Lucy drank half her wine before she queried, “Didn’t get that far? Did you fight about it?”
“Sort of.” I took a deep breath and drained my glass before grabbing the wine bottle from the coffee table and refilling it. “His ex-wife stopped by the house this morning while I was getting ready for work.”
She gaped at me then tossed back the rest of the wine before topping off her own glass. “Details please,” she demanded.
I told her everything. About how warm and nice Maris had been when I answered the door. About how betrayed I’d felt when I found out that not only had Landen been married but he was still in business with his ex. And all the reasons he gave me for not telling me.
By the time I was done telling the story, the ache in my chest had faded somewhat, as though sharing the problem lifted part of the burden from my conscience.
Lucy was on her third glass of wine and shaking her head when I finally fell silent. “Holy shit. Chris is always talking about how smart Landen is but now I’m beginning to think he’s the biggest fucking idiot on the planet.”
Also on my third glass of wine, I snorted, feeling a little tipsy and a bit better than I had earlier. “Yeah, I just don’t understand what in the hell he was thinking. I mean, we’re both direct people. He knows I prefer honesty to white lies, even if they spare my feelings.” Lucy studied me and bit her bottom lip. I could tell she wanted to say something. “Spit it out. You know I’d rather hear the truth.” Hell, I’d just said as much.
Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Could he have been right, though? That you would have used his ex-wife as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length?”
I stared down into my wine glass, noticing the little bubbles popping just below the surface of the liquid. “Maybe at the very beginning after he ghosted me. But after that picnic in the park? Probably not.” I lifted my gaze back to Lucy. “I probably would have been a little more cautious knowing that he was still around his ex every day. But I wouldn’t have broken things off, only slowed down a bit.”
Lucy lifted an eyebrow at me and I refrained from rolling my eyes. I hated it when she did that. She must have picked that look up from Chris because he and Landen were the only people I knew who were able to do it and not look ridiculous.
“And it’s not the fact that he works so closely with his ex that bothers me. It’s the lying. He knew he should tell me yet he jumped into bed with me and started asking me to move in with him without giving me the truth.”
She sighed. “Yeah, that is pretty shitty behavior.” Her gaze sharpened. “So what are you gonna do? End things?”
The ache returned to my chest, sharp and deep, twisting and roiling until it reached my belly. “I don’t know. I mean…it boils down to whether or not I can trust him. I don’t know if I can.”
“Do you think he’s lied to you about anything else?” Lucy asked pointedly.
I shook my head. I didn’t think he had, but how could I trust my own judgment now? I was falling in love with him.
The breath caught in my chest. No, I’d already fallen. If not, I wouldn’t have been so hurt when Maris told me who she was.
“Then you have a decision to make,” Lucy stated in a gentle voice. “Either you can forgive him or you can tell him to take a hike.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m sure there are other options too, but it all boils down to that. He apologized, right?”
I nodded miserably. He had apologized, but that didn’t negate my feelings in the least. Years ago, when I’d said something cruel to another kid at school and gotten in trouble, my father came to pick me up. One look at his disappointed face had made the regret already filling me double in volume. He took me home and told me to come outside with him.
We sat on the porch swing behind our house in silence for a good long while.
Finally, he asked, “If you knocked a glass on the floor and it broke, would an apology fix it?” I frowned at him, not entirely sure I understood the question. Instead I just shook my head. His blue eyes, the same color as my own, had peered at me with sorrow and compassion. “You already know that words have the power to hurt. They can break a person’s heart just as surely as a baseball bat can break their arm. And once something is broken, an apology won’t fix it. But it’s a start. Once you apologize, you have to follow it with actions. Harmful words, once spoken or written, can’t be taken back. They live in the other person’s memory forever. It’s the same with harmful deeds. They can’t be erased.”
As he spoke, tears of shame filled my eyes. He was right and I knew it.
He put an arm around me and hugged me into his side. “You can’t take back what you did or said in the past, Chelsea. But if you’re truly sorry for what you did, you can change how you behave in the future. Only you can control what you do from here on out. If you regret what you said, then you should apologize and remember this lesson in the future when someone else makes you angry or hurts your feelings. That you have to decide how you want to respond—by breaking a piece of the person who hurt you or by showing them compassion. Or at the very least walking away.”
That lesson was one I had never forgotten. I still made mistakes, still spoke out of anger once in a while, but not as often as I had before. That was one reason why I told Landen I needed space when I was angry. I’d found it was best if I gave myself time to cool down before I continued discussing something that upset me.
“Chelsea?” Lucy’s voice broke through the memory.
“Apologies don’t fix everything, Lucy,” I stated sadly.
“I didn’t say they do,” she retorted, her voice firm. “But I’ve known Landen for a couple of years now and he could probably play games with the best of them, but he doesn’t. I think he enjoys being blunt and throwing people off balance. If he said he was sorry, he probably is.”
I leaned my head against the back of the couch. This conversation was exhausting me. Lucy was right. I had to decide if I could forgive Landen and move forward or if I wanted to end things over this. But I didn’t want to make the decision right now.
“I know he’s sorry,” I replied, closing my eyes for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt like hell.”
Her hand closed over mine and squeezed. “I know, sweetie.”
I straightened and looked over at her. “I don’t know what to do.”
