Page 47 of Happy After All

“He’s an actor,” Nathan says. I can’t tell if that’s an accusation or a statement of understanding.

“Yes,” I say. “He’s an actor. That’s ... how I know him. I used to ... I was a writer. I mean, for TV. Sometimes I did adaptations. Mostly romance novels into movies.”

Now he knows not just my name but all these other things about me.

I feel like I’ve lost whatever game we’ve been playing. If it was a game. Though, I can’t really be upset about it, because I was about to lose my mind, and I really needed to tell someone.

I don’t need to tell someone everything. In fact, I actively do not want people to know everything. But I needed to tell someone this, because clearly, I’mnothandling it.

“Okay,” he says.

“It was a very bad breakup. He was cheating, and I caught him. In our house. You know, it’s so much more common for people to catch their partner cheating because of technology. Sloppy texting. Tracking someone’s phone. Dick pics, even,” I say. “It felt so analog to actually walk into my own bedroom and find him with another woman.”

“Holy shit,” he says. I’m gratified by his response. “Why would he do something that stupid?”

“In total fairness, he thought I was on a plane. My flight got canceled. Like right before I was supposed to get on it. I didn’t text him. I just went home. Because I thought ... I don’t know, I actually thought he was going to an audition. I wasn’t trying to catch him. I wasn’t suspicious. At all.”

In truth, I wasn’t even thinking about it at the time. I wasn’t thinking about him. That was another problem with the relationship, but it didn’t justify his cheating.

“And you didn’t tell anybody here that he was your ex-boyfriend.”

“No. Because when I decided to be done with it, I really wanted to leave it behind. Really, really badly. I didn’t want it to follow me. I didn’t want him to follow me, you know? Only now he is. He was on a Zoom call tonight in the meeting.He saw me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Which is why he’s now calling me. Likely because he wants to know if I’m responsible for him coming here. Do you know what—that is actually the most embarrassing thing. The most embarrassing thing is that he’s going to think I wanted him to come here. It’s too big of a coincidence tojustbe a coincidence.”

“Why don’t you call him back? Tell him you didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“That’s even more embarrassing.”

“How?”

“That lets him know I’m obsessing about it.”

“Youareobsessing about it,” he points out.

“What would you do in this situation?” I realize this is an absurd question. I doubt this man has ever had his heart broken. I bet he has broken hearts multiple times, but I bet he isn’t the one sitting around feeling sad. Or, even if he were, I bet the people he’s been with wouldn’t assume he was sitting around alone. He doesn’t look like the kind of man who would ever be alone at night unless he wanted to be.

Granted, I have a front-row view to the fact he does seem to want to be. Often enough.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t have any relationships that ended like that.”

“Lucky you,” I say.

He huffs a laugh. A reluctant smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “I know a little bit about pride, though.”

“Okay then. Understand it from that perspective. This is possibly fatally damaging to my pride.”

“Who is he? I want to look him up.”

“No,”I say.

“He isn’t going to know,” he says.

“ButI’llknow. I’ll know that we stood here and googled him.” I have kept myself from doing that for all these years because it’s just too sad. He might never know, but I’d know.

“And you haven’t done that?”

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