A small eternity stretches out beyond his last words, an eternity filled with confusion and possibility and roads not taken. This whole conversation I’ve been fighting to suppress a shaking in my body, a feverish tremor that chatters my teeth and rumbles my core, and it intensifies with every moment I languish in the pause. I don’t know what Lachlan and I are to each other, or what we will be to each other going forward, but I know that if he and Claire have decided to stay together, a lot of paths become closed to me. So much hangs in the balance, and the small eternity lengthens and grows, spiraling out into a hundred different futures, some of which are in my grasp, none of which are in my control. He cuts his eyes to me, but my features are a mask; I won’t let him see the panic.
Lachlan lets out a long breath, his eyes fixed on his hands, laced together and fidgeting. “But it’s not real. It’s only a memory of when things were easier, when we were all we had and it was enough. We’re too different now, with completely different priorities. And I think no matter what else had happened in our lives, we’d been heading for this outcome for a long time. Maybe from before the wedding itself. We’re getting a divorce.”
My shaking hand rattles the ice in my glass at the D-word. I wonder if he can see what this news is doing to me, how it’s swirling a thousand thoughts around in my head like a whirlpool. “I’m so sorry, Lachlan. But it sounds like it’s the right decision?” I puta little inflection there, like I’m giving him the opportunity to back out if he wants to.
His sad smile returns. “Thanks. I think so. And it’s going to be messy and painful, and I’m naive if I think we won’t hate each other at some point during the process, but we’ll just have to try to be as civil as possible and remind ourselves that this is the best thing for both of us in the long run.”
“What happens next?”
“It’s a whole faff. It’s easier since we don’t have kids, but we’ll still have to figure out how to split everything up. We have a draft separation agreement, but if either of us isn’t satisfied with that, we’ll have to take it to court. I’m sure the tabloids will have a fucking field day no matter what we do, so get ready to hide all of the bad stories in the press from my fragile ego.”
“Can do, boss.” I give him a little salute. “How does Claire feel about it all?”
“I think she’s okay. She’s moving to America, like she’s always wanted. Los Angeles to start with; she’s got auditions and interviews lined up for a couple of things out there, and some of it sounds really promising. Not just reality TV shit—whoever the decision makers are have realized that she’s really smart, she has great taste, and she’s willing to hustle. So she’s going to land on her feet.”
It says a lot about the kind of person Lachlan Ramsay is that he’s clearly so proud of her, despite everything.
“And as for the rest, who knows. I think she might be dating one of my teammates from Madrid. Ironically, not Carlinhos, the one all the red tops thought she was with, but a different guy. I think she started to see him these last few months while we’ve been, like, emotionally but not legally separated.” He rubs his neck. “I didn’t say anything, because I know she knew aboutus…I mean, I know you told her that we got really close while we were living together.”
“Yeah,” I say. I don’t apologize. “I thought it was important to tell her.”
“I’m glad you did. We talked a lot about it, about emotional infidelity, and she kind of hinted that she had also explored something new, but I didn’t want to press in case it felt like I was trying to trap her into confessing.”
A bundle of nervous energy trills up my spine. “Emotional infidelity?” There it is, our alleged crime, spoken aloud for the very first time.
He’s definitely not looking at me now, and his cheeks are burning red. “Yeah. I mean…yeah, Abby. I’m not alone here, right?” It’s a small turn of his head, the bare minimum he can do in order to meet my eyes. It’s guarded, emotionally vulnerable. He’s showing me his exposed underbelly. I could hurt him here, really hurt him. I could accuse him of leading me down the garden path, of making me a homewrecker, of manipulating me. I could jab the sharpest fucking spear into his chest, ram it in there until it sticks.
Instead, I turn the weapon on myself. “No, you’re not alone. But I need to tell you some things I should have a long time ago.” I take a deep breath. “My ex, Steven, cheated on me. Multiple times, actually. The first time I caught him, he said he wanted to try an open relationship, and I just agreed, without even thinking if that was something I wanted, or really even knowing what itmeant. I was too afraid I’d lose him, so I just agreed to his terms. And it wasn’t so bad, because after a couple of months, he told me that dating was terrible and an open relationship was a bad idea and what he actually wanted was just me. And I was so relieved that I decided to put it behind us entirely. Not think about what it meant for our relationship that he had asked to explore it in thefirst place, not examine my willingness to have any type of relationship other than the one we had, just…sweep it all under the rug and go back to normal.”
“Abby…” Lachlan says, but I cut him off. I can’t stop now. The words are pouring forth like blood gushing from an emotional wound.
“And that’s what happened. For a long time, everything was fine. In fact, it was better than fine, because we got engaged and we were so happy. I mean, I did the whole thing—huge photo shoot, bridal party, wedding china…But it turns out that the whole thing was a lie: He never stopped seeing other people, even when he came back to me. In fact, he’d been dating someone seriously for almost two years. Actually bought an apartment with her, it turns out, all while asking my parents to pay for the wedding.”
“Jesus,” he mutters.
“Yeah. And I couldn’t even muster the courage to confront him about it. I just let him slowly realize that I knew, and then he left me for her. And the worst part was I knew the whole time. Iknewhe was lying about only wanting to be with me. Iknewhe was still seeing someone. But it was like I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. I just let it all wash over me, because at least when he was with me, he seemed happy and I seemed happy, and I didn’t want to go to the trouble of a massive fight and breakup and canceling the wedding after we’d already sent out the invitations and everything.”
The anguish is stark on Lachlan’s face. “But Abby, what’s canceling a wedding compared to actually being happy?”
“No, I know. It was stupid. But I was in this complete emotional rut. I spent so much of my life just wanting things to be easy, just smoothing the passage for other people even if it was inconvenient for me, because I hate conflict and tension. Mybrothers were the loud ones, the big personalities. I just followed quietly behind. And I guess I let that happen with Steven as well, which is pretty fucking dumb, now that I say it out loud.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and his hand twitches on the table like it’s dying to reach out to me. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Actually, that’s a lie. I never told you because I didn’t want you to think I was some emotionally damaged loser.”
“I would never have thought that.”
“I’m sure on some level I knew that, but it was also part of my whole reinvention. Flying over here and restarting my life and not looking back. I didn’t want to bring up the person I was then because I was trying so hard not to be that person anymore. But it was always there, in the back of my mind, this idea that there was something wrong with me that made Steven look elsewhere, and no matter what I told myself about my new life, I was still that same Abby. Because I did the exact same thing with you: I let myself get swept along by our relationship rather than taking a second to stop and think about what it meant for you and your marriage and for me and my happiness. It was Old Abby all over again, just going with the flow because to say something, to have even a moment of selfishness, might cause you pain.” I take a deep, shaky breath. The hardest part is yet to come, but I have to get it out. “But then when you said what you said on New Year’s Eve…”
Lachlan grimaces and it’s a look of such misery that I almost don’t go on. But I have to, otherwise none of this matters.
“When you said that, it was like the worst of all worlds, because my conflict avoidance strategy went straight out the window, but also, it just hit me that this woman Steven left me for—Jessica—I’d spent months and monthshatingher, and then all of a sudden, Iwasher. I was the ‘other woman.’ And yes, I know it’sdifferent because you and I were nevertogethertogether, but emotionally, of course you weren’t alone. Of course I felt what you felt.” I allow him a brief moment of relief, then continue. “But you shouldn’t have said what you said to me. It was unfair of you to put that burden on me, to make me the one who would ultimately be responsible for ending your marriage.”
“Abby—”
I hold my hand up. “No, let me finish, because if I don’t get it out now, I’ll never say it, and I can’t keep going through life avoiding the hard conversations. I was so mad at you after that night, because it was exactly like I’d predicted for myself: You’d be fine and I’d be destroyed, because I was the only one really at risk. All the months of longing came together in that moment, and the walls I’d put up, the little fortress of denial, of avoidance, of taking the easy way out…that little fortress came crumbling down all around me. And I hated myself for being the other woman, and I hated myself for not doing the hard thing of steering our relationship away from anything other than friendship, for letting myself get carried away by the idea of being with you. And not even talking to you about it or substantively engaging in any way about the lives we led before we came to Liverpool so we could have had everything on the table, open and honest. I hated you for making me feel that way and I blamed you for letting things get so far.”
“Honestly, that’s fair.”
