Page 88 of Green
I covered my face. The only thing that was true was that I still loved him, and everything was somehow a mess because of that. I blew out a long breath. “Is he seeing anyone?”
“Of course not. I mean. I doubt it. I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’m not even sure where he is, to be honest. He told Ethan he’s running 5Ks and 10ks on weekends.”
“Where?”
“Wherever. You want me to find out?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I didn’t answer.
“So have you sent in the divorce papers yet?”
“I need to look them over.”
“Have you looked at them at all?”
“I will. I haven’t even opened the envelope. God. I can’t even imagine how hard this would be if we’d actually married for love.”
“Oh my God! Are you kidding me?!” She jumped to her feet and threw her arms up in the air, exasperated. “Youdidmarry for love you dummy! You guys convinced a federal officer of this three years ago—what’s it going to take to convinceyou? I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure there’s no legal definition of what kind of love qualifies it as a non-fraudulent marriage.”
I loved it when Chloe got passionate about things. Even when she was passionate about what a dummy I was. Her rage always calmed me down. “I guess we were polyamorous for a few years?”
She smiled. “There you go. He was your sister wife. Now he’s your mister wife…At first you were married to the man, then you were married to his tongue and hands and his penis.”
I felt everything collapse inside of me, at the thought of never having the man, the tongue, the hands, or the penis again.
“Shit. I blew it, didn’t I? I should have just stayed at his house and kept everything the way it was and kissed him and then see what happened. It would have been perfect.”
“It wouldn’t have been perfect. But it could have been good. And it could have ended all the same anyway. Who knows.”
I dropped my head back. “Oh my God, Chloe. Why don’t you just stab me in the heart?”
“I don’t know what else to say. I gotta go, I have a meeting. You gonna be home all day?”
“Probably. Is that okay?”
“Of course it is. You can stay here and be a sad idiot for as long as you want.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean to place the blame on you. It’s always both people in the relationship who mess things up. I just meant that I thought you would have figured out by now how much he loves you.”
I finally pulled the manila envelope out of my suitcase, and the divorce papers out of the envelope. He was giving me half of all of the assets he’d earned since we married—half of everything in our joint accounts, half of what was currently in his personal accounts, the car he bought me. I would pay off my student loan and keep for myself the money currently in my own personal account, which is where he always insisted I deposit my income. The mortgage would be his sole responsibility and the house was all his. Looking at the wording, thinking about what it would mean to actually legally separate ourselves from each other, I guessed this was what people meant when they say “Shit just got real.” It felt real. It felt like shit. It was terrible. It felt so final.
In trying to redesign our relationship, I had stripped away more than I had meant to. I stripped away Theo. And I didn’t like how anything looked or felt without him in it. Winsome on Sunset. Los Angeles. My life.
The truth was, I didn’t really know who I was before I met Theo, I was afraid of who I was when I was in love with him, and I didn’t really want to know who I’d be without him.
When I wandered back into the living room, Chloe was gone, but she had hooked up Ethan’s video camera to the TV, and the image paused on the screen was of two beautiful happy faces—mine and Theo’s.
It was the video of our wedding ceremony.
