He stays still.
Listening.
“Everyone had opinions,” I say. “What I should do. Who I should be. How I should react. I lost control of my own narrative.”
My throat tightens, but I keep my voice even.
“So I learned control is the only thing that keeps me steady.”
He doesn’t rush in with reassurance.
Doesn’t curse the guy.
Doesn’t tell me I deserved better.
He just says, quietly, “That makes sense.”
The simplicity of it hits harder than sympathy ever could.
I blink.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” he says. “You figured out how to protect yourself. Seems smart to me.”
My upper body feels strange. Full. Tight.
We lie there in this moment of honesty.
Then I clear my throat.
“There’s more,” I say quietly. “About him.”
Colby doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
“He was really good at compartmentalizing,” I continue. “At least, that’s what I told myself at first. Missed calls had explanations. Late nights had reasons. I kept believing the version of him he showed me when cameras were around.”
I swallow.
“But the lies stacked up. Little ones first. Then bigger ones. Stories that didn’t quite line up. Teammates who suddenly wouldn’t meet my eyes.”
My fingers curl into the sheet.
“And when I finally found out about the cheating, it wasn’t even from him. It was a headline. A blurry photo. Someone else tagging me in it like they were doing me a favor.”
Colby lets out a quiet breath.
“That’s brutal,” he says.
“I kept waiting for him to be honest,” I admit. “To choose me privately the way he always did publicly. Instead, he apologized in statements. Through his agent. Through PR.”
I shake my head. “I realized I’d been dating a brand, not a person.”
Colby is quiet for a moment, then asks gently, “Did he ever actually own it?”
I give a small, humorless laugh. “Only when it benefited him.”
His jaw tightens.
