The Passion Play Read Online Free PDF Page A

her head in wonder as she heard her own words. “How can I even say that? How can I think about having sex with someone else? Dan broke up with me only this morning. There is something so wrong with me.”
    "Oh my God. A year ?" Caroline's eyes were wide with horror. "How did you survive? Why are you even still married? You can't go a whole year without having sex! How did this happen? How did you not leave him?"
    "Dan and I kept different schedules this last – oh, ages. He's too busy at work. He'd get home at two or three in the morning. I almost never saw him, and when he was home he was never in the mood. One only has to be turned down a few times before one decides he can make the moves when he's damned well ready."
    "Oh. My. God. That's not marriage. That's purgatory! I can't believe you didn't thump him," said Caroline, miming the action.
    "I'd never be violent," Felicity said, though she could not help picturing it.
    "Hell, honey, neither am I. But that's a special case if ever I saw it. What was the man thinking? A year. That's just unnatural. Okay, it's clear this is an emergency case. Get yourself some sex and just . . . don't do anything hasty about babies, will you?"
    "I'm not promising anything," she said darkly. "I am not feeling sensible. I feel like I want to break something." She picked up the day planner from the side table and threw it straight across the room. The leather-bound square hit one of the windows with a sharp crack and a web of lines appeared around the impact point. The clasp on the planner flew open and it fell to the floor and landed open in a crooked pyramid, two loose pages beside it.
    "Ooookay," said Caroline dubiously, her gaze flicking between the window and Felicity. "Possibly not the best state of mind to make life-altering decisions."
    "Do you ever get sick of being good? Do you ever get sick of following every rule till you just want to scream?"
    "Moderation is good. And giving yourself breathing space. You'll be ready for a relationship with time, and-"
    "I can't do marriage." Felicity buried her face in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. "I failed. I don't even kno w what I did wrong; when he made the decision, or even why. And now I'm thinking I was an idiot not to realize how empty it all was. When your husband says he's leaving and you realize you're happy to see the back of him, that's a wake-up call. I've refused to listen to my instincts. I chose a path and stuck to it even though it was wrong. I'm not an idiot. I just . . . doesn't everyone live with compromise? People don't turn out the way you thought they would. You don't know when you meet this great guy who's all charismatic and lovely that he picks his nose and tells lies. You don't know one day he's going to get over you and all the flowers and compliments will go away. And then he says 'we don't have long conversations because you never talk about anything interesting, Floss,' and he never has time for you because, 'you know work has to be a priority'. I mean, when does it cross the line? When do you go from acceptably civil to just plain worthless? But you stick at it. Marriage is supposed to be forever. When I made those promises I meant them."
    Caroline shuffled forward and rescued Felicity's tea bag from the cup of darkened water, put it on the saucer, then rested a hand on Felicity's knee. "I know you did. I know. You don't have to tell me."
    "He trained me." She was disgusted by the idea. "He used to say such nice things every time I did stuff for him. I was 'so loving' and 'so nurturing' and he adored how I took care of him. He called me his angel. Then after awhile all that stopped and it was like it was normal that I did everything."
    "You were like a maid. Every time Mark and I come over here and he watches you run around fetching stuff for Dan and tidying up after him he starts giving me these speculative looks like he's wondering how to get me to do that."
    "I don't even feel like a woman