He keeps his head down, but I know he hears me. I can see it in the way his shoulders tense, like the words are cutting into him.
“I want you to leave. And when the time comes, you’ll sign the papers. You’ll keep calling before you come by, and only to see the kids, until some kind of agreement is in place.”
“Ceci, please…” His voice comes out rough, thick with regret. “I hate myself for everything I’ve done. But I can’t live without you.”
“It’s Cecily,” I say, my voice breaking. “Ceci was the naive girl you married. The one who believed every promise you made. Poor girl didn’t know any better. And look where that got her.”
He lifts his head, eyes glassy, his voice barely a whisper. “I’ll do anything. Anything, for a small chance.”
“Anything?” I echo, my voice trembling, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. “Okay. Then tell me everything. Every detail. From the first time you looked at her the way you shouldn’t have, the innocent touches laced with second intentions, to everymoment you chose to forget your vows and pretend I didn’t exist while you enjoyed your new lover.”
“I…”
I keep my eyes on him, giving him time. Time to think. Time to face what he’s done.
He takes a shaky breath, eyes glistening. “Will you forgive me? Give me another chance if I tell you?”
“First, you tell me,” I say, my voice wavering even as I try to hold myself together. “What happens after, I’ll decide once I know everything. The details Mark couldn’t give me. The ones only you can.”
“I can’t,” he says, close to sobbing. “If I tell you everything, you’ll hate me even more. I can’t risk losing you like that.”
“You already lost me, Colin.” The words come out soft, but they carry everything I’m holding inside. “The moment you looked atherthe way you were only ever supposed to look atme, you lost me. It became an affair the second you flirted back. The second you built a wall between us just to make space for your secret.”
We stare at each other for what feels like forever, though it can’t be more than a few seconds.
Tears slide down his face in a steady stream, and he doesn’t even try to wipe them away.
I can’t remember the last time I saw him cry. Maybe the day Alicia was born.Has it really been twelve years since I last saw him shed a single tear?
“Please,” I whisper, the words barely getting past the lump in my throat. “Leave. Seeing you hurts, Colin. Hearing your voice feels like a thousand blades tearing through my chest all at once.”
I pause, looking at him, at the man who was once my entire world. And all I can think is how cruel it is that the person whopromised to protect my heart is the one who shattered it beyond repair.
“And Colin?” I whisper. “You really should’ve read what I wrote on the blog. If you had… we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
He lowers his head, his shoulders shaking as the dam finally breaks. “I—I will,” he stammers through tears. “I’m sorry, Ceci. God, I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. “I love you. I love you. I love you so much. I love you, please… I love you.”
Each repetition lands deeper than the last, more desperate. It twists like a blade in a place where only love used to live.
He rises to his feet with visible effort, his body trembling, all his strength drained now that the reality of what he’s done has hit him.
When I see him start to leave the envelope on the couch, I nod toward it without a word. He picks it up, his fingers brushing the edge, and for a split second the air feels charged, full of everything we once said without speaking.
As he walks past me, I can sense it, the unbearable pull in him. The instinct to reach out. To touch me. To find some remnant of the woman who once reached back without hesitation. His fingers twitch at his sides, a ghost of the man he used to be, the one who knew the rhythm of my heartbeat by memory. But he doesn’t. He can’t.
He turns, his shoulders collapsing inward, and walks away without another word.
At the soft click of the door closing, the silence swallows everything—the apologies, the love, the years—until all that’s left is me, standing in the ruins of what used to be us.
I sink to the rug, the strength draining out of me, my chest tightening around a grief that refuses to die. I let the tears come. Not silent or graceful. Raw and broken. Because the man whobuilt my world with his love is the same man who destroyed it with his betrayal.
And now… I have to learn, on my own, how to live with the choices he made.
Chapter 09
the ones that will haunt
Colin
