CHAPTER 34
Dean
Dean satat his kitchen table with the notepad, pen clicking methodically in his hand. The apartment was too quiet, too clean. No Fiona humming while she graded papers. No stack of her library books growing precariously tall on the counter.
Just him and his guilt and a growing list of ways to make her life better from a distance.
Grocery delivery service - she hates shopping after work
Car maintenance - oil changes, tire rotations
School Open House next Thursday – help with setup?
He paused, pen hovering over the paper. How pathetic was this? Sitting here trying to solve his soon-to-be ex-wife's problems with money and logistics.
But he couldn't stop.
Because now—now that it was too late—he finally understood what being a husband actually meant. Not the performance version he'd been executing for two years. Not the photograph-ready date nights and expensive gifts designed to make other people envious.
Real partnership. Real protection. Real care.
If he had her—if he was living in an alternate reality where he hadn’t broken her heart irrevocably—he'd run her baths after difficult days. He'd defend her to his friends instead of serving her up as entertainment.
His friends. That was the real joke. Cam and Roxanne and their polished cruelty, their smug little smirks. None of them had reached out. Not when everything imploded. Not when he torched his job. Not even a “you okay?” text. Because they hadn’t been friends—they’d been spectators. Co-conspirators.
And the fact that he hadn’t seen that until it was too late? God, it made his stomach turn.
It just proved how badly he’d needed Fiona all along. Not just to soften him, not just to soothe him—but towakehim. If he couldn't have her in his arms, in his bed, then he needed her voice in his head. The clarity she carried. Her compass.
He didn’t have to guess anymore about what kind of man he wanted to be. He could just ask himself:What would Fiona respect? What would she be proud of?And then do that. Over and over. As long as it took.
Next oil change due in 3,000 miles,Winter tires - she always forgets
If he had her now, he’d love her the way she'd deserved to be loved all along.
But someone else would notice her. Someone would see how hard she worked, how much she cared about her students, how beautiful she was when she talked about things that mattered.
Someone would offer to take care of her.
Dean's stomach clenched.
Some guy would ask her out for coffee. Would hold her hand during movies. Would listen to her talk about her classroom with actual interest instead of mining it for content.
Someone who'd never heard of @shitfionasays. Someone who'd see her kindness as a gift instead of a weakness.
The pen cracked in his grip.
The idea of Fiona with someone else made him want to punch through glass.
Some other asshole would get to wake up next to her. Would get her sleepy morning voice and her terrible bedhead and the way she always stole covers. Would get to be the person she texted when something funny happened. Would get her trust, her vulnerability, her beautiful heart.
The heart Dean had taken and hadn’t protected.
He'd plannedto spend an hour brushing up on education jargon—just enough to write a polished copy deck for the school district website.
That had been three hours ago.
His screen was covered in tabs now. Articles about learning gaps. Teacher forums full of panicked threads about behavior plans and literacy benchmarks. A white paper from Stanford about cognitive load in 10-year-olds. Another about the trauma teachers absorb like sponges because no one else will.
