Broken Strings

iii.

iii.

Nathan and I didn't stay long after the wedding. We passed our well wishes onto the couple at the reception and left immediately after. There wasn't much point for us to stay after we'd paid our respects anyway, especially with Rhys looming over.

The ride home was spent in complete silence. Nathan sat beside me, rubbing his temples intently. Every encounter with Rhys was always like fighting a war, it took all the energy out of both of us. Him, because dealing with Rhys was an exhausting endeavor. Me, because I was wrung tightly from fear that he might lash out his anger at me.

"Your birthday's coming up, if I remember right." He broke the silence. "Is there anything you want?"

I knit my eyebrows in surprise. This was the last thing I expected him to say.

"No, it's okay."

This would be the first birthday I'd spend with him. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do. In the past, I loved celebrating birthdays, or really any excuse to party and have a good time. But after I married Nathan, I seemingly lost all my friends. Or maybe I unintentionally distanced myself from them. Either way, I had no one I wanted to celebrate with anymore.

"24's a good age. We should celebrate."

I looked out the window without replying. 24 wasn't a special age. It's not 18 or 21. I didn't understand what he was saying.

He stopped pushing the topic with my unresponsiveness. When we got home, I immediately kicked off my heels and unzipped my dress. The heels of my feet were red and sore, I couldn't wait to lie down in bed and sleep.

As I took off my makeup, Nathan walked into the bathroom behind me.

"I forgot to tell you, I'm leaving tomorrow for New York. I'll be back in two days."

I nodded in acknowledgement. In my experience, he's goes on business trips every month. They don't last long—often two or three days only. Sometimes they'll last a week, but rarely. I didn't really understand why he went on trips so frequently.

Nathan founded his own private wealth management firm a few years ago. It's a tough business, especially in the face of giants like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which is why he spends so much time engaging with clients and building a base. It's also why Rhys gives him so much shit for "begging for scraps at the hands of others." The Walker family made their wealth on developing real estate, and so to Rhys, the service industry is a pathetic endeavor. Though I don't know much about finance or business, to my knowledge, working in wealth management doesn't require traveling often, at least not as often as Nathan does. Especially as a founding partner. If anything, the dirty work should be left to the employees down the corporate ladder at his firm.

But there were buttons in our marriage that we didn't push, forbidden areas we didn't discuss. Like our family, and Nathan's work. Not that I cared enough to ask anyway.

The next morning, I woke up to an empty space next to me. The sheets were already cold, meaning he left hours ago. I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water before going to the bathroom and cleaning myself up. I relished in the precious days that I got to spend alone without Nathan. Being next to him was like being with a ticking time bomb. I always have to put up an exhausting act, pretending to be the perfect wife that I'm clearly not cut out to be.

I looked into my eyes in the mirror, and smiled softly.

Afterwards, as I was sitting down at the dining table eating breakfast, my phone started ringing. I took a sip of coffee and looked down at the screen. The called ID read Phillip Walker. It didn't come as a complete surprise for Nathan's dad to call me. He did so every once in a while and manages to keep up with me. I've asked Eliza about this and she says he does the same with her. In the past six months, I've gotten to know Phillip—or "dad," as he instructs me to call him—a good amount. You'd think he'd be a stern, unrelenting businessman with the empire he's built and the two sons he has, but he's actually quite a kind old man. Eliza says he's her favorite man in the Walker family. I agree with her on that. I can't imagine how a man like him has sons like Rhys and Nathan.