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“Please don’t eht,” Penn said as he fixed his tie for the fiftieth tiht

The wallpaper of our hoarette smoke and broken promises My husband had broken some promises, and I’d shattered a few all oninto weeks that morphed into months and years of broken promises? The words “I do” came with fine print no one ever truly read We scrolled past the terree” box at the end, not knowing about the hidden consequences ere signing up for

I’d failed my vows, but he had failed his, too

Promises, promises, so many broken promises

That night, I promised him I wouldn’t tear up in front of his coworkers and clients during his real estate coreat opportunity for Penn to wine and dine very wealthy individuals ere in search of large properties The sht, the better chance Penn had at building his connections with his clients He didn’t want to bring

I pro up our past, either I wasn’t intending to break ht I tookexercises I only closed h the intersections on the car ride to the event When ere on the freeway, I was fine Normal, even—well, my kind of normal

My promises were intact

Everything was perfect, as perfect as it could’ve been, givenMarybeth—leaned in towardour meal There were five couples at our table, which included Penn’s work colleague, Marybeth The others were potential clients of Penn’s that orth ine

I wished I could’ve been more like Marybeth She was perfect The perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect realtor She smelled like Chanel No 5, and her neck dripped in diarin with their lips sealed tight because they knew they couldn’t match the level ofthat Marybeth’s s I’d drea

There used to be a time in my life when I loved myself so much that I never envied another woman’s life

What happened to ths escape my body?

Perfect Marybeth touched htly and suing tattoo, Kennedy What does it stand for?”

Right at that moment, the promise I’d made to Penn dissolved First, it was a crack in the corners of my promise, and then all the pieces shattered

“It’s…my…” I breathed in a sharply breath as I turned to see Penn staring at me so intensely I saw it in his blue stare—the disappointns ofaway My body trembled, my voice cracked, and every breath of air felt labored “It’s…well…”

I looked down at the tattoo upon my skin: a daisy with a backward D in the middle of the flower

“My… It’s…” I sed the tight breath sitting into break free, and I hated that I was about to let them fall “It’s for my parents and my…” I openedDon’t, but I couldn’t start and not finish the conversation “Our daughter The backward D is for our daughter”