“I’ve spent two years living inside the shock you created.”
“We could go to counseling.”
“Maybe you should.”
“We could go together.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know what I remember from before the accident. Maybe someday more will come back. Maybe it won’t.”
Richard reached for my hand.
I moved it away.
“But there is something I know right now.”
“What?”
“You were supposed to give me the truth and let me decide.”
His shoulders sank.
“You decided for me twice.”
“Twice?”
“Before the crash, I deserved to decide whether your betrayal ended our relationship. After the crash, I deserved the same choice.”
His eyes closed.
“And both times,” I continued, “you decided what outcome you wanted first.”
“I wanted us.”
“You wanted another chance.”
“Yes.”
“You gave yourself one.”
He looked at me helplessly.
“I thought if you could see how much I loved you—”
“Then I would forgive you?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I would have.”
That startled him.
I swallowed hard.
“Maybe if you had sat beside my hospital bed and told me everything, I would have forgiven you one day. Maybe I wouldn’t have. We will never know.”
Richard began to cry again.
“Because you took that choice from me.”
I picked up my mother’s necklace.
The chain was still broken.
For years, I had thought losing it was simply another cruel piece of the accident.
Now I realized it had been waiting for me in Richard’s possession the entire time.
“I’m keeping this.”
“Of course.”
“It belongs to me.”
“I know.”
I looked at him.
“So did the truth.”
He couldn’t answer.
I walked into the bedroom and packed a small bag.
Clothes.
Medication.
My notebook.
The old phone.
The photographs from apartment 3B.
When I returned, Richard was still sitting at the table.
The wedding ring remained exactly where I had left it.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I believed him.
That was the painful part.
I believed he regretted what he had done.
I believed he loved me.
I even believed that somewhere along the way, Richard had convinced himself that hiding the truth was an act of kindness.
But regret was not the same thing as trust.
And love was not permission.
I stood at the door.
Richard looked at me.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer would once have terrified me.
