“No, it's not,” she said sadly, too decimated by the look in his eyes to even argue with him about it. Somehow, the bad guys always won in the end. The tabloids and the lawsuits and the threats and the pressure of all of it proved to be too much for any relationship with any normal human being. “Are you telling me you want out?” she asked miserably. He was not the love of her life, but she was comfortable with him, she trusted him, she loved him and his kids. If it had been up to her, she would never have ended their marriage.

“I'm not sure,” he admitted to her. He had been thinking about it for a while, but he hadn't come to any definite conclusions. “I'm not sure how many more rounds of this I can take, to be honest with you. And I don't want to be unfair to you. It's really starting to get to me, and I thought you should know that.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” she said, looking at him, already feeling betrayed that he wasn't there for her, that the “embarrassment” of being married to her, and what it entailed, was making him want to leave her. “I wish I could make it better.”

“I wish it didn't bother me. I never thought it would. It all seems much more human scale until you step into it, and then it's very Alice-in-Wonderland. It's all very unreal as you begin to fall and fall and fall…” he said, and listening to him reminded her again that she loved him. He was a bright man, and despite their differences, they still had a lot in common.

“That's an interesting way to put it,” she said, smiling wistfully at him, knowing in her heart of hearts that for him anyway, it was probably already over. “What about the kids?” she asked, looking suddenly distraught.