Chương 7
She almost called him.
Not because she forgave him.
Not because she wanted him back.
Because she wanted to ask the question that had been following her since the church.
Why did you stop fighting for me before telling me you were leaving?
The question felt more important than Gemma.
More important than the wedding.
Because betrayal was not only about what someone did.
Sometimes it was about what they decided you were not worth knowing.
A knock came at the door.
Samantha froze.
For a second, fear moved through her.
Then she looked through the peephole.
Andrew.
She did not open the door.
He knocked again.
“Samantha.”
She hated that hearing his voice still affected her.
She hated that some part of her still recognized the sound as home.
“I know you’re there.”
She remained silent.
“I’m not here to argue.”
That almost made her open the door.
Almost.
“You said that yesterday too,” she said through the door.
There was a pause.
“I know.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“You don’t get to say that like it fixes anything.”
“I know it doesn’t.”
She leaned against the wall.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The person on the other side of the door was someone she had planned to grow old with.
Now he was a stranger asking for permission to enter.
“I need to explain,” Andrew said.
Samantha closed her eyes.
“That’s what people say when they want the other person to understand them.”
“I do want you to understand.”
“What about me?”
The question came out before she could stop it.
Andrew went quiet.
“What about me, Andrew?”
“I do understand you.”
“No.”
She looked toward the kitchen.
“You understand my schedule.”
“You understand my job.”
“You understand that I get tired.”
“But you don’t understand me.”
The silence lasted several seconds.
Then Andrew said something she did not expect.
“I was lonely.”
Samantha opened her eyes.
The honesty hurt because it was real.
Not enough to excuse him.
But enough to make him human.
“I know,” she said.
The answer surprised him.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Her hand rested on the doorknob.
“I knew.”
She swallowed.
“I knew you were lonely.”
Andrew breathed out.
“Then why didn’t you do anything?”
The question was fair.
That was the problem.
Samantha looked at the door.
Because she did not want to lie.
“Because I thought we were both adults who would say something if we needed something.”
Andrew said nothing.
“I thought you loved me enough to tell me you were close to leaving.”
“I thought you loved me enough to notice.”
The sentence hit harder than she expected.
Because there was truth on both sides.
That was what made the whole thing unbearable.
No one had been completely innocent.
No one had been completely wrong.
Except for the part where Andrew married someone else.
“I didn’t plan to marry Gemma,” he said.
Samantha laughed quietly.
A tired, broken sound.
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“And now what?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was honest.
It was also unacceptable.
She opened the door slightly.
Andrew stood in the hallway wearing the same suit from the wedding.
The boutonniere was gone.
His hair was messy.
He looked less like the man who had stood beside Gemma and more like the person Samantha remembered.
That made it harder.
If he had looked cruel, she could have hated him.
If he had looked indifferent, she could have walked away.
Instead, he looked like someone who had made a terrible decision and only now understood the size of it.
“Where is Gemma?” Samantha asked.
His face changed.
“She went home.”
“Home?”
He looked away.
“I don’t know.”
That answer bothered her.
“You married her.”
Andrew looked back.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question made him flinch.
Samantha stepped into the hallway.
“You keep saying you were hurt.”
“You keep saying you were lonely.”
“You keep saying you waited.”
Her voice remained controlled.
“But you never say what you did.”
Andrew looked down.
“I was angry.”
“You were.”
“I wanted you to feel what it was like to be left waiting.”
The admission made her completely still.
There it was.
The part neither of them had said.
It was not only pain.
It was punishment.
“You wanted to hurt me.”
“No.”
He shook his head quickly.
“I wanted you to understand.”
“But you knew it would hurt me.”
Andrew did not answer.
He did not need to.
Samantha nodded slowly.
“That’s the difference.”
She stepped back.
“I spent years thinking your biggest problem with me was that I worked too much.”
Andrew looked at her.
“But maybe it was that you wanted a version of me that never existed.”
His expression tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“It isn’t.”
She closed the door halfway.
“Neither was yesterday.”
Andrew stood there.
“Samantha.”
She stopped.
“I am sorry.”
The apology sounded different from the others.
Less defensive.
More broken.
But she had learned something.
An apology could be sincere and still not repair what it damaged.
“I believe you,” she said.
Andrew looked surprised.
Then hopeful.
She saw it happen.
That small movement.
That tiny expectation.
And she hated that she had to take it away.
“But I don’t know what to do with that.”
She closed the door.
This time, she locked it.
The next morning, Samantha woke up before her alarm.
For a few seconds, she forgot.
Then she saw the empty space beside her.
The memory returned.
But something else had changed.
The pain was still there.
The shock was not.
She had spent years believing the worst thing that could happen was losing someone she loved.
She was beginning to understand there was another possibility.
Finding out that losing them was the first honest thing they had given you.
May you like
For the first time in weeks, Samantha did not immediately reach for her phone.
She let the morning exist without checking messages, without scanning for emergencies, without searching for the next problem she could solve.
