Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan

been killing me inside, and I don’t want to die like this. This is why I want a divorce. Even though I still love you.”
    He looks at me as if I’ve said the unthinkable. I see his eyes begin to glisten and now they’re a glassy red. Tears fall from his eyes. I’ve never seen Isaac cry in all the years I’ve known him. “Well,” he says, dusting his face dry. “Okay.” He stands up. “That’s ten for the home team.”
    “Well, you asked.”
    “That I did. I will say this, Savannah. I wish I could still love you, because you’ve been the one constant in my life. You’ve been my anchor. But you didn’t hold on to me. Your grip loosened except when it came to things you wanted me to do. Things I suppose made you value me. It was basically all the stuff I could do that you seemed more excited about. Not what was inside me. You seemed to think I was what I did but it wasn’t true, and you never bothered to look any further than the surface. That’s why I started drifting away from you. It’s how I ended up here.”
    “Which is where?”
    “I’ve met someone who does look inside and likes what she sees, and she understands me.”
    “Did you meet her with her clothes on or off?”
    “That’s not even cool, Savannah.”
    “Was she swinging on a rope or slithering around a fucking pole? Did she dry-fuck you or maybe you met her in a brand-new online church?”
    “Does it really matter where I met her?”
    “Yes, it does matter. What matters more is how long have you been seeing the bitch?”
    “She’s not a bitch. And how long I’ve been seeing her is not important right now.”
    I walk over to him. “It is important, Isaac. It’s very important. It means if you’ve been sleeping with me and fucking her at the same time I want to know how long you’ve been doubling your pleasure, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch!” I push him but not hard enough for him to lose his balance.
    “About a year. Does that make you feel better?” He looks down at me like he’s getting some kind of sick pleasure telling me this.
    With all my might I ball up my fist, charge toward him and sock him in the nose. It feels like I might have broken my hand, but I pretend not to feel any pain. When he grabs me by the wrist, I see a drop of blood trickling from his right nostril. It gives me instant pleasure. Now I know how love can make you violent. “You lying sneaky bastard!”
    “Take it easy, Savannah.” He walks into the kitchen and gets a paper towel.
    I stand here waiting for the bell to announce the next round but the only sound I hear is ringing in my ears. I cannot believe my boring husband of ten years just had the nerve to say he still loves me but he’s not in love with me anymore—which really is a nice way of saying he doesn’t love me and he’s found it somewhere else with somebody else. “Did you see her in Vegas?”
    He takes a few baby steps but keeps his distance while he thinks about this for a second and then says, “Yes, I did.”
    “Then why did you keep hounding me about coming?”
    “Because I knew you wouldn’t.”
    “What if I had said yes, Isaac, I’ll come with you or I’ll meet you there?” Now these stupid tears are calling the shots, and as much as I don’t want them to appear anywhere on my face, they are rolling down my cheeks, so now I head for the kitchen to get a paper towel of my own, and he takes a giant step to the side to make room for me to pass.
    “You’re too hung up in your world to come into mine. I knew you wouldn’t change your mind.”
    “So why’d you bother asking me?” I wipe my eyes dry. Since they’re feeling the same anger as the rest of me, most likely there will be no more tears.
    “Because I was hoping if you had an inch of respect left for me then you would try to show it. And if you did, then it would’ve or could’ve possibly started to restore some of my love for you. It’s not gone, Savannah. It’s just been put on ice.”
    “I want you to