"How was Miami?"
"Good." I touched the strap of my purse, thinking of the spa, beach, shopping, the women who'd adopted me for a night. The letter and the postcard I'd written to myself. "Really good, actually. No—that's wrong. It was amazing."
Something shifted in his expression. Relief, maybe. But fear too?
"I'm glad," he said quietly. "You deserved that."
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we hadn't said yet. I could feel the conversation coming, the one we'd been building toward for months. Maybe years.
I walked over to the island and set down my purse, my movements deliberate and slow. I was stalling, and we both knew it. But I needed to take a breath and gather myself, to find the words for what felt like the most important conversation of my life.
"The house looks good," I said, taking in the spotless counters, the absence of his usual clutter. "Did you clean?"
"Top to bottom." He almost smiled. "Twice, actually. I kept finding things I'd missed."
"Like what?"
He paused, looking like he was nervous to say. "Your coffee mug. You know, the one I gave you for your promotion? I—um, I found it buried under a stack of paperwork and things on my desk. I'd been drinking my coffee right next to it for well, I don't know how long, without seeing it."
Well, I guess I knew where my mug went. I'd searched everywhere for it the other day, coming up empty handed. It was the one that said "You are brave, bold, courageous, amazing, inspiring, and loved."
"I used to use that mug every morning," I said quietly. "I couldn't figure out where it went. I couldn't find it anymore."
His face fell. "I'm sorry."
I scoffed. "Feels like quite the metaphor, doesn't it?" I looked at him directly. "Me, buried under your stuff. You, drinking your coffee right next to me every morning without really seeing me."
He didn't answer, but I saw the truth of it hit him.
"Caden," I started, then stopped. My hands were shaking.
"What is it?"
"I can't do this anymore." The words fell out of me like stones. "I can't keep pretending that a dinner and some flowers and a heartfelt letter are going to fix six years of me being invisible in my own marriage."
His face went pale. "Felicity—"
"Wait. You need to let me finish." I held up a hand, surprised by my own steadiness. "I'm not saying I don't love you. I'm not saying I want a divorce. But I am saying that something has to fundamentally change, or I'm done."
He nodded slowly, like he'd been expecting this. Maybe he had.
"I've spent so much time making myself smaller," I continued, the words flowing now like water through a broken dam. My voice gravelly, like cracks creating breaks across that dam. "Making excuses for you. Telling myself 'He's just busy, just stressed, things will get better when the next crisis passed or the next deal closed.' But they never did, did they?"
"No," he said quietly. "They didn't."
"Can you even imagine what it's like to be married to someone who remembers every detail of the things around him except for the details around his wife?" My voice cracked. "To watch you bend over backward for others, for your clients, for your work—but not for me?"
"I didn't realize—"
"I know! That's the problem!" The words exploded out of me. I knew I was yelling. I don't usually yell. But I couldn't control it. "You didn't realize. For years, Caden. You didn't realize that I was right next to you...drowning."