“I need you to know… Full disclosure: I kind of fucked up her marriage.”
I looked over from where I was standing near the bedroom entrance. “Youkind of fucked up her marriage? Either you did or you didn’t.”
He paused, tugging at his lower lip. We were back to that. “I did.”
“I thought you said those were just rumors.”
“Most of them are. That one wasn’t.”
I took my time processing. “Just so I’m aware, are we going to continue to bump into people who you’ve fucked… up?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You’re not jealous…”
“I’m not jealous.”
“I like you.”
“I don’t doubt that…”
“I’m here withyou.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point, then? I’m confused.”
“Never mind,” I said, because I wasn’t sure. And the point may have very well been that I wasn’t sure about anything. That I wasn’t sure about us. That the idea that this would continue to happen, always, might have been more than I signed up for. That I wasn’t ready to exert the energy in comparing and competing, and maybe, just maybe, I’d made a mistake.
“Perhaps I hadn’t thought this through,” I said.
“What does that mean? Why are you saying that?”
“I know you want me to think of you as just Hayes, but every time we step outside, you are also Hayes Campbell. And that comes with a lot of baggage, and some of it is harder to carry than others.”
He stood there, watching me, the vast Atlantic behind him. “Are you saying you don’t want to do this?”
“I’m saying when we’re alone in our little cocoon, it’s perfect.”
“And when we’re not?”
“And when we’re not, it’s less so.”
I could see him growing angry, frustrated. “What are you doing, Solène? Are you trying to push me away?”
“I’m not trying to push you away.”
“Well, then, what are you doing? None of this should come as asurprise to you,” he said. “You knew what I did. What I do. You knew getting into this.”
“I know that.”
“It’s complicated, yes. There’s baggage. But there’s a lot on your end, too. And I’ve accepted that… and I’m half your age.” He let that sit there. Stinging. “I’m going for a walk,” he stated, terse.
He seemed to have taken the air out of the room with him, because suddenly I could not breathe. His absence, stifling.
I knew I was wrong. My way of coping. To distance myself before the inevitable. In some ways, I had done the same to Daniel. I had pushed. And now he was getting married and fathering someone else’s child. And that could not be undone.
