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“Wow, I’d lie and say you look good but…”
I laugh. “Don’t worry. You, on the other hand, look lovely.” I kiss her on the cheek and she squeezes my shoulders.
“Thanks.”
The waitress comes back with two coffees, and for a second I think she might be an angel sent from Hangover Heaven.
“I ordered you a croque monsieur, too,” Connie says.
“Thank you.”
“Why are we here, Clark?”
I sit back with my coffee, enjoying the sun’s rays through the window, warming my skin through my shirt.
“I feel like I owe you an explanation. A full one.”
She holds her coffee cup in both hands. It makes her look sweet and innocent, a complete contrast to how I feel. I tell her everything I knew before yesterday. I tell her about Dayna, four years ago, eighteen months ago. I tell her about Little Princess and that I never called Dayna when her father died. She already knows some of it, most of it really, but not how I truly felt, how I still feel about Dayna. Connie shifts in her seat, clearly unsettled, and I feel bad, but I don’t stop telling her, because she should know the truth. She deserves nothing less than the truth.
I get to us, our wedding, and I tell her how much I love her. I rub away her tears with my thumb when she cries.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Please, keep going. I think I need to hear it.”
I walk her through the moment I caught my father cheating, and how I knew I didn’t want to end up like him. I shake my head. That was before I even knew the extent of who my father really is.
“It’s not like I’m saying I’d be settling with you, Connie. You are amazing. You’re perfect.”
“Just not perfect for you.”
I take her hand. “I’m still in love with Dayna, Connie. I’m sorry, so incredibly sorry.”
She nods through tears. I move my chair to the side of the table so I’m sitting next to her, and I hold her head to my shoulder, kissing the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, holding her against me until she’s composed.
“Have you… have the two of you…?”
I stop her before she has to ask. “Yes. But you should know we’re not together, and Dayna would never want to hurt you, or…” I stop myself before I say “anyone”.
She does want to hurt someone. She wants to hurt the man responsible for blowing up Little Princess, the man who killed eleven people and drove her father to suicide. She doesn’t know she should want revenge against my father, too.
“You want to be with her,” Connie says, maybe noticing the shift in my body, the tensing of my muscles.
“Yes.”
“Does she feel the same?”
“No.” The word twists in my torso, right under my ribcage.
“If she’s the person you tell me she is, Clark, I don’t think she would have slept with you if she didn’t still have feelings for you.”
“It’s not that simple with us.” She winces at the word us. “You don’t want to hear this.”
She gives me a forced smile. “Actually, in a strange way, I think I’m glad you told me. It makes me feel like it wasn’t just me not being good enough for you.”
“Jesus, Connie, don’t ever say or think that. You’re ten times the person I am and more.”
“I think I’m going to go,” she says, reaching for her bag to pay.
“I’ve got this.”
She holds my chin and strokes my hair, in a way that’s so familiar it makes my lips curve into a sad smile. She kisses my cheek and lets her mouth linger. I breathe in her comforting smell.
“Thank you for telling me the truth. You should try the truth on Dayna, too.”
I open my eyes and she’s gone.
