Page 162 of Light My Fire

“Do you have more than one?” I ask her. Obviously, one of the children playing is hers.

She nods. “Two more. Boys. They’re seven and four.”

I’m surprised that I don’t feel anything when she tells me that. I would have expected that to be painful.

“Are you still with Ryan?”

“I am,” she says. “He’s still at the hospital. We’re going to celebrate our anniversary with a trip to Europe next spring.”

I look over to find her watching me. Her expression is difficult to read. She seems curious.

“Are you happy?” I ask. I hadn’t intended to ask her that. I suppose I didn’t think I cared. But now, I realize I hope theanswer is yes. Because if she blew everything up the way she did, and we were both miserable, that would be a big fucking waste.

“I am,” she says, her voice soft. “I feel like I should feel bad about that.”

I blow out a breath and meet her gaze. Again, I would have expected looking directly at her to be like a punch in the gut.

It’s not. She’s just a woman that I used to know. A woman I don’t know anymore. She has an entire life that has nothing to do with me. She probably doesn’t think about me more than possibly a handful of times in a year. We were married so I have to think there are dates, or places, that remind her of me. But she has plenty of other things occupying her life. Her mind. Her heart.

“I don’t know why exactly you wanted to see me,” she says after a long moment. “But there is something that I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time.”

I open my mouth to tell her that whatever it is it’s not necessary but she stops me.

“Please let me say it.”

I don’t have to. I don’t owe her anything. But I feel my head nodding. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve never really said that to you. And I do mean it. What I did was selfish and stupid. And I know you might not believe me, but when I got pregnant, I really hoped she was yours. I made a mistake having the affair, and then I… got caught. And I’d hoped that maybe I’d be able to get out of it. If she was yours, we could’ve just moved on.”

I absorb that. Do I believe her? I think I do. I might not have if she’d told me she was sorry six months after it all happened. Or even a year. But now? She’s had time to think about it, to grow up. So yeah, I accept that.

“I forgive you,” I tell her.

She seems to sigh with relief.

“And it’s worked out, right?”

She sighs again. “Yes. You and I would have too, I’m sure. But I am happy and I can’t regret how it worked out. And I hope that you’re the same way.”

NowI feel the punch to the gut.

But it’s not her fault. I realize that it’s mine.

I don’t feel the same way. I haven’t moved on. I’m not happy. At least, not as happy as she is.

Not as happy as I could be.

Ilether take that from me.

I take a deep breath. “I needed to see you because…” Suddenly now sitting next to her, it hits me how ridiculous it is that I haven’t moved on.

What she did to me was awful. Selfish, heartbreaking, painful. I had every right to be angry and hurt at the time. But it’s been ten years, and I have been holding myself back from relationships and happiness because of a choiceshemade. A mistake that she made. It wasn’t my fault. I had been a good husband to her. I had wanted to give her children, build a future. She knowingly, purposely, slept with someone else and took all of that away from us.

It was her choice to cheat. But it’s been my choice to let it color my life and every relationship for the past ten years.

“I’ve met someone,” I tell her. I’m getting more and more used to saying that out loud. It comes easily this time.

Her eyes widen. “Just now? You’re still single?”

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