Chương 6
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
She hesitated.
“No.”
The honesty surprised me.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
Laura looked embarrassed.
“I thought he was saying whatever he needed to say to keep you attached.”
The words hurt because part of me knew they might be true.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I tried.”
Her voice became stronger.
“I did try.”
“When?”
“Three days before everything happened.”
I searched my memory.
Nothing.
“I came to your apartment.”
My stomach tightened.
“I was crying.”
“Yes.”
“You told me to leave.”
I looked away.
That sounded like me during those months.
Defensive.
Terrified.
Certain that anyone trying to help was attacking me.
“I told you I was in love with him.”
Laura nodded.
“And I told you he was lying.”
A painful silence followed.
“What happened next?”
Laura looked at Michael.
He looked back.
Neither of them wanted to continue.
That made me want the answer more.
“Daniel called you,” I said.
Laura nodded.
“After I left your apartment.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to know what I said.”
My fingers tightened around the chair.
“He knew you talked to me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Laura paused.
“Maybe he saw my number on your phone.”
I remembered the constant checking.
The fear.
The feeling that everything was slipping out of control.
“What did he say?”
Laura looked down.
“He said if I told you the truth, I would ruin your life.”
My heart sank.
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I believed you were already close to ruining your own life.”
Nobody spoke.
The sentence was cruel.
But not completely false.
That was the worst part about the truth.
It rarely arrived clean.
“What happened after that?” I asked.
Laura took a breath.
“Daniel died.”
The word sat there.
Heavy.
Final.
“And then?”
“Then I called Michael.”
“Why?”
Laura looked at him.
“Because you needed someone.”
Michael looked uncomfortable.
“And because I knew you would never call him yourself.”
I looked at Michael.
“You came to the hospital because Laura called you.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed because?”
His eyes met mine.
“Because I loved you.”
The answer was simple.
Almost too simple.
After eighteen years of complicated things, simplicity felt unfamiliar.
Laura reached into her purse.
She pulled out a small envelope.
“I brought this because I knew eventually you would ask.”
I did not take it.
“What is it?”
Her fingers trembled.
“Something Daniel wrote.”
Michael’s face changed.
“What?”
Laura looked at him.
“I never showed you.”
The air changed again.
Another hidden piece.
Another door.
Another thing waiting to be opened.
Another hidden piece.
Another door.
Another thing waiting to be opened.
I looked at the envelope sitting in Laura’s hand and felt something inside me resist.
Not because I did not want to know.
Because I had spent years surviving by not knowing.
There was a strange safety in ignorance.
Painful.
Unfair.
But familiar.
Once the truth entered, there was no going back to the woman I had been that morning.
“Give it to me,” I said.
Laura did not move.
“Susan.”
“Give it to me.”
Her fingers tightened around the envelope.
“I don’t know if this will make anything better.”
I looked at her.
“Nothing today has made anything better.”
That seemed to break something in her.
She handed it over.
The envelope was old.
The paper had yellowed around the edges.
My name was written on the front.
Not Michael’s.
Not Laura’s.
Mine.
I stared at the handwriting.
I had seen it before.
Daniel’s notes at work.
His birthday card to me.
The little messages he used to leave beside my computer.
For a moment, I was back in that other life.
The one where I thought attention meant love.
The one where I mistook being understood for being safe.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single folded page.
The ink had faded slightly.
I read the first line.
Susan,
I do not know if I will ever have the courage to say this to your face.
My breathing slowed.
Laura looked away.
Michael remained completely still.
I continued reading.
I was wrong about a lot of things.
I was wrong about what I could control.
I was wrong about what I was willing to risk.
I was wrong to let you believe promises I was not prepared to keep.
My hands began to shake.
The words were not romantic.
They were not what I expected.
There was no dramatic confession.
No declaration that he had chosen me.
No proof that our affair had been some impossible love story.
It was something worse.
It was honest.
I kept telling myself I would fix everything later.
I kept thinking there would be a perfect moment to make the right choice.
There wasn’t.
There was only one bad choice after another.
I looked up.
Laura was crying silently.
I looked back down.
I found out about the pregnancy.
I know you were scared.
I know you thought I would be happy.
I was scared too.
The truth is, I did not know how to become the person you needed me to be.
I wanted to believe I was brave.
I wasn’t.
The room felt colder.
I reached the bottom of the page.
The last paragraph was shorter.
I hope someday you forgive yourself.
Not because I deserve forgiveness.
I don’t know if I do.
But because you are carrying all of this like you are the only person who made mistakes.
You aren’t.
Daniel
I folded the paper slowly.
For some reason, the thing that hurt most was not what he admitted.
It was what he did not.
There was no promise.
No attempt to rewrite history.
No excuse.
Just a man who had made choices and knew too late that choices stayed behind after people left.
“Why didn’t you show me this?” I asked Laura.
She wiped her cheek.
“Because I thought it would destroy you.”
“You keep saying that.”
May you like
“I know.”
I looked at her.
