"Most of what you said." Renée pulled the throw tighter around her shoulders. "She said she didn't know who kissed who first. She thought maybe it was both of you."
Matt opened his mouth, and closed it.
"It doesn't really matter," Renée said. "I thought it would. It doesn't. That's not the part that's keeping me up at night."
"What is?"
"She told me what you said to her. The first night. That you feel like a guest in your own life. That you never chose anything. That I was so sure about everything and you just went along."
He went white. "Ren. I didn't mean—"
"Didn't you?"
He was silent for a long time. Long enough that the furnace kicked on, and ran, and kicked off again.
"I meant it," he said finally, very quietly. "But not the way it sounds. Not like I didn't want this. I wanted all of this. I want all of this. I just—" He looked down at his empty hands. "I don't know how to say it without it sounding like I'm blaming you."
"Try."
"You're so good at knowing what you want. You always have been. You walk into a room and you know. And I love that about you. I fell in love with that. But somewhere along the way I stopped—I stopped bringing anything. I stopped saying what I wanted, because you always seemed to already know, and you were always right, and it was easier to just go along. And then Lauren shows up, and she remembers who I was when I was seventeen, and for a couple of hours I'm not anybody's husband or anybody's dad. I'm just some kid who doesn't have to have an opinion about anything. And it felt like—like relief." He shook his head. "God, that's ugly. That's so ugly. That's not your fault. None of it's your fault. It's mine. I'm forty-two years old and I let a woman put her head on my shoulder because I was too much of a coward to tell my wife I was lonely in my own house."