“And now?”
“The room’s cleaned out, the mattress is ash, and I sleep at my house every night. Alone, until you decide otherwise.”
She was quiet for a long time, still watching me like she was reconciling the man in the video with the man sitting across from her.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she said finally.
I nodded, thinking about my new office at the clubhouse and why I’d needed to destroy the old one.
“I’ll show you sometime. When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
So I drove her to the clubhouse, ignoring the curious looks from my brothers as I led her down the hall—past the door to my old office, now converted to storage, and into the room at the end.
“This is different,” she said, looking around. New desk, new furniture, different layout entirely. Nothing remained from before.
“I moved offices a few months after you left.”
“Why?”
I met her eyes, forcing myself not to look away. “I couldn’t sit at that desk anymore. Not after I realized what I’d done to us.” I paused, the confession sitting bitter on my tongue. “I fucked other women on that desk, Indira. Club girls, before we were together, while we were together. And I sat behind it every day pretending I was a different man than I actually was.”
Her expression didn’t change, but I saw her shoulders tighten.
“So I destroyed it. Took a sledgehammer to the desk. Moved into this room and started fresh.” I gestured around at the clean lines, the new leather furniture. “Nothing in here has any history. No ghosts.”
She walked slowly around the room, trailing her fingers along the edge of the new desk. “You destroyed your desk.”
“Felt good. Cathartic.”
“And the old room?”
“Storage now. Couldn’t stand to look at it.”
She turned to face me, and there was something in her eyes I couldn’t quite read. “You burned the mattress. Gave up the room. Destroyed your desk.” She shook her head slowly. “You really did tear your whole life apart.”
“Only the parts that were rotten.” I held her gaze. “The parts that let me pretend I could be one man with you and another man everywhere else.”
She was quiet for a long moment, still studying me like she was reconciling everything I’d told her with the man standing in front of her.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “For showing me this.”
I waited, hoping for more. For some sign that this meant something.
“It doesn’t change anything, Jacob.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “You understand that, right? You can burn mattresses and destroy offices but that doesn’t undo what happened between us.”
My throat tightened. I realized I’d been holding my breath since she started talking, and when I finally exhaled, my chest ached like I’d been holding it for hours. I wanted to reach for her—the urge so strong my fingers actually twitched—but I locked my hands at my sides. “I know.”
“Do you?” She studied my face. “I’m not going to reward you for becoming the man you should have been all along. These changes? They’re the bare minimum. They’re what you owed yourself, not what you owe me.”
I nodded, swallowing hard against the tightness in my throat. The new desk suddenly felt like a prop in a play I’d written for an audience of one, and I wasn’t sure anymore if the performance had landed. She was right. Of course she was right.
“But,” she said, and something in her expression softened just slightly, “it does matter that you did it. That you didn’t just move on and find someone new who didn’t know your history. Or who did and didn’t care.” She paused. “It matters that you’re trying.”
“That’s all I’m asking for. A chance to keep trying.”
She smiled—small, cautious, but real. “I know. That matters more than you probably realize.”
