“You can’t trust me because I can’t trust you.” I scream at Noah with tears in my eyes. His face grows stiff, and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. His shoulders begin to slump, and his palms reach to cushion his head. He closes his mouth and sits down at our kitchen table. He’s hurt. I’m hurt. Neither of us knows what to say anymore. “ Jesus Christ, how could we have let this happen? It’s us. How did we let it get this far?”

God, he’s so dumb, he says this as if he wasn’t the one who caused all of this. I miss when things were simple between us. I keep telling myself it was an accident; he couldn’t have purposefully killed someone and expect to plead not guilty for the rest of his life. All I can imagine is him in the driver’s seat of his car with my boss squished under his tire. He wanted me to keep quiet, not tell a soul about what happened, but I just can’t. My best friend wouldn’t have told anyone anyway. I have way too much on my conscience not to tell someone about what happened with my own husband. I was supposed to not tell a soul about what he did, but I just had to debrief with someone, Alli, my best friend, won’t tell anyone, Noah knows that. I get why he’s upset, but I am too.

I love him dearly, but Noah killed a man, whether it really was by accident or not. I’m trying to move on, accept it, and give him the benefit of the doubt, but I remember how angry he was the night he found out what my boss, David, had done. It’s hard for me to admit, but our relationship went downhill so fast from there.

In the grand scheme of things, he really can’t be that mad that I vented to my best friend about this; she’s not going to get him in trouble. I mean, he literally killed someone, of course, I’m gonna be overwhelmed! I’ve been bending over backwards to try to be understanding about it because I know the only reason he could’ve done it was to protect me, that’s if it wasn’t an accident. I keep trying to convince myself it wasn’t a purposeful murder, but it’s just not going well. He says that he just didn’t see David trying to cross the road. In Noah’s defense, David wasn’t using a crosswalk. He claims that the sun was too bright and he could barely see the road. I just don’t know how believable that really is.

The trauma from that night is just so unbearable. In addition to how internally destroyed I am from David’s actions that night alone in his office, now I have to deal with Noah’s crap? I don’t understand how he could lay this much more emotional distress on me at my literal lowest point in life. I feel disgusting because of what David did to me.

Can’t he just TRY to be understanding?

“Noah, I just need you to be straight up with me, is there any possible way that this was subconsciously on purpose? I just need to know if you intentionally killed this man.

For my sake and the sake of this relationship, cut the crap and tell me what really happened.”

He slams his fist down on the table abruptly. I gasped and for a second I swear my heart stopped. He sighed in defeat. “I just can’t, I can’t because I don’t know. Knowing what David did, it messed me up, I can’t think straight. I didn’t go out of my way to do it, I swear. I just know that maybe I didn’t try as hard as possible to step on the breaks when I realized who it was. I’m so sorry.”

The silence was deafening. I felt so many different emotions: confusion, disbelief, shock, acceptance, but mostly I felt as though a weight was lifting off my shoulders and the answer was finally clear. It wasn’t on purpose, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t guilty.

That was the day that I turned cold. Was I worse than he was? My husband was protecting me. He did it for my sake; he just wanted me to feel safe and didn’t want anyone, especially David, to make me uncomfortable. But how could he just kill someone? Was I really living with a murderer for years? Did he even feel remorse? It’s too late in my mind. My decision has been made. If he leaves, just maybe the part of me that David soiled will leave as well. I have to look at this as a fresh start; otherwise, I just don’t know how to move forward.

I walked myself to the station the next day. I told the cops everything. They already knew Noah was driving the vehicle, but he was pleading not guilty, and that just wasn’t okay. Noah killed him. The police interviewed me on everything I knew, and I told them. It was time to get out. Get away from it all. After a couple of more errands, I returned to the house where he soon wouldn’t be. I placed divorce documents and the bill of sale for the house on the table. Then I made him sign. I ignored his desperate pleas for forgiveness, but he had already lost me. I can’t be with a man who can justify killing someone. I sat at the kitchen table in silence as he yelled about not wanting to sign

That’s when the room slowly began lighting up with blue and red lights. I held my pepper spray ready to use in the pocket of my jacket as I watched his realization of my betrayal set in on his face. He’s fully panicking at this point, yelling and cursing my name in the most ungodly way, but the sirens drowned out most of his noise. I was used to his yelling; he was a short-tempered man, and though he never was physically abusive, on occasion, his words were very harshly worded. He began to beg on his knees at my feet as the police banged and shouted at the door. He prayed for my forgiveness and told me it was all out of love for me.

I can handle myself. He should’ve talked to me before killing someone. It’s not like I would’ve told him it’s okay, but maybe I could’ve helped him deal with his emotions the same way I was dealing with mine. It’s far too late for what-ifs now, though.

I get up, walk to the door, and let them in.