45. Theo
FORTY-FIVE
THEO
I can still feel him.
I don’t know what I thought I would find in seeing Matteo again. I suppose I was looking for some closure, but if this is what closure feels like, I understand why people grow to be old and bitter. Once again, just like I have for the last three months, I question whether I should have ever walked away from him to begin with. If I had fought harder for us… I don’t know. I don’t know what would have happened, but anything would feel better than this .
I nearly stumble through the front door. I haven’t been drinking, but it feels like it. Like I can’t focus on anything. Everything is a blur of nothingness, and I can already anticipate I’m going to be hungover on Matteo for the rest of my life.
“Clara,” I shout, shrugging out of my coat. “I’m home.”
I get no response. Confused, I call for her again, but nothing. Her car is out front on the curb, so I know she’s home. Figuring she must be taking a nap, I head up to check on her, but I’m not prepared for what I see when I walk through the door to our room.
Because Clara’s there, sitting on the bed, pages scattered around her.
My letters from Matteo.
“Clara,” I start, my breath catching in my throat as my heart starts to race. “What are you?—”
“ I cling to the memories of us together. The way you beautifully cried out my name. ”
Horror strikes me. No… “Clara. I can explain?—”
“ I dream about what your pale skin would have looked like covered in my marks… ”
“Stop,” I cry out, but she doesn’t listen. “It’s not what you think.”
“ I —” Her voice cracks as a tear rolls down her cheek. “ I never stopped loving you. ”
I don’t know what to say. So, I wait. I wait as Clara sheds her tears, holding Matteo’s letters so tightly in her grip that I’m afraid they’ll rip.
“Why is Father Matteo sending you these letters?” she asks in a soft whisper.
I lick my dry lips because there’s nothing I can say that will make this go away. Nothing I can say to explain what she’s read. The proof, the evidence, the written encounters meant just for Matteo and me. “I think you know.”
“Why didn’t you throw them away, Theo?”
I hang my head. That was stupid of me, wasn’t I? I’m past the point of lying to her, past the point of caring. “Because they’re something of his.”
She nods slowly. “Is this where you were this afternoon? He said he’d be there. Was he?”
“Yes.”
“He loves you,” she says, turning those tear-filled eyes to me. “Do you love him?”
I suck in a sharp breath as the truth leaves my lips. “Yes. I love him.”
“More than me?”
Now I’m the one whose eyes begin to water. “In a different way.”
She curses under her breath. “That’s not good enough. Do you love him more than me, Theo? Just say it.”
I take a step and sit next to her. This moment has been in the making for far too long, but now that it’s here, I weirdly don’t feel any fear. I take her hand, look her straight in her eyes, and tell her the truth I know will crush her. “Clara, I love you, but not like the way I love him.”
It’s cruel. So cruel, but it’s the truth. I can’t hide it any longer. I’ve known for quite some time that I’d fallen out of love with my wife, but now it’s real. It’s out there. Now I’ll be left to pick up the pieces of the consequence that cracked, fractured, and ultimately shattered my marriage.
“I didn’t realize you loved him,” she mumbles, more to herself than me.
Something in my gut drops at her words. “You… What do you mean?”
“I…” She lifts one hand to brush a tear away. “I knew.”
“What?” I gasp, shooting off the bed. “But if you knew why?—”
“Because I wanted to save our marriage!” she sobs, throwing Matteo’s letters carelessly on the floor. “But there’s nothing worth saving, is there?”
I know whatever I say next will define the rest of my life. It will change everything. Clara is a wonderful person, and if she’s stuck with me this long, that must mean she’s decided to forgive me. But now that I know what I know, I realize there’s only one choice here. A choice I’m going to willingly make.
Not because I’m in love with Matteo. Not because I’ve been caught.
But because Clara and I both deserve to live our lives.
Even if it means we do it without each other.
“Clara,” I begin, my fingers shaking, but my voice confident and smooth. “I want a divorce.”
She doesn’t react the way I expect her to. Instead of continuing with her tears and getting angry like she rightfully should, she simply stands. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in through her nose, letting it out slowly through her lips. When she comes back, opening her eyes, I don’t see any hate or fear.
“I know,” she says, nodding. “Me too.”
We stare at each other for a beat. I don’t know which one of us moves first, but we find ourselves in each other’s arms. With the contact—her face tucked in my shoulder and my cheek on the crown of her head—we both begin to cry. Both of us caught up in the moment—the ending—of the last ten years of our lives.
“You hurt me,” she cries.
I nod. “I’m so sorry.”
“I thought I could trust you.”
“I know.”
She sniffles, pulling back, agony in her expression. “I want to hate you, but I can’t.”
“I hate that I did this to us,” I tell her honestly. “I never meant for it to happen.”
“But it did,” she argues lightly, her lips quirking up in a humorless grin. “You ruined our lives. Was it worth it, Theo?”
Despite the pain, regardless of the lies, putting aside the grief, I know there’s only one answer.
Yes.
She must sense what I’m unwilling to say because she steps back and crosses her arms over her chest. “Are you going back to him?”
I want to. Fuck , I want to. But I know that if I were to run back to Matteo, it would prove the one thing I’ve been trying to hide from myself. I’ve always been afraid of being alone, terrified I would be left by myself with nothing and nobody. Now, however, that feels like exactly what I need to do.
Because I need to love myself before I can love anybody else.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, avoiding her question. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know” she says. “I truthfully don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll be out by tonight.”
She goes to walk away from me, defeated and lost, but I catch her wrist gently. I can’t let it end like this, cold and emotionless like our marriage has been for the last few years. There was a point in my life where Clara was my everything and that meant something. Maybe she won’t want to hear it, but I need to say it.
“It was real, Clara,” I tell her, hoping she understands the words that are left unsaid. “It was real.”
This time, her smile is sweet and genuine. She chuckles, her eyes watering as she places her hand on mine. “I know, Theo, but now it’s over. We can finally move on.”
She gives me one last sad smile before leaving our room. I don’t know where she’s going or what she’s doing, but I stay standing still. I look at the bed we shared, the pictures of us on the dresser, the life we’ve built.
But she’s right because it’s time to move on.
And figure out who I am all by myself.