His brow furrows.
He reads on.
His breath stutters when he gets tomy husband.
“What?” he whispers, barely sound at all.
I don’t answer.
His fingers curl into the paper as he keeps going. The café fades for him now. The world narrowing to ink and confession and a mirror he never consented to stand in front of.
By the time he reachesSo I did too, his eyes are wet.
He clears his throat. Fails. Tries again.
“You did this to hurt me,” he says, but there’s no conviction in it. Just shock.
“No,” I say quietly. “I did it to survive you.”
That lands.
He keeps reading. His chest rises and falls too fast. He rubs at his sternum like there’s pressure there he can’t shift.
When he reachesCatfishing isn’t just about lies. It’s about loneliness, his shoulders sag.
“I was lonely too,” he says quickly. “You don’t know what it was like, Penn. I felt trapped. I felt like I was drowning in grief and expectations and—”
“And instead of asking for air,” I cut in softly, “you took mine.”
Silence.
He reads the section on control. On masks. On power.
“I didn’t mean to fall for her,” he says, voice cracking. “I swear to God. It just happened.”
I watch his mouth form excuses he’s practiced in his sleep.
“You didn’t fall for her,” I say. “You fell for the version of me you could consume without consequence.”
That one hurts him. I see it in the way his face caves inward.
When he reaches the final lines, his tears fall freely. No attempt to hide them. They drip onto the paper, smudging ink, warping words.
“I thought I could leave you effortlessly,” he says. “I thought I was the strong one. I didn’t know…I didn’t know it would hollow me out like this.”
I say nothing.
“The walls,” he continues, desperate now, “they were indestructible before you. You broke them, Penn. And then you left.”
I tilt my head.
“No,” I say gently. “I stopped waiting for you to come back.”
He presses his fingers into his eyes. Breath shuddering.
“I loved you,” he says. “I just… I didn’t know how to stay.”
I slide the second folder across the table.
