“I spent months doing that work.”
“You don’t get the results because Alex hurt you.”
Tears rolled down her face.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“I chose someone who made me feel exciting.”
“And I called you boring because you made me feel safe.”
“I treated safety like it was something cheap.”
“I thought reliability meant you lacked ambition.”
“I thought because you loved me consistently, your love would always be there.”
“That was arrogant.”
“Yes.”
She nodded through tears.
“I know.”
“I know.”
Then:
“I lied that night.”
That caught me.
“About what?”
Sarah took a long breath.
“When I said I’d been in love with someone else the whole time.”
I stared at her.
“That wasn’t true.”
She continued.
“I loved you.”
“I really did.”
“For most of those three years, I loved you.”
“I said that because I wanted to make the breakup final.”
“I wanted to convince myself Alex was destiny.”
“And if I admitted I still loved you, then what I was doing would look exactly as ugly as it was.”
A surprising anger moved through me.
Not hot.
Old.
“You destroyed three years in one sentence because it made leaving easier.”
“Yes.”
“That might be worse.”
“I know.”
“You let me spend months questioning every memory.”
“I know.”
“Was the engagement shoot real?”
Sarah blinked.
“What?”
“The champagne.”
“Was that real?”
“Yes.”
“The row house?”
“Yes.”
“When you said you wanted a future?”
“Yes.”
“Then why say none of it was?”
She covered her face.
“Because I was a coward.”
I believed her.
That did not help.
Sarah lowered her hands.
“I am sorry.”
There it was.
Not cosmic connection.
Not creative alignment.
Not a performance.
Just sorry.
For one dangerous second, memory returned with force.
Sarah barefoot on my couch.
Sarah laughing in cheap restaurants.
Sarah asleep against me on a train.
Sarah crying when she landed her first magazine job.
Sarah holding my face and saying:
“You are the only person who ever believed before there was anything to believe in.”
The body remembers love after the mind knows better.
She saw something change in my face.
Stepped closer.
“Mark.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Her hand touched the door.
“I miss you.”
I looked at her fingers.
Then at her face.
“Do you miss me?”
“Or do you miss what I did for you?”
Her mouth opened.
“I miss you.”
“What do you miss?”
“What?”
“Tell me.”
Sarah stared.
“I miss talking to you.”
“Okay.”
“I miss waking up next to you.”
“I miss your stupid spreadsheets.”
“The way you made coffee.”
“How you always checked my tires before a long shoot.”
“The way you stayed up when I was late.”
“I miss how safe I felt.”
There it was again.
Safe.
Not wrong.
But revealing.
“Do you miss supporting me?”
I asked.
She looked confused.
“Of course.”