“Don’t look so surprised,” Stella said, even as the words filled her with a sickening shame. “It’s not like I’m the first woman to make a bad decision. He and his wife weren’t living together. I’m not saying that makes it okay, but it made itseemmore okay. They were co-parenting their three children, so the kids lived with her full-time, but Wade was basically with them all the time at her house. His kids were—no,are—his life. That part of his situation was always clear to me. He would do anything for them. A trait of his I admired.”
“Do you have a picture?” Jack asked.
“One,” she admitted and wondered why she hadn’t deleted it yet. “I ditched the rest. I couldn’t stand seeing them on my phone.” She scrolled through the photo album on her phone until she found the last remaining photograph of Wade—one she’d taken while they were having lunch a month before he left her. She held out the phone to Jack.
“Decent-looking guy, obviously older than you, but I can see why you were attracted to him.”
Stella shook her head. “I was so desperate for love and comfort that I probably would have been attracted to a mannequin if it had shown interest.”
Jack laughed but then stopped abruptly. “Sorry. I know that wasn’t an easy time for you.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “No, it was meant to be funny. Self-deprecating humor, but it still carries a lot of truth.” She pocketed her cell phone. “After my dad died, I was in a vulnerable, needy state of mind. Wade and I started talking on the phone and sending emails, then that evolved into lunches here and there, then a couple dinners. Eventually we were talking every day and sneaking off to do all sorts of things.”
“Sneaking?”
“Is there a better word for what we were doing?”
Jack frowned. “I suppose not. Continue.”
“At first, we had a lot of fun together. We went to movies, museums, and concerts. We went on a few weekend getaways. We laughed a lot, and when we were together, Wade seemed freer. Uninhibited by all the responsibilities of work and homelife.” It suddenly struck her that she was an escape for Wade, a way for him to release his regular life and have a pretend one with her. She also questioned if she’d really been happy with him or if he’d also been a temporary escape from her pain and loneliness.
“I guess we fell intosomething. At the time, I thought I loved him, but after a while, I felt restless with what we were. I wanted to be with him, but he wasn’t mine to want, not really. Our future together wasn’t something we talked about often, but when it came up, it was always him talking about it. How we’d be together, how he was excited for me to eventually meet his kids. It sounds so dim-witted to me now, but I actually thought we’d be a family one day—me, him, the kids.”
Jack nodded. “That sounds like a natural progression. Why weren’t Wade and his wife divorced?”
Stella rolled her eyes. “That’s a great question. His kids weren’t little anymore. His oldest was already driving. Not that it’s ever a good time to get divorced, but itfeelsworse to me if the kids are small. The easy answer is they weren’t divorced because they didn’twantto be. I also didn’t understand why, at the time, he spent most of his free time with her and the kids when he could have spent more of it with me.”
“Did you ask him why or tell him you wanted to be clear about your future together?” Jack asked.
Stella sighed. Reliving the past with Jack highlighted even more how she and Wade weren’t ever going to work. “I asked him if we could start spending more time together, if we could take our relationship to the next level. And if there were plans for him and his wife to divorce.”
Jack leaned forward, caught up in her story. “What did he say?”
“He said I wanted too much,” she answered. “He said I didn’t understand what he was going through, how difficult it was for him to make time for me. He had his children to think about, to provide for, to be present for. I understood that, but didn’t I deserve to be present for too?” Stella shrugged.
“I realize how pathetic that sounds. I was settling for a subpar relationship. He said I was living in a dream world. I didn’t understand how gritty and imperfect life was. I should have understood that what he was giving me was good enough. He had to think of his kids first, and a full-time relationship with me wasn’t possible. Afterall those monthshe finally admitted he’d never seen a future with us in it.”
Stella folded her paper towel into a square and then into a smaller square, and then into an even smaller square. The anger and heartbreak she’d grown accustomed to didn’t emerge. When was the lasttime she’d thought about Wade without feeling suffocated? Now, the sense of freedom was like a thunderbolt.
“How could that relationship have been good enough for anyone?” Jack said quietly.
Stella looked at him and knew he’d never be the kind of man to do what Wade did. “He left my house that day, and we never spoke again. He didn’t call or text. After two weeks, in a moment of complete weakness and probably too much caffeine, I called him. He didn’t answer. So I texted him, asking if we could talk about what happened. But he never responded.”
“Did you want him back?” Jack asked, his expression revealing his disbelief.
Stella groaned. “I realize it was pathetic, but at the time, my heart was broken. How could someone who supposedly cared about me ghost me? I wanted anything to make my heart feel better.”
“And you thought it could be him?”
“At the time, he seemed like the obvious solution,” Stella said, “but I can finally see how flawed that thinking was.”
Jack leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Did it ever occur to you that Wade was wrong? Did you ever think the way he treated you was a reflection on how he felt about himself and wasn’t about you at all? What if he waswrongabout everything, Stella? Especially about you?”
Stella rubbed her fingers across her collarbone. “I made so many mistakes with him. I saw it as admirable that he was willing to give up everything for his kids.”
Jack locked eyes with her. “He didn’t give up everything. It sounds like he kept his life exactly the wayhewanted, with the exception of you. I’d bet he would’ve kept you around for as long as you would have stayed. Until you finally decided he wasn’t good enough foryou.”
Jack’s words resonated within her. “I mishandled a lot, especially my heart.”
