Page 102 of Come Apart
"He told me—"
"You know what he told me?" Anger seethes through me. I usually fight it back, but not this time. "He told me that he was happy for me. Happy I finally got my life together. I had everything. A business, an ambitious fiancée, and now I'd finally have a home. It was the first time he'd said something nice to me since Mom died."
"I'm sorry." It's not earnest. It's not “I'm sorry for your pain.” It's “I'm sorry you're such a fuck-up.”
"He wasn't just the asshole you were fucking behind my back. He was my father."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Did you ever love me or did you just want to get closer to him?" The room is spinning way, way too fast. I shouldn't push Samantha like this, not two weeks after a probable suicide attempt, but she's trying to take away my home.
"Of course," she says.
"When?"
She sighs.
"I always loved you. I just wasn't in love with you."
What the hell does that even mean?
"Don't bullshit me with clichés."
"Fine. The first year," she admits. "You were so sweet to me. You treated me so well. But after a while... you were different. Farther away."
"So it's my fault?"
"No," she says. "But he was so smart and successful, and he made me feel safe. It only got serious once I started working with him. All those late nights and work dinners." Her voice gets lower. "At first, we only talked about you."
"I asked you to marry me well after you started working with him."
"I know."
"Then why did you say yes?"
It makes no goddamn sense.
"Because I wanted to love you. I wanted things to be easy. I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking your heart."
She takes a sharp breath, but right now I don't care how she feels. Her words are a knife in my chest.
"Luke, I'm sorry," she says. "I wish I could apologize enough."
"You could stop trying to take my house."
"I earned it." She sighs. "He was ashamed to be with me. He was the one who always talked me out of breaking up with you. I wanted to end it. I wanted to stop stringing you along, but he was worried about you. And about his reputation. About how it would look. Even when I offered to keep our relationship a secret for a while, to leave the firm, he wouldn't do it. He didn't want to look like some asshole who stole his son's girlfriend."
"But he was fine with fucking you as long as nobody knew about it," I remark harshly. I'll never understand putting perception above reality like that. "You could have told me," I add. "I could have used the mercy."
"I'm a coward." Her voice breaks. "I tried to tell you at the hospital. I'm a pathetic coward. I was ruining your life then, and I'm ruining it now. You should stop talking to me. Keep the house. I don't need it."
"Sam, don't—"
"I don't deserve your friendship," she says.
"That's not what I meant."
I try to modulate my tone, frustration rising.
