27. Sophia #2
“Because you seemed pretty bothered by the women I supposedly dated, and I’m trying to understand the double standard.”
“There’s no double standard. I was bothered because you lied.
Because you looked me in the eye and implied you’d spent three years with other women while wearing my design permanently attached to your body.
” I pointed at his arm, at the sleeve covering the tattoo I knew was there.
“I’m still trying to understand how that worked, actually.
Did they just politely ignore the tribute to your ex-wife? ”
“There were no women to ignore anything.”
“So you’ve said. But if there had been, if you’d actually been dating the way you claimed, how would that have worked? ‘Sorry, disregard the constant reminder of the woman I spent a decade with, it’s purely decorative?’”
Alexander’s jaw tightened. “I got the tattoo because I wanted to carry a piece of you with me. Not as a conversation piece for theoretical future relationships.”
“Then why lie about it? Why pretend you’d moved on if you so clearly hadn’t?”
“I told you why.”
“You told me it was pride. That seeing me with Luca made you jealous.” I leaned forward. “But that doesn’t explain why your first instinct was to pretend you’d found someone else. Why not just tell the truth?”
“Because the truth is pathetic, Sophia.” His voice cracked slightly.
“The truth is that I’ve spent three years alone, waiting for a life that was never coming back, writing journal entries to a woman who asked me to let her go.
The truth is that I haven’t slept properly since you left, that I still reach for your side of the bed every morning, that I had to stop using your shampoo because the smell of it made me cry in the shower. ”
“Alexander…”
“The women were a lie because I wanted you to think I was okay. Because I wanted to preserve some shred of dignity instead of admitting that I’m still completely, embarrassingly in love with my ex-wife.”
The confession hung between us, raw and undeniable. I stared at him across the table full of old sketches and older memories, and I didn’t know what to say.
“You still use my shampoo?”
He blinked. “That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“I’m focusing on the detail that proves you’re either incredibly sentimental or incredibly lazy about shopping.”
“Both, probably.”
“The crying in the shower part is new information, though.”
“Can we not dwell on that?”
“Too late. It’s dwelt upon.” I found myself smiling despite everything. “For the record, I cried over perfectly good dates because the men I was with committed the unforgivable crime of not being you.”
“That seems excessive.”
“It was extremely excessive. I’m not proud of it.”
“You should be.” I fought a smile and lost. “It’s flattering.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
And then, impossibly, we were laughing.
I couldn’t explain how it happened. One moment we were having a conversation full of confessions and old pain, and the next we were laughing together the way we used to, the way we hadn’t in years.
The sound of it filled the archive room, bouncing off the high ceilings, and I watched Alexander’s face come open a little at a time until what was left looked almost like joy.
The laughter faded. We sat there, breathing hard, looking at each other across a table covered in the remnants of our shared history.
“I forgot what that felt like,” Alexander said quietly.
“What?”
“Laughing with you. Really laughing, not just polite amusement.” He reached across the table, and his fingers brushed against mine. “I missed this, Soph.”
The nickname hit me like a shock of cold water. Soph. Not Sophia. The version of my name he’d used when we were young and stupid in love, before everything got complicated.
“I missed it too,” I said. “More than I wanted to admit.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.” I turned my hand over, let his fingers lace through mine. “I know this is a bad idea. I know we have three years of distance and a divorce between us. I know we hurt each other in ways that don’t just disappear because we can still make each other laugh.”
“That’s a lot of knowing.”
“I also know I want to see you again.” I met his eyes. “After this week. After I go back to Florence. I know that much.”
“That’s considerably more reassuring.”
“Is it?”
“It’s the first hopeful thing I’ve heard in three years.” He squeezed my hand. “I want to see you again too. Whatever that looks like. Coffee, dinner, archive consultations about historic metalwork. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give.”
“Let’s start with dinner.”
“Dinner I can do.”
We sat there for a moment longer, hands intertwined across the table, neither of us willing to break the connection.
The archive materials surrounded us, evidence of the life we’d built and lost, but for the first time since I’d signed those divorce papers, losing didn’t feel like the end of the story.
It was the first line of a new draft of us.
“I should get back to work,” I said finally.
“Right. The archives. Professional reasons for being here.”
“Purely professional.”
“Of course.” He released my hand and stood up. “I’ll leave you to it. My office is down the hall if you need anything.”
“Alex?”
He turned at the nickname, his expression soft. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For keeping the sketches. For the notes. For all of it.”
“Thank you for coming back. Even if it was just for the archives.”
“It wasn’t just for the archives.”
“I know.” He smiled, really smiled, and for a moment he looked exactly like the man I’d fallen in love with eleven years ago. “That’s what made it worth waiting for.”
He left. I sat alone in the archive room, surrounded by the evidence of our history, and I let myself hope for the first time in three years.
We had so much still to figure out. So much damage to repair, so many conversations we hadn’t had, so many pieces of ourselves we’d have to learn all over again.
But we’d laughed together. We’d held hands across a table. We’d called each other Soph and Alex like no time had passed at all.
That had to count.