Free After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I let it go. That answer was good with me. I certainly don’t want any of this in writing.
    I told Ryan last night that I didn’t want to be here to see him leave. He agreed that it might be best if I left for the weekend and gave him his space to move out as he wished. “The last thing I need is you critiquing the way I pack my toothbrush,” Ryan told me. His voice was jovial, but his words were sincere. I could feel the tension and resentment underneath. The smile on his face was the sort of smile car salesmen have, pretending everybody’s having a good time when, really, you’re at war.
    I pick up my deodorant and my face wash. I pick up only the most necessary pieces for my makeup bag. I grab my toothbrush and put it in my travel case, snapping the toothbrush cap over the bristles so they won’t get dirty. Ryan usually stuffs his in a plastic bag. He is right to be defensive about the way he packs toothbrushes. He does it wrong. I put all of it in my bag and zip it up. For better or worse, I am ready to go.
    My plan is to drive straight to Rachel’s house. Rachel knows that things with Ryan and me aren’t going well. She has noticed how tense I’ve been. She has noticed how often I criticize him, how rarely I have anything nice to say. But I have been insisting that things were fine. I don’t know why I’ve had such a hard time admitting it to her. I think, in some ways, I hid it because I knew telling Rachel made it real. I had already told Mila about all of this. The tension, the fighting, the loss of love, the plan to separate. For some reason, in my mind, Mila could know, and that didn’t seem tantamount to carving it in stone. But with Rachel, it would be official. A witness. I can’t turn around and pretend it never happened. Maybe that’s the difference between a friend and a sister: a friend can just listen to your problems in the present, but your sister remembers and reminds you of everything in the past. Or maybe it’s not a difference between friends and sisters. Maybe it’s the difference between Mila and Rachel.
    But this really is happening. The moving truck is coming. And if I am going to deal with this, I need Rachel. Rachel, who will hold my hand and tell me it is going to be OK. Rachel, who will believe in me. I have to admit to her that my marriage is failing. That I am failing. That I am not the successful and together older sister I have been pretending to be. That I am no longer the one with her shit together.
    I find Ryan in the bedroom, grabbing boxes of clothes. We have already split up the furniture. We are both going to have to go shopping on our own. I now need a new TV. Ryan is going to need pots and pans. What had seemed like a whole is now two halves.
    “OK,” I say. “I’m going to go and leave you to it.” Ryan has friends coming over to help. He doesn’t need me.
    He doesn’t need me.
    “OK,” he says, looking into the closet. Our closet. My closet. He finally looks up at me, and I can see he has been crying. He breathes in and out, trying to control himself, trying to take control of his feelings. Suddenly, my heart swells and overtakes me. I can’t leave him like this. I can’t. I can’t leave him in pain.
    He does need me.
    I run to him. I put my arms around him. I let him bury his face in me. I hold him as he lets it out, and then I say, “You know what? This is stupid. I’m going to stay.” This whole idea has been far-fetched and absurd. We just needed a wake-up call. And this is the wake-up call. This is what we needed to see how foolish we’ve been. Of course, we love each other! We always have. We just forgot for a little while but we are going to be OK now. We have pushed ourselves to the brink and learned our lesson. We don’t have to go through with this. It is over. We can end this strange experiment right here and go back to the way things were. Marriages aren’t all roses and sunshine. We know that. This was silly. “Forget this,” I