Chapter Forty #2
He’s definitely not looking at me now, and his cheeks are burning red.
“Yeah. I mean…yeah, Abby. I’m not alone here, right?
” It’s a small turn of his head, the bare minimum he can do in order to meet my eyes.
It’s guarded, emotionally vulnerable. He’s showing me his exposed underbelly.
I could hurt him here, really hurt him. I could accuse him of leading me down the garden path, of making me a homewrecker, of manipulating me.
I could jab the sharpest fucking spear into his chest, ram it in there until it sticks.
Instead, I turn the weapon on myself. “No, you’re not alone.
But I need to tell you some things I should have a long time ago.
” I take a deep breath. “My ex, Steven, cheated on me. Multiple times, actually. The first time I caught him, he said he wanted to try an open relationship, and I just agreed, without even thinking if that was something I wanted, or really even knowing what it meant. I was too afraid I’d lose him, so I just agreed to his terms. And it wasn’t so bad, because after a couple of months, he told me that dating was terrible and an open relationship was a bad idea and what he actually wanted was just me.
And I was so relieved that I decided to put it behind us entirely.
Not think about what it meant for our relationship that he had asked to explore it in the first place, not examine my willingness to have any type of relationship other than the one we had, just…
sweep it all under the rug and go back to normal. ”
“Abby…” Lachlan says, but I cut him off. I can’t stop now. The words are pouring forth like blood gushing from an emotional wound.
“And that’s what happened. For a long time, everything was fine.
In fact, it was better than fine, because we got engaged and we were so happy.
I mean, I did the whole thing—huge photo shoot, bridal party, wedding china…
But it turns out that the whole thing was a lie: He never stopped seeing other people, even when he came back to me.
In fact, he’d been dating someone seriously for almost two years.
Actually bought an apartment with her, it turns out, all while asking my parents to pay for the wedding. ”
“Jesus,” he mutters.
“Yeah. And I couldn’t even muster the courage to confront him about it.
I just let him slowly realize that I knew, and then he left me for her.
And the worst part was I knew the whole time.
I knew he was lying about only wanting to be with me.
I knew he was still seeing someone. But it was like I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.
I just let it all wash over me, because at least when he was with me, he seemed happy and I seemed happy, and I didn’t want to go to the trouble of a massive fight and breakup and canceling the wedding after we’d already sent out the invitations and everything. ”
The anguish is stark on Lachlan’s face. “But Abby, what’s canceling a wedding compared to actually being happy?”
“No, I know. It was stupid. But I was in this complete emotional rut. I spent so much of my life just wanting things to be easy, just smoothing the passage for other people even if it was inconvenient for me, because I hate conflict and tension. My brothers were the loud ones, the big personalities. I just followed quietly behind. And I guess I let that happen with Steven as well, which is pretty fucking dumb, now that I say it out loud.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and his hand twitches on the table like it’s dying to reach out to me. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Actually, that’s a lie. I never told you because I didn’t want you to think I was some emotionally damaged loser.”
“I would never have thought that.”
“I’m sure on some level I knew that, but it was also part of my whole reinvention.
Flying over here and restarting my life and not looking back.
I didn’t want to bring up the person I was then because I was trying so hard not to be that person anymore.
But it was always there, in the back of my mind, this idea that there was something wrong with me that made Steven look elsewhere, and no matter what I told myself about my new life, I was still that same Abby.
Because I did the exact same thing with you: I let myself get swept along by our relationship rather than taking a second to stop and think about what it meant for you and your marriage and for me and my happiness.
It was Old Abby all over again, just going with the flow because to say something, to have even a moment of selfishness, might cause you pain.
” I take a deep, shaky breath. The hardest part is yet to come, but I have to get it out.
“But then when you said what you said on New Year’s Eve… ”
Lachlan grimaces and it’s a look of such misery that I almost don’t go on. But I have to, otherwise none of this matters.
“When you said that, it was like the worst of all worlds, because my conflict avoidance strategy went straight out the window, but also, it just hit me that this woman Steven left me for—Jessica—I’d spent months and months hating her, and then all of a sudden, I was her.
I was the ‘other woman.’ And yes, I know it’s different because you and I were never together together, but emotionally, of course you weren’t alone.
Of course I felt what you felt.” I allow him a brief moment of relief, then continue.
“But you shouldn’t have said what you said to me.
It was unfair of you to put that burden on me, to make me the one who would ultimately be responsible for ending your marriage. ”
“Abby—”
I hold my hand up. “No, let me finish, because if I don’t get it out now, I’ll never say it, and I can’t keep going through life avoiding the hard conversations.
I was so mad at you after that night, because it was exactly like I’d predicted for myself: You’d be fine and I’d be destroyed, because I was the only one really at risk.
All the months of longing came together in that moment, and the walls I’d put up, the little fortress of denial, of avoidance, of taking the easy way out…
that little fortress came crumbling down all around me.
And I hated myself for being the other woman, and I hated myself for not doing the hard thing of steering our relationship away from anything other than friendship, for letting myself get carried away by the idea of being with you.
And not even talking to you about it or substantively engaging in any way about the lives we led before we came to Liverpool so we could have had everything on the table, open and honest. I hated you for making me feel that way and I blamed you for letting things get so far. ”
“Honestly, that’s fair.”
“Well, it is and it isn’t. You shouldn’t have said what you said to me.
I stand by that. But we both messed up. We used each other.
We got so caught up in each other that we never…
well, I guess I can’t speak for you here, but at least I…
I never really stopped to think about Claire in any sort of real way.
I let myself think that she wasn’t real, that if she was, if you were truly happily married, we wouldn’t have been able to get as close as we did.
I kept her in this weird, like, phantom realm, not allowing her to dictate what I did or what I felt about you. And I think you did the same thing.”