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He didn’t even make a debriefing joke. “About?”
“Me. As a girlfriend. What did I do wrong? How could I have improved? Be brutally honest. And don’t worry—I won’t reciprocate. Last time I saw you I think I expressed pretty clearly to you how I felt about you cheating on me for so long.”
“Yeah. You were very expressive.”
“You have full immunity now. That’s lawyer-talk, right?”
“Sure.”
“You can send me a list if you need to think about it.”
“I’d rather not leave a paper trail.”
“Ha ha. Lawyer humor. Is that one of the courses you’re taking?”
“I could teach that class.”
“So, do you want to think about it and then…”
“I don’t need to think about.”
“Oh.”
“There’s no list, it was just one thing. You were a good girlfriend to me, Gem, I’ve never felt otherwise. It’s just that you weren’t completelyina relationship with me.”
I sighed. “What about before I met Theo?”
“I’m not even talking about that. Ever since we officially started dating, it’s like you were just my girlfriend, but you weren’t…init. You weren’t interested in fighting with me or getting to know my dark side or finding out what really made me tick. So I didn’t get into it with you either. It’s like…I don’t know. It never got messy, so it never felt real. Honestly,wewere the ones who had the fake relationship. But I still loved ya.”
The lump in my throat made some sort of noise, and eventually I was able to say, “Loved you too. Thank you.”
After we’d hung up, I had a new respect for Andrew, and I definitely had closure.
In my vows, I had promised to be there for Theo, no matter what. That wasn’t supposed to be a fake promise for the judge and the camera, but apparently I had lied. I wasn’t there for him when things got messy and tough for us. I wasn’t completelyinit.
I had so much restless energy, but I wasn’t ready to see Theo yet, because I still didn’t know what to say. Actually, I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted to show him that I was there for him, in a way that I hadn’t before.
I looked out the window. The morning haze hadn’t burned off yet, and it didn’t look too hot. I pulled out my running shoes from my duffel bag. I double-tied the laces, so they wouldn’t come loose and trip me up.
I did some stretches, and then I walked out the door with determination, and I started running. I paced myself. I was careful not to overstride, I used proper upper body form. I did all of the things that Theo had told me to do those few times I’d gone running with him.
It made me feel closer to Theo. It made me feel like I was in his head, somehow, and in his body too. About fifteen minutes in, my quads were on fire and pretty much every joint in my body was like—WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING US?!?!?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOGA, YOU BITCH?!But I thought about how Theo must have felt this when he started running, and he pushed through it.
If really being married to Theo Walker meant putting up with him being jealous and jumping off of cliffs and running marathons together, then I was in.
I wasn’t running alongside him yet, but I was training myself to.
