Free Leaving Amy (Amy #2) by Julieann Dove

they need a pretty good reason to go in the trash. A frayed back, permanent scuffs that can’t be shaded with a Sharpie, or just overly worn-looking. I’ll still wear them if they look new but wear slightly on my piggy toe!
    I put the phone down and took a deep breath of the steam from my hot shower. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I caught a glimpse of something moving in the foggy mirror behind me. I turned and noticed the door to the bathroom was swung open. I let out a tiny scream and hugged my towel close to my body as if a vortex of wind was threatening to suck it off. It was Wesley. He’d come inside without knocking first.
    “Wesley, I’m still in here. Give me a few minutes, will ya?”
    He stood there, transfixed in a weird position: head cocked to the side, his eyes opening and closing with the speed of a robotic twitch, and one hand still on the doorknob.
    “Well, are you going to let me finish?” I asked, hoping something would snap him from his brain fart. Certainly he knew where he was, didn ’ t he? Did that car accident do permanent damage or what?
    He began and stopped, clearing his throat. “I…um…I just wanted to…”
    I stretched out my neck, waiting for it to come stammering out of his mouth. Wanted to what?
    “Amy, why couldn’t I ever just come into the bathroom when you were in the shower?”
    What?! Was he serious? Because I was naked, of course.
    “What are you talking about, Wesley? Why would you come in while I was in the shower? What was so important that it couldn’t wait until I was finished?”
    “No, you’re missing the point. Why weren’t you ever comfortable with me seeing you?”
    Okay, where was this coming from? I stood straighter, ready to defend my prudish response. “I don’t know. I’m just modest, I guess. Why is this coming up now?”
    “It’s just like when we were talking earlier about things I wanted to do but never told you. And how that and more stuff is probably why we never…I mean why we weren’t happy.”
    “So our marriage would’ve been saved if you could’ve walked in while I was taking a shower?”
    His hand dropped off the knob and he stepped closer to me. “It’s that there was no intimacy with us, I felt. I’m the type who likes to walk naked around the house, you know that.”
    He didn’t have to convince me there. I was witness to that firsthand. Me, trying not to stare at things while he chugged from a milk carton in front of the refrigerator. Or that time I found him checking the circuit breakers in the basement with a flashlight because my stupid hairdryer made the bathroom current go out. I mean, wasn’t he scared someone might see him while peeking in the windows, or an ax might fall from the overhead utility shelves and cut it off?
    “I know you feel comfortable in the buff, but I don’t.” I clutched tight to my towel. I hoped I didn’t have white knuckles.
    He took two more steps toward me in this tiny bathroom all of ten spaces wide. I waited with a blank stare. What did he think this was going to accomplish?
    One more step and he was there. In my personal space. I could feel his warm breath on my face. He took his right hand and caressed my cheek. “All I’m saying, Amy, is that I wanted that type of intimacy with you. I wanted you to feel comfortable. To know that I would’ve felt closer to you than I already felt.”
    “Did what’s her name invite you into the shower with her? Did you all have that type of intimacy?”
    I know, I know. That was pretty much all it took to take the air out of this little Dr. Phil chat and bring it around to what a cheater he was. I had an intimacy problem? He had a fidelity problem.
    His eyes closed slowly while his jaw clenched. “Are we going to be able to ever get past her?”
    “I was just curious. Did you or did you not take showers together? Was she running around the house or apartment ironing clothes and cooking dinner in nothing but her birthday suit?” The