Wait for the Rain Read Online Free Page A

Wait for the Rain
Book: Wait for the Rain Read Online Free
Author: Maria Murnane
Pages:
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true feelings like this.
    Skylar sipped her drink. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m still getting used to the fact that things didn’t work out between you two. The way he approached you at that wine bar that first nigh t . . . I gues s . . . I really thought it was going to stick.”
    Daphne felt a stabbing sensation in her chest at the still-vivid memory of that first encounter with Brian, at what it represented, and suddenly she felt like she might cry. She wasn’t prepared to deal with her emotions right now.
    Please don’t cry. Don’t let her see what a mess you are.
    She forced a smile that she hoped seemed genuine.“I’m doing fine, really.”
    “How long has it been since you called it quits?” Skylar asked.
    “A little more than two years. The divorce took a while to get sorted out, but that’s final now.”
    “So you jus t . . . grew apart?” The look in Skylar’s eyes suggested she wanted to deepen the conversation. Both Skylar and KC had reached out by phone multiple times over the years, but Daphne almost always replied by e-mail, unwilling—or unable—to open up to her friends about her crumbling marriage, about the effect it was having on her. When she’d broken the news that she and Brian were parting ways, she’d made it clear that infidelity hadn’t played a role, but she hadn’t shared much more than that, not wanting to confess that they’d been unhappy for years.
    Now Skylar was knocking on the door once again, but Daphne couldn’t bring herself to open it. She was too afraid her stylish, successful friend would feel sorry for her, and she felt sorry enough for herself.
    “Pretty much,” she said with a shrug. That’s all she’d really told anyone about the reason for the split. And it was tru e . . . in a sense. What Daphne hadn’t been able to articulate—or admit—was that the main reason she and Brian had drifted apart was because neither of them was ever going to be the person the other needed for the marriage to work.
    Brian was meant to be with a woman who was perfectly content being a wife and stay-at-home mom, one who dreamed about nothing beyond the white picket fence, one who didn’t need anything else to be completely fulfilled. While Daphne loved being a mother and did want the white picket fence, she also wanted more than that. She needed a partner who wanted to share the caregiver role with her, one who supported her ambitious side, one who encouraged her to pursue the budding career she’d put on hold to have Emma.
    It was a mismatch from the beginning, but at the time Daphne was too young, too naïve, too blind, to see it.
    And now it was too late.
    How had she wasted all those years, given up so much?
    For what?
    Her mind turned back to the cold, rainy Friday night when she and Brian had finally decided to pull the plug. Emma was sleeping over at a friend’s house, so Daphne had made a reservation for two at their favorite restaurant, hoping an evening out together might rekindle the spark between them, might help them rediscover the connection that had been gone for so long that she could no longer remember what it felt like. Not that she and Brian ever fought that much. They bickered on occasion as every couple does, but for the most part they got along fairly well. The fundamental difference between them was deeper than either of them wanted to admit, so almost without realizing what they were doing, they centered their relationship around the one thing they both cherished: their child. They continued to communicate about the day-to-day logistics of running the household, an approach that let them keep their family intact without acknowledging that something between them was dying.
    Until that rainy night.
    Midway through dinner, after yet another conversation focused nearly entirely on Emma, Brian had looked up from his pasta, a weariness in his eyes, and said, “What are we doing, Daph?”
    She had no response, because she didn’t know either.
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