Page 2 of The Wrong Husband

Phoenix

“I don’t love you.”

The words land like a scalpel in the silence. I look straight into Drew’s face, watching the flicker in his eyes. “I care about you… But it’s like chronic inflammation—persistent, dull, the kind that simmers under the surface. Not the kind that stops your heart and leaves you gasping. Not the kind of passion I’m looking for.”

He winces. “Are you—breaking up with me?”

Sweat pools at my neck, sliding down my back. My heart pounds. I press a hand to my stomach, trying to hold it together.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Everything happened so fast, and it was easier to just go along with it. You were familiar. I didn’t stop to ask myself what I really wanted.”

All true. I’m doing the right thing. Doesn’t mean it makes me feel less horrible.

“What brought this on?” he rasps. “I thought we were okay.”

I breathe out a humorless laugh. “When was the last time we actually spent an evening together?”

He blinks, clearly scrambling for an answer.

“I’ll tell you—we haven’t. Not in six months. We work opposite shifts. We barely text, let alone talk. We’ve become strangers. It’s time we face the facts, Drew. I need more from a relationship.Youneed more.”

“I’m happy as we are.” He sets his jaw.

“I don't believe you. And anyway, I’m not. I want the kind of love that knocks the breath out of me. Consumes me. I want to crave my man like oxygen—need to hear his voice just to function, ache for him when he’s not beside me. I want to wake up and fall asleep with him on my mind, every single day. I want a love that makes me feelalive.”

He scoffs, “That kind of love doesn’t exist.”

Tension coils at the base of my neck.Maybe it doesn’t, for him.But I have to believe it does. Because if it doesn’t, then what’s the point of the endless ER shifts? Of leaving home at eighteen to build a future I could be proud of?

What am I working so hard for, if not for something more?

“Maybe.” I turn away. “But if I shut myself off from it, I’ll never know.”

“You need to stop reading those delusional books that fill your head with nonsense,” he snaps.

He means my books on manifestation. On choosing your future. On believing you deserve more.

“At least, I’m brave enough to face the truth,” I say, curling my fingers into fists.

“And what truth is that?”

“That we were never meant to be anything more than friends.”

He sets his jaw.

I take a shaky breath. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Drew. That’s why I couldn’t say it before. But the longer we pretend, the harder it gets. I know what I want. And it’s not this. That’s why we need to end it—before we both get pulled deeper into something that was never real.”

"NowI get it,” he spits, his eyes flashing with venom. “You never wanted me to meet your family because, deep down, you always knew you were going to break up with me.”

He spins on his heel and storms toward the back door.

“Drew, wait—where are you going?” I chase after him, stepping out onto the patio, the early morning air biting against my skin.

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even glance back. Just keeps striding toward his bike, like he can outrun the mess we’ve become.

“Drew,” I try again, voice tight, “you shouldn’t ride when you’re this angry.”

That stops him. For a second.