That’s all well and good, and do you know what? I believe him. Mostly because, if he’d known, he probably wouldn’t have invited me. “Did you know she was yourwife?”
His jaw begins to pulse. “Loren…”
What is that wince supposed to do? Make me feel bad for him? I don’t. “You know how important honesty is to me.”
His fingers rake through his hair, his searching eyes looking as lost as I feel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would matter. We haven’t been together for four years.”
How do I even know if that’s true? “Then why is she here?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Tell me everything,” I say, giving him one more chance.
“You already know?—”
“Everything.”
His hands fall to his sides, and he stuffs them into his pockets. “We grew up neighbors. Started dating in middle school. Got married our sophomore year of college.”
“Why did you break up—oh, wait. I’m sorry. I mean why did you get a divorce?” Hold on. “Youaredivorced, right?”
“Yes, we are divorced. And I already told you. She thought the grass was greener on the other side.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes,really. We were together for so long, I guess she thought she’d missed out on living, on dating around and the whole rebellious phase.”
“That’s all?”
His jaw works.
“Elliott, please… I’m giving you one more chance to tell me the truth. All of it.”
“She was pregnant.”
My heart doesn’t just stop. It falls completely out of my chest. “You have akid?”
His head shakes slowly. “We lost the baby.”
Holy shit.
Now the fact that he lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment makes complete sense. He had a wife and a baby on the way. After she left him, he never moved out. That isn’t just because of rent controls or whatever other crap he told me. That’s good old-fashioned grief.
Growing up in a funeral home, you see plenty of people holding onto whatever they can because moving on means having to let go.
Elliott still hasn’t let go.
If he had, he would’ve told me about his ex-wife.
His throat bobs with each rapid swallow. “When we…when it happened, it was like she realized she never got to live, that she never got to experience dating or going out or just being single.”
Too bad I hadn’t met her back then. I could’ve told her that being single sucks.
Then again, if I’d done that, maybe she and Elliott never would’ve broken up, and he and I might never have met.
It’s all shit, isn’t it?
