Page 104 of Not the Plan

“Of course I did, beautiful.”

Her blush warmed his cheeks, and he closed his eyes again.

—

They sat together a long while. Isadora stroked Karim’s hair, the side of his face. He let himself relax. He’d been right, he did need her touch after the burst of anger passed. He’d returned to theimpression he’d had, that she might…really care for him, when she spoke.

“She seems to still have a lot of power over you,” she said.

“Do you think?” He didn’t open his eyes.

“You seem really upset.”

“I’m not so upset now.” He smiled, facing her.

“But after you hung up…”

He sat up, tapping his glasses back into place. “Exhausted, I guess. And it brought up a lot of old pain. It took a long time, but I finally realized that I was grieving the idea of being a married man, more so than the loss of the person. We got married too young, because everyone else thought we should. Remember how I told you that I had to help her maintain the facade of us being a perfect couple? We were good on paper, but in real life…” He shrugged.

“If she’s been gone so long, with no contact…”

“Why now? Because of you, I think,” he said.

“I see,” she said, quiet tension in her voice.

“Everything okay? You look uncomfortable.”

“Well, it feels kind of weird.”

“What does?” he asked.

“Up until now, your wife has just been this mysterious ghost. But now, she’s a lot more real to me. I feel kind of…wrong.”

“Why wrong?”

“Because you’re married, silly,” she said.

“Well, not for much longer. And I doubt we werethatmarried before. I took the commitment pretty seriously, but she didn’t.”

Her quick exhale and rigid shoulders made it clear he’d said the wrong thing.

“So, am I like…revenge, or something?”

“What? God, no. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant at all. You’re a whole nother story. You don’t have anything to do with my past.” He took her hands in his, looking her in the eye. “Isadora. I have never thought of you in reference to her. The way I feel about you is only about you.”

He needed to be honest and tell her he loved her, but he still wasn’t ready. Her face softened into a slight smile.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay?”

She nodded, but her discomfort was still palpable. He thought it best to give her time to process everything.

“Breakfast, beautiful?” he asked.

“Breakfast.” She nodded.

—

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