Met people who knew nothing about Sarah.
That was unexpectedly powerful.
To them, I was Mark.
Not Sarah’s ex.
Not the guy who got cheated on.
Not the boring boyfriend Alex replaced.
Mark.
The network guy who complained about hills.
Marcus bullied me into therapy.
I resisted.
“I’m functioning.”
“That is not the same as being okay.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“You slept three hours last night.”
“Four.”
“Therapy.”
So I went.
Dr. Elena Walsh was approximately five feet tall and had the irritating ability to wait through silence longer than I could.
For three sessions, I explained Sarah.
Alex.
The affair.
The breakup.
On the fourth, Elena asked:
“What are you angry at yourself for?”
“Nothing.”
She waited.
I hated her.
Finally:
“For not seeing it.”
“You saw it.”
“For not leaving.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I thought loyalty meant staying.”
“Anything else?”
I looked at the floor.
“Because if I left.”
“Then all the sacrifices would have been for nothing.”
There it was.
Sunk cost.
Not only money.
Identity.
I had become the man who supported Sarah’s dream.
If Sarah no longer needed me, who was I?
Therapy did not produce one grand breakthrough.
It produced annoying corrections.
I had not been stupid for trusting.
Supporting somebody was not weakness.
Sarah’s betrayal did not prove my kindness had been misplaced as a general principle.
It proved she had made choices that violated our agreement.
I also had to admit something harder.
I had participated in making myself smaller.
Nobody forced me to abandon friends.
Stop running.
Work every weekend.
Define ambition only through what Sarah wanted.
I had called it sacrifice because sacrifice sounded noble.
Sometimes it was avoidance.
Building somebody else’s dream meant I did not have to ask what mine was.
That realization belonged to me.
Not Sarah.
Six months after the breakup, Dave asked me for a beer.
We met at a neighborhood place we had gone years earlier.
He looked me over.
“You look annoyingly healthy.”
“Therapy.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“I hoped there was a supplement.”
We laughed.
Then his expression shifted.
I recognized it.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The ‘I know something about Sarah’ face.”
Dave looked down at his bottle.
“You sure?”
“No.”
“But tell me once.”
“Then don’t update me again.”
He nodded.
“Alex is engaged.”
I felt almost nothing.
Almost.
“To Sarah?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Who?”
“Woman named Chloe Barrett.”
“Stylist.”
“Met her on a Los Angeles campaign.”
“He proposed last week.”
I took a drink.
“How’s Sarah?”
Dave hesitated.
“Bad.”
“How bad?”
“Very.”
I stared.
He continued.
“Apparently she thought she and Alex were building something.”
“He never called it a relationship publicly.”