Chapter 8: There Was No Us Anymore

Three days after I moved into my parents' house, Damien came to see me.

My father opened the door, took one look at him, and called my name without inviting him inside.

I walked into the hallway and found Damien standing on the porch with a paper bag in one hand and an expression of carefully arranged misery on his face.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

"No."

His expression slipped for a second.

"Nate, please. I came to apologize."

"Then apologize from there."

My father stayed within earshot. Damien noticed and lowered his voice.

"I never meant for you and Isla to break up."

I almost admired the nerve it took to say that.

"You called me to the bar so I would see you clinging to her."

"I called because she was in trouble."

"You asked her at your apartment whether she cared about you more than me."

His face changed.

"You heard that?"

"Enough of it."

Damien looked down at the paper bag. "I was insecure."

"You're her husband."

"Not for much longer."

"That's between you and Isla."

He took a breath. "She filed for divorce."

"I know."

"She also terminated my sponsorship."

That surprised me, though I refused to show it.

Damien laughed bitterly. "My tuition payment was canceled this morning. The apartment lease is in a Farrow company name, and her assistant says I have thirty days to move."

"Then it sounds like Isla finally did what she promised."

His eyes snapped up.

"You think you've won?"

There it was.

The helpless student disappeared so quickly that I almost smiled.

"I wasn't competing with you."

"Of course you were."

"No, Damien. You were competing with me. That's why you kept arranging for me to see things. The bar. The courthouse. The calls. You wanted proof that she would choose you."

His jaw tightened.

I continued. "Congratulations. She did. More than once."

"And she still came crawling back to you."

"That's not the victory you think it is."

He stared at me with open resentment now.

"Do you know what it's like to have someone like Isla take care of you? She paid for everything. She checked whether I ate. She showed up whenever I called. Then you started complaining, and suddenly I was supposed to disappear because her older boyfriend felt threatened."

"Fiance," I corrected automatically, then stopped.

The word no longer mattered.

Damien noticed.

"See? Even you don't know what you were to her."

That might once have wounded me. Now it only sounded childish.

"What do you want, Damien?"

He held out the paper bag.

"These are things she left at my place. I thought you should see them."

I didn't take it.

"Why?"

"Because she isn't telling you everything."

"Neither are you."

His mouth tightened.

"The hickey wasn't an accident."

My pulse jumped despite myself.

Damien saw it and smiled faintly.

"She came over after we registered the marriage. She was upset because you kept calling about wedding arrangements. We drank. I kissed her."

I said nothing.

"She kissed me back."

The porch seemed very quiet.

"Did you sleep together?" I asked.

Damien hesitated.

That hesitation was deliberate. He wanted me to fill it with the worst possibility.

I recognized the tactic now.

"If you had," I said, "you wouldn't hesitate. You'd be delighted to tell me."

His face hardened.

I almost laughed.

"So that's a no."

"She wanted to."

"Maybe. Maybe not. I don't care enough to investigate anymore."

That answer upset him more than anger would have.

"How can you not care?"

"Because whether she kissed you once or slept with you a hundred times doesn't change the decision I've already made."

Damien's fingers tightened around the bag.

"She'll come back to me."

"Then you two can figure it out."

I started closing the door.

He shoved the bag across the threshold.

"At least look at this."

Something fell out.

A small velvet box.

I recognized it immediately.

It was the box for the watch I had given Isla on our fifth anniversary.

I bent down and opened it.

The watch wasn't inside.

Instead, there was a receipt from a luxury pawn service dated eight months earlier.

Damien spoke softly. "She sold it to pay for my study-abroad deposit."

For a moment, I couldn't breathe.

That watch had not been expensive by Farrow standards. The money wasn't the point. I had saved for months because Isla once stopped in front of a boutique window and said she loved it.

When I'd noticed she stopped wearing it, she told me the clasp had broken and it was being repaired.

Another lie.

Damien was watching me closely, waiting for the reaction.

I closed the box.

"Thanks."

He blinked.

"That's it?"

"What do you want me to do? Break down so you can feel important?"

His face reddened.

I handed the bag back.

"Keep it or throw it away."

"You're pretending you don't care."

"No. It hurts."

I surprised both of us by saying it plainly.

"It hurts that she sold something I gave her and lied about it. It hurts that she spent years making me question what I could see with my own eyes. But pain doesn't mean I have to go back."

Damien stared at me.

"You really are done with her."

"Yes."

For the first time, he looked frightened instead of triumphant.

I understood why a moment later.

If I was truly gone, Damien could no longer use me as the rival who made Isla prove her devotion to him.

He would have to face Isla without the thrill of taking her away from someone else.

I closed the door.

That evening, Isla called from an unfamiliar number after I blocked her personal line.

I nearly ignored it, but something made me answer.

"Nate." Her voice was hoarse. "Damien came to see you, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"That you sold the watch."

Silence.

"Nate, I can explain."

I looked out my childhood bedroom window.

"You always can."

She began crying.

"He needed the deposit immediately. My accounts were being audited because of a company acquisition, and I couldn't transfer a large amount without questions. I was going to buy the watch back."

"You could have asked me."

"I knew you'd be angry."

"So you lied."

"I didn't want another fight."

I laughed softly.

"Isla, avoiding the truth doesn't avoid the fight. It just delays it until there are more lies attached."

She was quiet.

Then she said, "I terminated everything with him."

"Good."

"The divorce is proceeding."

"Good."

"Why do you sound like none of it matters?"

"Because you're doing those things after losing me, not when I begged you to respect me."

Her breathing hitched.

"Tell me what matters, then."

I thought about it.

"The baby matters. Our property matters. Treating each other decently while we separate matters."

"And us?"

I closed my eyes.

"There is no us anymore."

She began to sob.

I didn't hang up immediately. Seven years made cruelty impossible even when love was no longer enough.

But I didn't take the words back either.

That night, I slept through until morning for the first time in weeks.