Page 53 of I’m Fine Save Me (The Spiral Duet #1)

Chapter thirty-four

Tegan

“ Y ou’re so quiet tonight, baby girl.” Morgan’s voice is a soothing balm to my tortured heart. “What was your day like?”

He’s been with clients all day and didn’t have time for our usual back and forth. We have also paused on writing the last couple of months because real life has drained creativity on both sides.

Still, he makes a habit of talking to me at least once a day even if there’s no time for our more carnal activities. He truly is my partner in every sense of the word except physical. I don’t know why I have so much trouble leaning on him with things.

Maybe it’s because I just need to be held, and I feel guilty telling him that when he can’t be the one to do it.

“Long. Dramatic.” Even to my own ears exhaustion laces through each word, like it takes all my effort to answer.

“Should I let you go to sleep? I just wanted to talk since we didn’t get to all day today.

You sound like you need some rest though,” he says and my heart speeds up a bit.

Every beat feels like it’s reaching for him to stay.

Sometimes it feels like he’s physically beside me and really could chase every demon out of my life.

“No, please don’t… Cooper isn’t home yet and I won’t be going to sleep until he gets here anyway.” It’s the truth, but another truth is that I don’t want to feel alone with all my guilt, even if I don’t want to put that burden on him.

There’s a sound that I know is the clunk of the footrest on his recliner being raised, and it makes me smile. It means he’s getting comfortable to just sit and talk to me.

“Then tell me why you sound like you spent the day trying not to cry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Baby girl, your voice has no life to it,” he tells me gently.

“This is how you sound when you feel defeated. You also declined FaceTime and only let this be a voice call. You usually let me get a glimpse of that beautiful face of yours. You only decline FaceTimes when you know you look like you’ve been crying.

At least ever since that one time you accidentally answered when you first woke up, and I saw just how amazing your hair is first thing in the morning. ”

His chuckle is like a warm blanket of comfort wrapping all the way around me, and it helps me relax into the couch a little more.

“I hate how easily you read me.”

“You only hate it, because I don’t let you get away with it,” he cockily reminds me. “So tell me what happened today that stole your fire.”

“I’m–”

“I swear if you say it, I’m calling Lorene and snitching on you…”

I close my mouth. He’ll do it and she’ll make the five hour drive just to cook for me, clean for me, make sure I’m drinking water, and then get me good and drunk until I spill every little thought I’ve had since the last time we were together.

Only once she’s convinced that I’ve poured out my soul and she’s put me back together, will she make the five hour drive back home to wait until our next visit together.

It happened about four months after Cooper stopped taking his meds.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer, my favorite uncle passed away, Hannah’s speech therapist left their practice, and Coop was still adjusting and not handling even the smallest inconveniences very well.

I was hanging on by a thread and Morgan called Lorene.

She swooped in like Nanny McFee or whoever that crazy lady on TV is, and cleaned my house, spoiled Hannah rotten, and took her to my sister’s house. With Hannah taken care of, she forced me to take a long shower, then took me to the nail salon, hair salon, and out to our favorite sushi place.

When we got back to my house, she made me change into PJ’s, wrapped me in a cozy blanket, forced me to curl up on the couch with my Kindle, and told Cooper to leave me alone. I expected him to fight, but apparently even he recognized that I was at my wit’s end.

Lo spent three days updating Morgan on my water intake, meals that I’d eaten, and how much I slept.

When I started acting like myself and joking around with her, we had a girls day of shopping and laughing so much that we should’ve been kicked out of every retail store in town.

After that, she made the long drive back home.

She’d do it all again too if Morgan called and told her that I sounded that bad again. So I take a breath and softly ask, “Can I wait until Coop gets home to tell you so that I don’t have to say it all twice?”

I feel him concede. He won’t push me as long as he knows I intend to tell him what’s going on. “Of course. How is my Banana girl?”

Smiling at the question, I look to the window, still watching for Cooper to pull up. “She’s doing well. Thirty-three days with no meltdowns and she even started using the picture schedule we put on the wall. She has loved collecting the buttons for going through each step of her routine.”

Hannah has gotten used to seeing Morgan on my phone screen and has affectionately taken to calling him “Mr. Mo” which makes all of us laugh.

She loves that he has a beard like her dad, even if she says ‘Mr. Mo has a sprinkle beard.’ I learned that's her way of describing the salt and pepper effect in his otherwise dark facial hair.

He’s already a girl dad, so it didn’t shock me that he had no problem making Hannah giggle when he pretended to think her name was Banana.

It’s been their special exchange ever since.

“And your sweet girl? How’s the boyfriend situation going?” I ask him to keep the conversation going, stalling for when Cooper arrives.

He tells me about how heartbroken he is about his daughter dating and going off to college soon.

I think no longer being involved in her athletics program and their hectic schedule being changed is getting to him.

Now he’s only a few months away from her going out of state for school.

He and his wife will file for divorce after that.

While they’ve been amicable roommates with their separate relationships, their youngest daughter moving out finally allows them to set each other completely free.

I hear Cooper pulling into the driveway and I take a breath. “Coop just pulled u—” My words cut off when I hear the door of his truck slam so hard the windows beside me rattle.

“Baby girl?”

I don’t respond, just holding the phone against my ear when the front door swings open so violently I gasp. It quickly slams shut, rattling the entire framework of the house.

“Baby girl..?”

Keys hit the wall, denting the sheetrock.

Then a cell phone, one boot, the other..

Thud. Slam. Crash.

Every loud noise making me jolt even though I’m watching my very irate husband throw the objects at the wall.

“Tegan, what’s going on?” I hear Morgan ask sternly, but I’m frozen on the couch. I feel like I should make myself smaller so I don’t get something thrown at me.

I know Cooper would never hurt me, but I’ve only seen him like this a few times and those times he wasn’t this… outraged.

“Coop?” I say softly.

Icy blue eyes snap in my direction. The dark ring that outlines his gorgeous irises seems darker with his anger. His breathing is heavy, I can see his pulse fluttering in his throat, and his fists are clenched so tightly that his knuckles have gone white.

“Morgan, I need to—”

“Nope. Put me on speaker.”

I swallow and do as he says, putting the phone on speaker and setting it onto the coffee table. “Coop?”

My husband still stands there, looking like he’s on the verge of something.

In the next breath, he turns and punches the wall so hard that the sheetrock cracks beneath his knuckles.

He grits his teeth and does it again in the same spot, but it’s right by the door frame.

I know he’s punching the support beam. After the fourth punch, the light grey paint has red splotches decorating the new cracks as well.

“Baby, stop…” I finally stand and go to him, gripping his wrist to stop the progress.

He pulls back from me abruptly. “Don’t.”

It’s a warning, not that he’ll hurt me, but that he doesn’t want to accidentally do so when I try to comfort him.

“They fired me.”

He says the words so quietly that I probably wouldn’t have heard them if I’d stayed in my spot on the couch. I doubt Morgan could hear it from where the phone sits.

“Why?” I ask.

“Ask your father.” He seethes and walks past me, storming his way through the house. Thankfully Hannah sleeps like the dead unless she has a nightmare these days.

I hear the bathroom door slam with the same force that he’d slammed every other door up to that moment.

“Tegan? Talk to me.”

Morgan’s voice pulls my attention from the empty spot Cooper had vacated, and I realize what’s happened.

“Wayne followed through with his threat.”

The weight of it is breaking me as I speak, and I know I won’t be able to fix this.

I won’t be able to assure Cooper that we’ll find him another job. I will have to tell him this is my fault, because I finally pushed Wayne too far.

“He called me today and said he was going to kill himself… I told him to do it and had the cops go check on him after. It was a bluff, but I handled it wrong and he followed through with getting Cooper fired.”

My voice is hollow and monotone, like I’m reciting the periodic table in a chemistry class. “I promise, I’ll call you back. I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll be here waiting,” Morgan promises and ends the call.