Sundays have become my least favorite day. It's not just the endless sense of counting down, but it's also Ash's demeanor after he returns from Toby and Flora's house. I don't know if he comes face-to-face with Imogen every week—I can't bring myself to ask—but the shadow of her lurks over him when he returns.

This week when Ash gets home from football, we're swept into our regular biweekly routine. Tejinder and Diya come for dinner with their significant others. Diya has her flavor of the week, and Tejinder is still with the same woman from Christmas, but there's something missing between them. Ash thinks Tejinder is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. He wants a relationship so badly that he'll take anything that seems like a close approximation. In the past, I've been him. Accepted people in my life who weren't a good fit in some ways because they were good in others. Hoped it was enough.

Then I stopped accepting anyone.

Until Ash.

The dishes are done, and Ash is still putting the kids down while I sip a glass of the leftover wine from dinner. We often take turns reading them books and putting them to bed now while the other either cleans or tidies the house. The house is never as clean or tidy as I want it, but I've come to accept that two children are each their own natural disaster, spewing chaos wherever they go.

When Ash joins me in the living room, he has a glass of water, which isn't like him. At some point, we became the kind of couple that unwinds at the end of each day with exactly one alcoholic drink each. Granted, we both had wine with dinner, but he almost always follows it with a beer.

"No drink?" I ask.

"Have you heard anything from your company about whether you're staying on?" He glances at me before setting his water on the coffee table in front of us.

My heart pounds because there's nothing casual about the way he asked. There's so much weight behind the question that I'm surprised by the heaviness.

"HR mentioned on Friday that they definitely need me until the end of April. An extra month for sure." I set my wine beside his water, deciding that I need every brain cell to navigate whatever is coming.

He leans forward and runs his hand along the back of his neck. There's a tension in him that's either new or I missed it in the hustle and bustle when he got back from football.

"Just an extra month?"

"So far, yeah."

"Do you expect there will be more?" He shifts on the couch to face me, but he doesn't quite meet my eyes.

"What's going on, Ash?" It's the perfect opportunity to tell him about the potential competing offers from Michigan and here, but since I don't have both of them in front of me, the one from the UK might not even be worth mentioning. If I mention Michigan, I might as well get out a hammer and nail the coffin of us shut. That's the feeling I'm getting right now—that we're on the verge of being buried.

"Imogen and Toby were on me about a few things while I was there today."

"Okay." I stretch out the word, unsure whether I really want to ask. Since I also talked to Toby, I don't need a blow-by-blow about what he'd be preaching. Leave Paige. Get back together with Imogen.

"I'm feeling a bit conflicted about what's best for Chloe." His gaze meets mine briefly before flying away again.

There's a lump in my throat, and I can't speak for a minute. He doesn't elaborate, and I realize he's going to make me ask. "What do you want?"

"Don't know what I want." His voice is gruff.

But he says it in such a way that I think he does know, and the real problem is that he doesn't know how to tell me. That's fine. I won't make him. Truthfully, I am not sure I could stand to hear it anyway. He's been so honest up to this point that it's hard to fault him for trying to protect my feelings. It must be obvious, maybe painfully so, that I'm in this much deeper than him.

"What's best for Chloe. It's constantly playing in my mind. I don't want to go back to how things were when I was on my own."

Me too, but likely for very different reasons. The last few months, it's felt like I've had a partner. A second parent. We slipped seamlessly into something I didn't even know I still wanted, still longed to have. My chest aches with the knowledge that I'm losing it. Watching it slip through my fingers.

"Imogen asked," he swallows, "Imogen asked if we could try again."

Tears prick at the back of my eyes, and I will them not to materialize. I just need to hold it together long enough to get out of this conversation. For weeks I've listened to anything and everything he's wanted to tell me about her or about the relationship they had before. It wasn't easy to hear, but it felt like the right thing to do, and considering how tight lipped he'd been about her, I was honored he trusted me, confided in me. A new level of closeness, I thought.

"You have to..." I pretend to search for the words when I'm really trying desperately not to cry. "Do whatever you need to do for you and Chloe. Whatever that is—I'll support you."

"Paige." His voice cracks, and when I look at him, there are tears in his eyes.

I can't. I can't sit here and not cry with him, and so I drag him into a hug, and I press him tight to me.

"It's okay," I whisper. "It'll be okay." I give him one last squeeze, and I get off the couch without making eye contact. "I think I'd like to be alone tonight, if that's okay."

"Paige," Ash says, and there's so much anguish in his voice.

"No, it's fine. It'll be fine. I just—" I shake my head, and I take the stairs two at a time. I can hear Ash behind me, but I can't face him. I'll beg him not to pick her, and it'll embarrass us both.

I'm in my bedroom with the door locked before he can reach me.

"Paige," he pleads through the door.

"It's okay," I say, but my voice is thick. "I just need some sleep. Everything will be fine in the morning."

"I shouldn't have said anything," Ash says, and he's so close but so far.

I try to clear my throat, but the lump is thick, and I can't speak around it. Streaks of anxiety are spiraling out from my chest at the thought of facing him tomorrow and pretending I'm not crushed by the thought of him going back to her.

"It's just all so fucked up," he whispers. "Will you let me in?"

"I'm tired," I croak out.

"Paige, I didn't say that to hurt you—I—I wasn't thinking. I'm so used to being able to tell you everything..."

"No," I say, and I worry it sounds more like a gasp. "I'm glad you told me."

And I am, because at least I know what's coming. Maybe he's conflicted right now, but he won't be for long. They spent ten years together. Of course the idea of getting back together would be appealing. I've known this was a possibility since he told me she wasn't someone he'd speak about that first day in the kitchen. It was clear his emotions ran deep. For him, she's the one. And for me, he is. Bad luck. Bad timing. But not unexpected.

I hear him move away from the door, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But it's quickly followed by a torrent of grief that explodes across my chest. I cup a hand over my mouth to keep my sob from spilling out, and I go to the far side of the room, as far from the door as I can.

Easing to the floor, I take my phone from my pocket, and I dial Gwen's number. She answers on the first ring.

"Oh, my God. I'm so glad you called," she says before I can say anything. "You must be psychic. I just got fired!"

"Gwen." Her name is garbled, and then the sob I've been holding in rips out of me.

"Paige! Oh, no. What's going on? Is Joey okay?"

"Ash." I manage to get his name out.

"Something happened to Ash?"

I press my palm into my chest, trying to calm the heart wrenching sobs that just won't stop coming. "Im—Im—Imogen."

"Oh, fuck," Gwen says. "Well, the good news is that I just got fired. I've got nothing to do tomorrow other than fly standby to England to cut off Ash's balls."

Her reaction is so unexpected that my sob turns into a half laugh.

"We'll pick up the pieces together, Paigey. And I'll stay as long as you need."

Then, instead of hanging up, she stays on the phone, and she listens to me cry. She doesn't tell me it'll be okay or that there's another guy out there somewhere for me. She just listens, and it's the best gift she's ever given me.

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