Lie laughs, making my lips curl into a smile as I continue.
“She and I just weren’t right for the long term. For a while, I thought maybe I regretted not following her. I didn’t make any attempt at all to convince her to stay when she told me she was leaving. My regret there isn’t so much that I didn’t think it was the right thing to do for us both, but that she deserved to be chased. She deserved to feel that she was loved and wanted, but instead, I simply nodded and told her ‘Okay.’ I imagine that hurt her.”
“Have you spoken to her since she left?”
“No,” I say, sighing. “When I finally processed why our relationship fell apart and whatever, I kept putting it off. There’s always tomorrow, right? And now, fifteen years have passed. At what point have I waited too long to express my apologies?”
“Yeah, I can see why you’d hesitate to call now.”
“Mm,” I agree. “In the end, I think Denise understood the same things I did. We were young. We shouldn’t have jumped the gun. We gave it a try, and it didn’t work out. If I were to regret any part of a relationship, it would have been with Carter. You want to talk about me treating someone like shit?”
Lie shifts so he can get comfortable and settle in for story time. I brush my fingers through his hair as he says, “Tell me everything.”
“There’s not really a lot to tell. I can say I didn’t love Denise as you’re supposed to love your spouse. Certainly not like Nason and Miranda, but I’m guessing I loved her more like… saying a sibling gives a weird connotation when I married her, so… let’s just leave it as I didn’t love her like I should have. Something I recognized far after the fact. Ididlove Carter, and I thought he was the great love of my life.”
“Then what’s the regret? Breaking up?”
“No.” I trace Lie’s lip with my thumb as I remember what feels like a lifetime ago. “We’d been talking about marriage. Did you know that?”
Lie shakes his head. “Seriously?”
I nod absently. “We’d been together for a long time, and I thought, I’m doing this right this time. No shotgun wedding on our college campus and honeymoon at a frat house party.”
“Oh my god,” Lie says, laughing.
I grin, nodding. “We knew each other. We loved each other. We spent a whole lot of time together. Took trips together. I thought maybe I found someone I loved with the same kind of wonder that Nason and Miranda have. So when Carter brought up marriage, I was into it.”
“I’m dying to know how regret comes into play. So far, this sounds like a good thing, though I know it ends abruptly, so…”
“That’s the thing, right? The obvious next step was moving in together. He knew I wasn’t going to leave my house, so he said he’d just move in with me. I can’t describe the way those words made me feel. Sick. Horrified. Like he’d be invading my personal space. This is my private life. My life with Nason and you and Miranda and he didn’t belong in it. I put off the conversation for months while still continuing to plan the wedding as I triedto work through what I was feeling. Carter had had enough and demanded we live together, and I… I said no. I didn’t want to live with him. This was my house, my space, and I wanted to keep it. He rightfully got upset, asking me why we were getting married then. What did I expect—that we’d get married and live separate lives?”
“You said yes, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t say it out loud, but he knew that had been my answer when I didn’t answer. He was upset. Obviously. He yelled and cried and left and then came back, giving me the ultimatum that if I wasn’t ready to move in, then we were not getting married. And if that’s my decision, then we’re also breaking up because I’ve been really shitty concerning this. All I could think was that somehow, if I let him move in with me, this was going to be a repeat of my mistakes with Denise. I was determined that whatever relationship was next, it couldn’t feel like that. I don’t want it to be ‘we’ll make this work.’ I needed to be sure.”
“And that’s how you broke up.”
I nod. “That’s how we broke up. He thought that I’d go after him, and like Denise, I didn’t. And also like Denise, I felt guilty for months after because I felt like Ishould havegone after him. But that’s not what was in my heart. Apparently, I didn’t love him like I thought I did if I wasn’t willing to share all facets of my life with him.”
“Which is the part you regret?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer, frowning. “Nothing specific, exactly, but how I made him feel unwanted. Unloved. I feel like he wasted his time with me when I was clearly not going to share my life with him.”
“Those are your only two relationships.”
“Worth noting, yes.”
“I can’t believe you got married on your college campus.”
I laugh. “As I said, we acted like we were in a hurry. I think we convinced ourselves it was romantic because we just wanted to be together. And we were college kids without money. I promised Carter that our wedding would be as extravagant as he wanted. It’s not like I’d already done the big wedding.”
“Did he want extravagance?”
“Eh. He was walking the line between over the top and understated. I think he was actually far more understated, but he felt like something extravagant was expected from him.”
“Is he still here? On Kala?”
“Yep. He works on Ceto. He organizes the constant parties. Lives on Keone Reef.”
