“You’re not even going to ask?” he says finally, trying for light, failing. His voice cracks on the end like it doesn’t believe itself.
I tilt my head. Study him. The man I once knew how to breathe with. The man who used to sleep with his hand curved protectively over my hip like he was afraid I’d slip away in the night.
“I already know how,” I say quietly. “I want to know why.”
That stops him.
He leans back, scrubs a hand down his face like he’s trying to wipe away the last five and a half weeks. His eyes flick anywhere but me. The window. The door. The street. Escape routes.
“I didn’t wake up one day planning to leave you,” he says. “I just…I felt like my life had shrunk. Like everything was grief and responsibility and history. I didn’t recognize myself anymore.”
“You didn’t talk to me,” I say. Soft. Careful. Like I’m stepping barefoot over broken glass.
“I didn’t know how,” he snaps, then immediately softens, guilt flooding in behind it. “Every time I looked at you, all I could see was what we lost. And I hated myself for that.”
My chest tightens, but I don’t interrupt. I let him hang himself on his own truth.
“I went online because it was easy,” he continues. “No expectations. No past. No mirrors. I thought maybe I’d find… something. A version of me that wasn’t drowning.”
“And you thought you’d find that by pretending to be someone else,” I say.
He nods.
“Why did you catfish me?” he asks then, quieter. “Really.”
I exhale. Long. Slow. Like I’m letting go of something poisonous.
“It started as work,” I say. “An article. Research. Psychology. Why people lie to feel alive.”
A laugh escapes me. Humourless. Sharp.
“I never planned to find you. I swear to you, Blake. But then there you were. Smiling like nothing had ever broken us.”
He swallows.
“So, you stayed.”
“I stayed because I needed to understand,” I say. “How you could leave me so easily. How you could tell another woman the things you used to say to me like they were disposable.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“You had ten years,” I say. “And you still walked.”
Silence again. Thicker now.
“You loved her,” I say finally. “Pandora.”
I meet his eyes without flinching.
“I loved who you were when you didn’t know it was me,” I continue. “And that broke me.”
His breath stutters.
“Then Dane,” he says. The name lands heavy. Bitter. “You chose him.”
I shake my head.
“No. I didn’t choose Dane.”
