Her response came three hours later:Thursday. 2pm. The coffee shop on 67th, near the park. I'll be there.
Not warm, exactly, but not closed off either. I spent the next three days rehearsing what to say, revising until the words felt like they belonged to someone else.
Vance found me at the kitchen table the night before, staring at a notecard covered in crossed-out sentences.
"What are you doing?"
"Writing a script." I crumpled the card, tossed it toward the trash, and missed. "It's going terribly."
"You don't need a script."
"I need something. I can't just walk in there and wing it. 'Hey Elizabeth, sorry I ruined your life, how's the weather?'"
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
"What do you actually want to say to her?"
I thought about it. The practiced apologies. The explanations I'd constructed. All of it felt hollow.
"I want to tell her the truth," I said finally. "That I'm sorry. That she deserved better. That what I did to her was wrong, even if I felt like I had no other choice."
"Then tell her that. Not a script. Just the truth."
"What if she hates me?"
"She might." He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. "But she might not. Either way, you'll have said what you need to say."
I looked at our hands. His scarred and calloused, mine soft and unmarked.
"How do you do that?" I asked.
"Do what?"
"Make things sound simple."
"They are simple." A small smile. "Not easy. But simple."
Thursday came too fast.
The coffee shop was a small place on the Upper West Side. Exposed brick, mismatched furniture, the kind of artisanal aesthetic that meant everything cost twice what it should. The smell of roasting beans and baked goods hung thick in the air.
Elizabeth was already there when I arrived.
She looked different. Thinner. Sharper. The soft edges I remembered from our engagement had hardened into something more guarded. When she saw me, her expression didn't go neutral—it went cold.
"Tobias."
"Elizabeth. Thank you for meeting me."
"I almost didn't." She didn't gesture for me to sit. "I deleted your text three times before I replied."
I stood there, feeling the weight of every pair of eyes in the coffee shop. "I understand."
"Do you?" She finally nodded at the chair across from her. "Sit. People are staring."
I sat and ordered coffee I didn't want. The silence between us was thick enough to choke on.
"I'm sorry," I started. "I'm so—"
