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“Maybe. But, Talia, it sounds like part of you already left him. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself until now.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m an awful person.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Cheating was awful. Lying was awful. But realizing you might not love the man you thought you did in the right way doesn’t make you awful. It makes you human. And it makes you honest.”

I took a deep breath. “Rafe was his best friend. His childhood best friend. I didn’t just destroy us. I destroyed them, too.”

“It takes two, Talia. Rafe made the decision to be with you, the same as you made one to be with him. You both could’ve gone about it in a better way. But maybe you both made the choice because you couldn’t stop it. Maybe…he’s your person.” She paused. “Do you love him?”

“I’m not sure I know what love is.”

“That’s because there are many different types of love. So it can be confusing. Let me ask you this—if you close your eyes and picture yourself in ten years, dancing in your kitchen with your husband. Is that man Rafe? Or do you see Calder?”

I closed my eyes and willed my mind to relax enough to conjure a vision of my future. But all I could see was me, alone. That made my heart feel heavier than anything. I sat with it for a moment, until I heard a noise in the hallway.

“Mom,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I think Calder’s home.”

I heard the key in the lock, then a slow turn.

“I have to go.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Call me if you want to talk. At any time. I love you.”

My eyes filled with tears again. “I love you, too, Mom.”

The door pushed open just as I ended the call. Calder stepped inside wearing a navy suit. His tie was gone, the top two buttons of his shirt were open, and it looked like he’d dragged his hands through his hair all night. He paused when he saw me on the couch.

For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other.

His eyes were bloodshot. Mine probably weren’t much better, but for a different reason.

“I was on the phone with my mother,” I said.

He looked away with a frown. “Guess you told her,” he said.

I nodded. “I did.”

“Everything? Or just the parts where I was a shitty boyfriend and wasn’t there for you, so you turned to someone else?”

“You were never a shitty boyfriend, Calder.”

“Great.” He let out a humorless laugh. “So just shitty in bed, then?”

“Calder—”

He held up a hand and started toward the bedroom. “Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.”

The bedroom door shut with a jolt that made me jump, even though I’d watched it happen.

I waited for him to come back out, to finish saying what he’d started, but he never did. The apartment seemed to shrink around the new silence. Every sound became too loud—the hum of the refrigerator, the creaks in the old wooden floor, the quiet of my own breaths.

For a while, I sat staring at the closed bedroom door.

Calder had always been careful with me, treated me like a piece of delicate glass. With his words. With his temper. With how hard he pushed for something he wanted. He was the kind of man who would rather swallow a shard of glass than cut someone else with it. And I had cut him deep. Yet he still couldn’t lash back at me, hurt me the way I’d hurt him.