Page 98 of Breadwinner
“And that’s exactly why I need space from you. Because I can’t tell the difference between old habits and actual intention with you, and it’s not fair on so many levels, but especially considering that you know exactly”—her throat constricted—“you know exactly how I feel about you, how I’ve always felt about you. Can you look at me and honestly say you don’t know?”
She looked to Beth, hoping to see the answers she craved written across her face, easy enough for her to read, but Beth gave her nothing. Her head hung, long blond waves creating a curtain she shielded herself behind as she absently picked at the skin around her nail bed, like she had done for as long as Sarah had known her.
Her question was met with silence, leaving Sarah to fill in the blanks once again herself.
“Youknow,” Sarah said quietly, hurt clinging to her words as she desperately tried to understand. “You know, and you looked at me like that anyway...”
Beth nodded once, still not saying anything. Sarah took a deep breath, willing herself to continue in her pursuit of clarity.
“If you knew how I felt about you, then why? Why would you look at me like that? What made you feel like that was fair to me? I’ve kept my feelings for you in check for years because I respect you, and I respect Jamie. Why have you never been able to show me the same respect?” Sarah choked out, fighting back her tears.
Beth flinched. “I do respect you. The look had nothing to do with me not respecting you. How can you say that?”
“Then why? Why are you still looking at me like that when you chose someone else?”
“Because you’re right—I chose someone else, and I don’t regret that. I love Jamie, but that doesn’t completely erase all the years it was you and me.”
She stared at Beth, wanting desperately to understand her and how the hell they had gotten to this point.
“I don’t—but why?” Sarah asked, catching her tears, holding them back. She didn’t want Beth to see her cry. “If you still think about me like that, why did you choose Jamie? Why didn’t you choose me?”
Beth’s eyes shone with her own tears, and it physically hurt Sarah not to reach out and catch them for her, like she had done so many times before.
“Because we tried fixing us so many times at that point, and each time, it was clear we still had so muchunresolved baggage. I couldn’t take another heartbreak with you. You’ve been my one constant since I was eighteen, but I needed to know what it felt like to be apart from you for once in my adult life.” She stopped picking at the skin on her thumb. “I made that choice, but then you started seeing Nell, and it brought up?—”
“Don’t you dare bring Nell into this,” Sarah spat. “She has nothing to do with any of this.” Her chest heaved, her voice rising ever so slightly as she attempted to keep a lid on the anger that raged inside her. “Don’t use her as an excuse.”
Beth folded her arms across her chest in that same defensive position she always favored when they fought. “I’m not trying to. I’m trying to explain to you how seeing you happy with Nell... I hadn’t fully prepared myself for what that would feel like.”
Finally,finallyBeth looked at her, blue eyes cutting through her the way they had a habit of doing. Her heart twisted at the sight of confusion and guilt behind Beth’s look.
“Jesus,” Sarah groaned, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. The cool leather soothed her skin, and she gripped it tightly as she tried to stop the pounding in her chest. “What about Jamie?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
Beth’s hands went to her temples, rubbing small circles. “I love her...” Beth paused, struggling to find her words. “I never planned on loving anyone but you, Sarah, but then we broke, and all that love for you never went away. It just changed shape.”
Those whispered words sliced through her like a knife cutting clean across her chest.
“Why did you ask for a divorce?” The words slipped from her lips before Sarah could think better of them, her cheeks flushing with a combination of shame and embarrassment at the neediness of her question.
Beth studied her with unsure eyes before answering. “Because I needed to. I couldn’t stay around and watch us continue to break each other further... not after the miscarriage. Not after we lost Connor.”
Sarah stilled at the mention of their son’s name, knuckles white still gripping the steering wheel, stabilizing herself. There it was. The wound she had spent thirteen years repairing.
Beth’s lips trembled as she held on to her own tears. “You werealwaysenough for me, Sarah. But when we lost Connor”—she choked, her hand clasped to her mouth—“we were never the same after that. You buried yourself in your work. You stopped talking to me, stopped letting me in, stopped choosing me, andI couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep trying to make you see me, not when I was drowning in grief and you didn’t even notice.”
Those words slapped Sarah across the face, leaving her stunned. Then came the heat, boiling up, prickling through the tips of her fingers. “I never stopped choosing you. I woke up every day and chose you, chose Lily, chose our family. Even on the hardest days, I stayed, I provided, and I loved you in the ways I knew how, because I knew what we were going through was temporary. After we had Lily and you were struggling with postpartum depression, I was there for you. I kept everything afloat. I carried you. And when you wanted another baby, I carried that, too, because I was terrified of what another pregnancy would do to you. I carried him—and when I lost him, when I was the one who was drowning, where the hell were you when I needed to be carried?”
Beth’s eyes widened. “Sarah?—”
“No,” she shouted, the lid entirely off her anger now. “You checked out. You poured everything into Lily, and I understood—God, I understood, because she’s our baby and she needed us—but I needed you, too. I needed my wife, and you weren’t there. We lost our baby at fourteen weeks and you left me to carry that weight all alone.”
Beth’s tears were falling freely. “I thought you didn’t need me,” she whispered. “You were always so strong, and after Connor, you didn’t even cry. You went back to work like nothing had happened, like we hadn’t just lost our baby boy. You threw yourself into that damn promotion. And yes, you carried us—but only inyourway. You never asked what I needed, only what you thought I should need. That’s not love, Sarah. That’s control.”
Sarah’s breath tore through her, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “Maybe my grief looked different than yours. Did you ever consider that? I wasn’t strong, Beth. Losing Connorbroke me. I failed. My body failed. I’m SarahfuckingGallagher—I don’t fail atanything, but I failed him, and I failed you.” Her chest heaved, every inhale fanning the fire inside her.
Beth shook her head, her voice barely audible now. “You never looked at me the same after the miscarriage. I felt invisible, like nothing I did could reach you. We never took the time to heal us.”
“Invisible?” Sarah asked in disbelief at just how different their memories of this time in their lives were. “I’ve never stopped seeing you. Even now, you’re everywhere, all the time, in every one of my thoughts, no matter how hard I try to get rid of you—you are there. After Connor, I forced myself to be okay because someone had to step up and be the breadwinner. Someone had to pay the hospital bills and cover the fertility treatments. Your art career wasn’t paying for shit. Even when I was hurting in unbearable ways, I did what was needed to make sure our family was taken care of. All I ever wanted—all Ifuckingwanted—was for you to see what it cost me. But instead, you hated me for it.”