Chapter 11 He Lost Us Both
Three weeks after I leave Blake, I run into him at the grocery store.
It's a Saturday afternoon. I'm in the cereal aisle at Peterson's Market picking up groceries for Raina's apartment, which is now also my apartment for the foreseeable future. I'm comparing two brands of granola and thinking about nothing important when I hear his voice behind me.
"Lara."
I turn around. Blake is standing at the end of the aisle with a basket in his hand.
He looks different. Thinner. His face is drawn and he has dark circles under his eyes and his hair is longer than he usually keeps it.
He's wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and sweatpants, which is something Blake would never have worn to a grocery store when we were together.
Blake used to care about how he looked in public. Apparently he's stopped.
"Hi, Blake."
"Can we talk? Please? Just for a minute."
I look around. The cereal aisle at Peterson's is not the place I would have chosen for this conversation. An older woman I vaguely recognize is comparing soup cans about ten feet away and trying not to look like she's listening.
"Fine. One minute."
He walks closer. He stops about four feet from me, which is close enough to talk quietly but far enough that neither of us has to acknowledge the physical distance between us. A month ago he would have stood close enough to touch me. Now four feet feels right.
"I ended things with Hailey," he says.
"Okay."
"I ended them the day after you left. I called her and I told her it was over and I haven't spoken to her since. I blocked her number. I deleted every message. I want nothing to do with her."
"Good for you."
"That's not what I mean. I mean I chose you. I know I made a terrible mistake but I ended it immediately and I'm trying to do the right thing and I want you to know that."
"Blake, ending it after I left isn't choosing me. It's damage control."
"No, it's not. I was going to end it anyway. I'd been thinking about it for weeks."
"You'd been thinking about ending the affair for weeks while continuing to have the affair."
"It's complicated."
"It's really not. You were sleeping with my friend. You stopped sleeping with my friend after I found out and left. Those are the facts. The order matters."
He shifts his weight. He adjusts the basket in his hand.
He's uncomfortable and I can see him trying to find the right angle, the right words, the right version of this conversation that leads somewhere productive for him.
This is what Blake has always done. He approaches difficult conversations the way he approaches a locked door.
He tries different keys until one works.
Charm. Humor. Deflection. Apology. He cycles through them until he finds the one that opens me up.
I used to let it work. Not anymore.
"I love you, Lara. I've always loved you.
What I did with Hailey was the worst mistake of my life and I will regret it forever.
But I'm asking you for one more chance. One.
I'll do counseling. I'll do couples therapy, individual therapy, whatever you want.
I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. "
"How would you make it up to me, Blake? What does that look like? Walk me through it."
He blinks. He wasn't expecting to be asked to get specific.
"I'd be honest. Completely honest. About everything. Open phone. Open computer. No passwords, no secrets. You could check anything anytime."
"So I'd spend the rest of my relationship policing you. Checking your phone every night. Looking at your location. Verifying your stories. That's what you're offering me. A marriage where I'm your parole officer."
"That's not how I'd put it."
"That's what it is though. If the only reason you don't cheat is because I'm watching, then you're not faithful. You're supervised."
He stares at the floor.
I put the granola back on the shelf. I turn and face him fully.
"Blake, you didn't choose me. You got caught.
If I hadn't found those messages you'd still be with Hailey right now.
You'd still be lying to me every day. You'd still be taking money out of the house fund and spending it on motel rooms. You didn't end the affair because you realized it was wrong.
You ended it because I took away your ability to keep doing it. "
"That's not true."
"It is true. You had months to end it. Months where you woke up next to me and went to work and came home and had dinner with me and then texted Hailey after I fell asleep. You had hundreds of opportunities to stop. You didn't stop because I asked you to. You stopped because I left."
He stares at the floor. His grip on the basket is tight enough that his knuckles are white.
"I love you, Lara. I've always loved you. What I did with Hailey was the worst mistake of my life and I will regret it forever. But I'm asking you for one more chance. One. I'll do counseling. I'll do whatever you want. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you'll let me."
I look at him. I look at Blake Winston, who I've known since high school, who I've loved since I was eighteen years old, who asked me to marry him at a restaurant while the whole place clapped.
I look at the man I was going to build a house with and have children with and grow old with.
I look at him and I feel something complicated and heavy and final.
"No," I say.
"Lara."
"No, Blake. I'm not going to give you another chance.
Not because I hate you. Not because I want you to suffer.
Because I don't trust you anymore. And I can't build a life with someone I don't trust. I tried.
I spent a month sleeping next to you after I knew the truth and I tried to find a version of this where trust comes back and it doesn't. You broke something that can't be unbroken. "
"People recover from affairs. Couples do it all the time. It's not impossible."
"Maybe other couples can. I can't. Every time you'd tell me you were going to the gym I'd wonder if you were really at the gym.
Every time your phone buzzed I'd wonder who was texting you.
Every time you came home late I'd be looking for perfume and checking your pockets for receipts.
That's not a marriage. That's surveillance. I don't want to live like that."
"So that's it? Six years and you just walk away?"
"You walked away first. You just did it while pretending to stay."
He doesn't have a response for that. He stands in the cereal aisle at Peterson's Market looking at me with red eyes and a basket full of frozen dinners and I can see the moment he understands that this is real.
That I'm not playing a negotiating game.
That I'm not holding out for better apologies or bigger gestures.
That I am finished in a way that no amount of promises can undo.
"I'm sorry," he says. It sounds different than the other times he's said it. Smaller. More honest. Less performative. For the first time since this started it sounds like an apology instead of a strategy.
"I believe you," I say. "But it doesn't change anything."
I pick up the granola, put it in my basket, and I walk to the next aisle. I don't look back.
In the car I sit for a few minutes before starting the engine. My hands are trembling, which surprises me because my voice was steady during the entire conversation. The shaking is delayed. The body catching up to what the mind already processed. I grip the steering wheel until the trembling stops.
I said no.
I said no to six years. I said no to the man I was going to marry.
I said no to the version of my life that involved Blake Winston in any capacity and the word came out of my mouth without hesitation and without doubt and I'm proud of that even though the trembling in my hands suggests it cost me more than I'm willing to admit.
Six months ago if someone had told me I'd be sitting in a grocery store parking lot alone on a Saturday afternoon having just turned down a proposal to reconcile from the man I planned to spend my life with, I would have said they were insane.
Six months ago I was happy. Or I thought I was happy.
Or I was so deep inside the routine of a comfortable relationship that I couldn't tell the difference between happiness and habit.
I know the difference now. Happiness doesn't require you to ignore evidence. Happiness doesn't come with receipts that don't match. Happiness doesn't smell like someone else's perfume.
I start the engine and I drive to Raina's and I tell her about the encounter. She listens from the kitchen where she's unloading dishes from the dishwasher.
"He said he ended things with Hailey," Raina says.
"He did."
"Do you believe him?"
"Actually, yes. I think he did end it. Hailey won't talk to him either so it tracks. But that doesn't matter."
"No. It doesn't. Ending the affair after getting caught is the minimum possible response. It's not something that deserves credit. You don't get points for stopping a bad thing you shouldn't have been doing in the first place."
"He offered counseling. Open phone policy. He said he'd change jobs."
"He's offering to rearrange the furniture on a sinking ship."
"That's what I told him. More or less."
"And?"
"And he asked if six years together means nothing. He said I was just walking away."
Raina puts a plate down harder than necessary. "He's the one who walked away. He walked away every time he went to that motel. He walked away every time he texted Hailey. He walked away every single day for months. He just didn't pack a bag while he did it."
"I said almost exactly that."
"Because it's true."