My Husband Insisted on Sleeping in a Separate Hotel Room on Our 20th Anniversary Trip – I Cried When I Learned the Real Reason
“Then explain it.”
He stood silently for several seconds.
“There’s something I’ve been hiding from you since your third round of chemo.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Jeffrey slowly began unbuttoning his shirt.
The first button.
Then the second.
His fingers were trembling.
“Jeffrey, you’re frightening me.”
“Just let me do this. If I stop now, I won’t tell you.”
When he finally opened the shirt, I gasped.
Dark red lines wrapped around his ribs and stomach, and there were bruised-looking marks across his skin.
“You’re hurt!”
I reached toward him.
“What happened?”
He gently caught my hand.
“I’m not injured the way you think.”
“Then what caused that?”
For a long moment, he seemed too embarrassed to answer.
Finally, he reached into his suitcase and pulled out a black compression garment.
“Men’s shapewear.”
I stared at it.
“Why are you wearing that?”
He looked away.
“Because I didn’t want you to see what happened to me while you were sick.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jeffrey sat heavily on the edge of the bed.
“When you got sick, I stopped taking care of myself. I barely slept. I quit exercising. Sometimes I forgot to eat. Other times I ate everything I could find because it was the only thing that calmed me down.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
