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He chewed his lip. I couldn’t decide if he was trying to work up the courage or strength to get up and walk out, or if he was pleading with me to convince him of… something.
I flattened my palms on the table and took a deep breath. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’ve become a saint over the last year. I’m still me. I still suck sometimes. But what I have done is come to appreciate on the most profound level imaginable what I had when we were together. I take full responsibility for fucking that up. There is probably no man on this planet less likely to cheat than I am, because I know to my core what it costs.” I cleared my throat. Twice. “I know that doesn’t count for much, but there it is.”
Owen drummed his nails on the armrest of his chair. “If the fae who erased my memory could also erase yours… would you?”
“No.” Not even a heartbeat of hesitation.
He blinked. “You wouldn’t?”
“Absolutely not. As much as it kills me to think about it, I don’t want to forget what I did to you. I don’t deserve to forget it. I destroyed the love of my life, and I need to live with that.”
He studied me for a long moment, his expression more curious than angry or hurt now. “You’ve really been beating yourself up over this for the last year, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have.”
Chewing his lip, he nodded slowly. “I kind of got that from your social media, too.”
I jumped. “You… looked at my social media?”
“Yeah. I was… I guess I was trying to make sense of things. I believed Lia that you regretted it, but… I don’t know. I needed to see…” He trailed off, then softly added, “I’m still having a hard time getting all this into my head.”
“I don’t blame you,” I whispered.
Silence settled in between us again. The waitress stopped by to check on us, and Owen admitted he wasn’t actually hungry.
“I’ll just stick to my drink,” he said quietly.
“Me too.” I handed her my menu.
She didn’t seem thrilled, and I didn’t blame her. I’d make sure to leave a sizable tip to make up for occupying the table this long without actually ordering food. But anything we ordered would probably wind up wasted. My stomach was churning too much to even think about eating. Owen’s probably wasn’t much better.
She left us to it, and we sat in uncomfortable silence for another long, long moment.
Owen sighed heavily, letting his shoulders drop, and he looked exhausted as he met my eyes again. “I don’t know how to process any of this.”
My heart fell into my feet. “I’m sorry. For… Fuck, for all of it.”
“I know,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. “It’s weird. It’s like…” He pressed his elbow into the table and rubbed his forehead. “It feels like we’re talking about something that just happened, and like something that… I mean, I know it happened. I know we were both there.” He let his arm fall to the table. “It just doesn’t feel real. And not in the sense that it’s hard to imagine—it literally feels like it wasn’t real. Because I don’t remember. And I don’t know how to…” He made a sharp, frustrated gesture.
“I wish there was something I could say.” Ugh, could anything be more useless?
“I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say.” He sounded fucking miserable. “It just… is. And it sucks. I have no idea what to feel or think or…”
“You don’t have to know,” I offered. “It’s been a lot. And I’m—”
“Don’t.” He put up a hand and shook his head, but his voice wasn’t sharp. In fact, it was almost plaintive. “Please don’t say you’re sorry again.”
I closed my mouth, not sure what else to say. In his shoes, I probably wouldn’t know what to say or feel either, aside from telling the asshole who’d cheated on me to pound sand. That he was still sitting here at all, calmly trying to make sense of things, blew my mind.
He drained his drink and pushed it away. “I think that’s all I wanted to talk about.”
A mix of relief and panic clashed inside my chest—relief that this conversation was over, but panic that what little connection I had with him was slipping through my fingers. Because I doubted he’d want to see me again after this.
“I’ll still help you. With…” I tapped my temples. “Whatever you need.”
He watched me for a few heartbeats, and I was sure he was about to tell me I could help him by fucking off and continuing to fuck off until I fell off the face of the earth. To my surprise, though, he just gave a subtle nod and murmured, “Thanks.”
We asked for the check, and we both tipped the waitress twenty bucks in cash on top of the smaller tips on the credit card receipts.
