“Okay… What is it?”
“One last family trip. Before I make any calls, before I fill out any paperwork, I want to take the boys somewhere nice. Somewhere they’ll remember. Just the four of us.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes.
“One last family trip.”
“Okay, fine. But I’m not paying for it, okay?”
“I’ll pay for it myself.”
That answer seemed to satisfy him.
He nodded, running a hand through his hair.
“Fine. Fine, that’s fair. Where do you want to go?”
“The state fair. They’ve got that pop-up theme park this weekend.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I guess I can put up with that for a while. But we’ll keep it short, right?”
“Sure.”
He stepped closer, cupping my face with a tenderness that made my skin crawl.
“I knew you’d see reason. This is the right call. We can start our real life after this, just you and me.”
“Just you and me,” I echoed.
A tenderness that made my skin crawl.
“I love you. You know that, right? This isn’t personal. It’s just… practical.”
“I know exactly what it is, Elliot.”
He kissed my forehead, oblivious to the ice in my voice.
He smirked, thinking he had won.
He was entirely blind to the trap I had just laid at his feet.
***
The car ride to the state fair felt endless.
He smirked, thinking he had won.
Elliot gripped the steering wheel with tight fingers.
He sighed every few minutes like the whole trip was a personal insult.
In the back seat, the twins whispered to each other about roller coasters and cotton candy.
“Are we almost there?” one of them asked, bouncing in his booster seat.
“Almost, buddy,” I said, turning to squeeze his little hand.
Elliot rolled his eyes.
“Are we almost there?”
“Can you tell them to keep it down? I have a headache.”
I bit my tongue and smiled at my brothers instead.
***
When we finally pulled into the fairground parking lot, the boys practically leapt out of the car.
Bright lights blinked against the afternoon sky.
The smell of popcorn drifted through the warm air.
Elliot walked three steps behind us the entire time, scrolling on his phone.
I bit my tongue
“Elliot, come look at this,” I said, pointing toward a spinning ride. “The boys want to try it.”
He barely glanced up.
“You handle it. That’s kind of the whole point today, isn’t it? Last hurrah before you fix this mess.”
I let the word “mess” sit in my chest like a stone.
“You’re right. Today is about fixing things.”
He didn’t catch the shift in my voice.
“You’re right. Today is about fixing things.”
For the next hour, I rode the carousel with the twins.
I bought them matching light-up wands, and let them share a giant funnel cake.
Every time I laughed with them, Elliot checked his watch.
“How much longer?” he muttered. “I have plans tonight.”
“Not much longer,” I promised.
As we wandered past a row of colorful game booths, a cheerful voice called out to us.
“Not much longer,”
“Hey there, beautiful family! Come get a picture. First one’s on the house today.”
The photo booth operator waved a bright pink flag, gesturing toward a backdrop covered in painted sunflowers.
The twins tugged at my sleeves immediately.
“Picture! Picture!”
Elliot scoffed and waved her off without even looking.
“Hey there, beautiful family! Come get a picture.”
