whereas the first time Mel had dinner with Marcia and Derrick and their friends a few weeks earlier, shed been too busy listening and asking questions to really observe.

Tonight, she almost felt like an outsider.

And not by any of their doing. Everyone was very nice and trying to keep her pulled into the conversations. The last time shed been so overwhelmed that thered been no time for her to process. Shed been mentally body surfing through the tsunami of information and people and truths and realizations without any time to really process what was going on.

But with the truth settling inside her, she realized these people might be the only friends she had left by the time Mike got done with her, if he made good on his threats to tell what few friends she still had about her pervy habits.

And h.e.l.l, that threat had come from when shed mentioned to him books shed read, and suggested they try spicing up their love life.

If had Mike reacted like that over books, she had no clue how ballistic hed go in real life if he found out she really was interested in pursuing this.

Ed and his wife were there, even though they werent going to the club later. Call my office first thing Monday morning, he said. Ill leave a note for my receptionist to make sure to work you into the schedule early this week.

This made it real. It sealed it in her mind.

Now, she just needed to make sure she followed through and didnt back down.

They left the restaurant before anyone else. As they headed to the club, Mel rode in the backseat and tried to make some sort of sense of her thoughts.

Are you doing okay? Marcia asked her.

I dont honestly know. Not that I didnt have fun at dinner, she quickly added. Everyone has been wonderful. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.

Its a lot to take in, Marcia a.s.sured her. Youve got a lot on your mind.

Derrick chimed in. If at any time tonight you feel overwhelmed and want to leave, just let us know, he said. I can always run you back to the house.

I appreciate that. Id rather stay and watch. Or, can I help out? Do you need any volunteers or anything?