‘I promised to tell you more about why I said yes to Mimi’s plan,’ he whispers.
I rest my head on his shoulder, the rising and falling of his chest against my own. I stay silent, fearing the curiosity will come across too strongly in anything that comes out of my mouth.
‘You obviously know that Rose and I ended things early last year.’
Actually, I didn’t know when it happened but I’m glad I do now.
‘Everything was a bit… fucked by the end,’ Luc continues. ‘We ju– we hardly saw each other. She was always at work, but not… not in the way that work was busy. In the way that she was…’ He takes a deep breath, and I feel his chest inflating. ‘Well, she was avoiding coming home to see me.’ His voice is higher than normal, almost hollow. ‘I think we were over a long time before we were over, maybe before– maybe even before I proposed.’ His voice shakes.
My stomach turns like a rotisserie chicken, heavy in my body.
‘I spent a long time thinking about the proposal and how we ended and wondering whether the ring was to– was away to pull her back closer to me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m still not sure, but after months with a therapist, I know it doesn’t matter now.’
I run my fingers through his curls.
‘I loved her, and when I proposed I thought she was just busy at work. I think the ring was maybe a way I wanted to remind her that I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be there for her during her busy periods.’
‘But you weren’t…’ I whisper.
‘No,’ Luc protests. ‘I was.’
‘But you ended it with her because she was always busy at work?’
My mind is on Jess, and how everything ended with that idiot who let her go for being too focused on her career. The pain. Jess sobbing on my sofa night after night while she lived with me in the interim of finding her own place. Those gut-wrenching sobs that woke me in the night when she couldn’t sleep.
‘She wasn’t, she was avoiding me.’
‘But how do you–’
‘She told me,’ Luc whispers. ‘I asked her about it, and she told me.’
‘Oh,’ I squeak.
‘She’d met someone else.’
I swallow loudly, the effort of doing so pushing me up off Luc’s shoulder.
‘Throughout all the time before she admitted it, I was– I kept asking her about her work projects and she kept brushing it off. I thought maybe that she was so busy, stressed that she didn’t want to bring that into her downtime.’ A shaking breath. ‘And then, eventually, it got too much for her, I guess. The guilt of it.’ He pauses and swallows loudly. ‘She reassured me that they hadn’t done anything. That she hadn’t… cheated on me. But she wanted to be with this person, and he wanted to be with her too.’
A tear falls off the end of his chin and lands on my cheek.
‘I told her, no Rose, thatischeating… An emotional affair.’ A small sob. ‘It’s almost worse.’ A shaky breath. ‘You know… I think I probably– it would have been hard, but I would have been able to deal with it if she’d been for work drinks and there’d been a… a drunken kiss. But knowing they were both in the office after hours discussing how they wanted to be together, and how she was– they were both going to leave their partners, is almost worse.’
‘I agree,’ I croak. ‘That’s awful.’
‘I think they’re still together now though, so I’m really glad she’s happy. She deserves someone who can provide everything she wants.’
I pick my head up off his shoulder and look him in the eyes. The lights cast shadows across his face, half in complete darkness, half illuminated in shades of orange. I take a deep breath myself, and place one of my hands on his cheek, using my thumb to gently comfort him, to wipe away his tear. ‘Are you okay?’
Luc laughs and wipes his own eye. ‘I’m absolutely fine, day-to-day.’ He swallows. ‘I never think about her anymore. But knowing I let it happen… it still kinda hurts.’
‘It would do.’
Luc places a finger on the bottom of my chin, lifting my face slightly so his nose brushes past mine. He doesn’t touch my lips but pulls back right before and searches my eyes. ‘It doesn’t hurt because it’s her. It doesn’t hurt when I think abouther.’ He runs his thumb over my cheeks. ‘It hurts when I think about what happened.’ A tear rolls down his face and I catch it with my thumb. The song switches over, another melancholic, beautiful tune. ‘It hurts because I wasn’t enough.’ He drops his head, forehead resting on my shoulder.
I let a tear roll out of my own eye. ‘Don’t blame yourself for someone else being a shitty girlfriend.’
‘I wanted to reassure my family that I’m okay.’ He lifts hishead. ‘They haven’t seen me upset over it in a while, but they keep looking at me like I’m going to break.’ His nose brushes past mine, his breath warming my lips. ‘I thought Mimi’s plan would help me to reassure them.’
