Page 73 of My Almost Ex

She smiles. “Yeah, you were like that from the first time you kissed me. Like you were searching for your future wife.”

“And look at what happened.” I ball up the plastic bag from the sandwich and stand to get some distance, but she follows me to the water’s edge.

We’re both quiet for a minute before she speaks. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive me?” Her voice is quiet, as if she’s scared of how I’ll answer.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about this today?” I head back over to the blanket. “We should get going.”

“Answer me, please.” She stays in place.

“You wanted one day and I’m giving that to you. Let’s put that question aside until tomorrow.” I pack up the stuff in the cooler.

“So you can think of how to let me down easy?”

I stop what I’m doing and look at her. “You really want to know?”

She nods slowly.

I blow out a breath and tilt my head back as though I need support from above to get through this. And maybe I do. “I can’t be mad at you because you don’t even remember making the decision to leave. At least I tell myself that every time I’m with you. And I can feel my anger starting to disappear.”

A smile slowly lifts the edges of her lips.

“But that scares the crap outta me because one day you’ll either remember or the reason you left will return and I’ll be left like fucking roadkill on the side of the road again.”

She steadies her gaze on the pebbles under her boots. “I wish we had some closure.”

I sit on the blanket. “I do too, but even though you’ve made great progress, we both need to accept the fact you might never remember the reason why you left.”

She approaches slowly as though I’m a wild animal she might startle. Then she lowers herself to the blanket. “Are we fooling ourselves?”

I wrap my arms around my propped up knees. “How so?”

“If this accident has proved anything, it’s that playing games and ignoring the problem is a waste of time. Time is so precious.”

“Okay, so say it then. Are we fooling ourselves about what?”

“That we can get back to who we were. I know I’m the one who only remembers the good between us. But I can’t lie, I want us to get to where we were. I want us to move forward. As a married couple.” She places her hand on my arm and her eyes glisten. “But if you don’t think you can get there, then maybe it’s better for both of us if we step away from one another.”

My chest tightens at the idea of her leaving again. “I told you I’d help you.”

“But it’s killing you. You think I don’t see that? The tortured look on your face, the pain in your eyes. One minute we’ll be having fun and it’s like no time has passed, and the next you turn cold because you remember what I did.”

“It’s not because of what you did.” I stand, unable to sit if she wants to have this conversation.

“Then what is it?” She stands but doesn’t follow me.

I turn back to her. “You killed me! You crushed me! You wanna know what I did while you were away? I sat depressed by myself unless I was at work. I was miserable, a shell of my former self. I was stuck in the what-ifs and what-did-I-dos, trying to figure out how you could just leave me like that. I almost fell off the fucking mountain I was climbing because I was distracted and had no sleep. That was my wake-up call that I had to do something to get you out of my head. And just when I was getting there, you come strolling back into town with no memory of destroying us.”

“I’m sorry.” She sniffles and I can tell she’s trying her best not to cry.

I clench my fists at my sides. “Stop saying you’re fucking sorry!”

“Well I am!” she yells back. “I want to find out so maybe we can move on from it. I want to scream at the old me and say ‘how could you have done this to the man you love.’ I’m angry too, but do you know how hard it is for me to live with knowing I was the one who ruined us? Knowing that if we can’t move forward, I’m the one to blame for my entire life imploding?”

We stare at each other, silent for a few moments. It feels good to have spoken the words out loud, but at the same time, it feels as though we’ve thrown a grenade and a crater is the only thing left between us.

“I’m not sure where that leaves us.” I rub the back of my neck.

“I think we part. Maybe I should just go back to the inn and you can rent out the house. I’ll sign the divorce papers like you wanted.”

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