I nod. “I know.”
He blinks, thrown off. “You know?”
“Yes,” I repeat. “I know you. Or I did. And I know you would never do that to hurt me.”
The words hang between us:Even though I hurt you.
Rafe exhales slowly. “It took me four months.”
My pulse leaps. “To file?”
He nods once. “To actually click Submit. To sign my name. To—” His mouth twists. “To decide I wasn’t going to die waiting.”
The honesty hits like a fist. I flinch, not because I’m offended—because I deserve it. It’s also the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and it’s not a polite apology. It’s grief. It’s regret. It’s eight years of silence turning into sound.
Rafe’s eyes harden. “Don’t.”
I blink. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say you’re sorry like it fixes it,” he says, voice low. “It doesn’t.”
I swallow hard. “I know.”
He drags in a breath through his nose, slow, measured. “The papers are real.”
“Yes.”
“And you got them, and you still came here,” he says again, like he’s trying to really understand what I want… what I expect.
“Yes.”
“Are you here to ask me to stop?”
The question is quiet. It knocks the air out of me anyway. Because part of me wants to. Part of me wants to beg. Wants to grab his hands and sayplease, please don’t do this. Please don’t end it. Please let me fix it.
But another part of me—the part that has been learning in therapy what accountability actually looks like—knows I don’t get to ask for that.
Not yet. Not after everything.
I shake my head slowly. “No.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpens, surprised.
“I—” I stop, searching for words that don’t sound like manipulation. “I understand why you did it. And I’m not going to pretend you’re wrong for needing to move on. You waited long enough.”
Rafe’s throat bobs. “Then why are you here?”
Because I love you.
Because I can’t breathe without you.
Because you’re my husband and I never stopped being yours.
Because I’m selfish.
Because I’m desperate.
