Free UnRaveled by K. Bromberg

truths I’m finally ready to face. To accept.
    This man is my everything .
    He has been for so long, how in the hell could I think of wanting anyone else? Sure sex might be a little boring sometimes, it might be predictable or scheduled to minimize the off chance of being interrupted by the boys, but is that really on him? Is the rut we’ve fallen into all his fault?
    I’ve become complacent. I’ve taken his place beside me for granted. Aren’t I just as much to blame for this as he is? Haven’t I stopped putting our marriage first just as he has too?
    “Lil, answer me! You’re scaring the shit out of me!” The urgency and fear in his voice comes through the connection loud and clear, jolting me from my thoughts. I can visualize him pacing in front of his desk, one hand on the phone, the other shoving through his hair.
    “I’m okay,” I manage. “I’m okay.” I suck in a breath and will myself to calm down because I can’t answer the questions he’s going to ask, and the more composed I am, the less insistent he’ll be for a response.
    “What’s going on?” His voice softens some but concern is still prominent.
    “I just—I just miss you.” I hiccup the words, biting my knuckles to prevent another sob from falling out as the die is cast.
    I can’t tell him.
    I know I’m sealing my fate to Hell by lying, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t shatter that innate male instinct he has to protect me. I’m okay. I’m unharmed. The damage done to me is far less than what it would do to him. He would never look at me the same. His empathy—one of the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place—would lead him to coddle and handle me with kid gloves. The fact that everything happened—he’d look at it as a failure as a man, as a husband to protect me—would gnaw at him until he self-destructed.
    Do I destroy the man I love to assuage my own guilt?
    “Hun, you okay? Why are you crying?”
    His words break through my thoughts. The tone of his voice almost shatters my resolve. The confession is on my tongue, but I close my eyes and force a swallow. Internalize my own pain to prevent his.
    “Nothing. I just got sick and … and I can’t wait to come home. I miss you, the boys … home.” I press my thumb over the speaker on the phone so he can’t hear the telling sound of my hitching breath.
    “Are you sure, Lil? You don’t sound good.” I’m silent. I don’t trust my voice just yet. “I’m flying out there.”
    “No!” The words are out of my mouth, his declaration causing mine. A desperate plea. My epiphany so simple yet so daunting all at the same time. He can’t come see me because I need today and the next to compose myself, to absorb everything that happened, heal some of the physical marks, figure how to cope with the emotional reminders. To allow me the time to accept this experience has changed me and figure out the words to tell him I need a little more out of our sex life: experimenting, dominance, variation. To be able to express our marriage or him being enough for me isn’t the problem, no, but my need for him to give me something more in the bedroom is.
    The answer I need to figure out though is, will that admission hurt him as much as me telling him about the rape? Blindside him when he thought we were happy and I’m far from it? Make him feel inadequate?
    “I’ll be fine. I’m going to change my flight to tomorrow sometime and come home early.” I unfist my hands gripping the comforter and hold my breath waiting for his response.
    “Lil, I don’t like—”
    “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” I stumble over the words, but I’m not sure if I’m trying to reassure him or me. “I’ve already looked at flights … I was just picking up the phone to call you and tell you.”
    One lie upon another.
    What a tangled web we weave .
    “Lil …” His voice trails off, the unasked question falling into its silence.
    I worry my bottom lip between my teeth and