Derek’s expression didn’t become less strained, so he obviously didn’t agree. He came back around the table and pulled up a stool, sitting right beside me, the food on the table ignored. “I don’t know how to fucking say this…and I really don’t want to be the one to fucking say this.”
“Derek, just rip the bandage off. Saying all this is only giving me more anxiety—”
“Catherine is getting married.” His expression immediately dropped as the self-loathing hit.
I heard what he said, completely understood it, but the other part of my brain moved much slower…and I couldn’t really process the revelation.
He studied my reaction, his eyes shifting back and forth as he looked into my gaze.
His words echoed over and over in my head.
Catherine is getting married.
My Catherine.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks just dropped on my head.
After a little over a year since our divorce…she was getting married.
A year.
One fucking year.
I dropped my chin and shifted my gaze to the concrete floor underneath his stool, my normally steady heart rate accelerating like I was in a car about to fly over a cliff. Adrenaline dumped into my blood, my fight-or-flight mode kicking in, my physiology doing what it could to protect me.
But nothing could protect me from this.
The pain came next. Deep, throbbing anguish.
It was like getting my heart broken all over again.
“Dex.” His hand moved to my shoulder.
Instinctively, I pushed it off. “How do you know this?”
He didn’t try again. “I was at a conference, and one of my colleagues told me he was engaged…and she was the person he was engaged to. I didn’t see her in the flesh. He showed me a picture of her.”
“And he didn’t know she’s your ex-sister-in-law?”
He shook his head. “No. And I didn’t tell him.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Nuclear physicist.”
That stung. Badly. “Apparently, a heart surgeon wasn’t good enough.”
“Dex, I’m sorry that I had to tell you this. But not telling you felt deceitful.”
“It’s fine. I get it.” I rubbed the back of my neck, my body both scorching hot and freezing cold at the same time. I could feel a headache coming on because my temples were pounding, and my face was probably beginning to turn red. The vein was popping out.
Derek sat there with me in silence, studying me, waiting for a reaction. “I know how it feels to be—”
“You know how it feels when your ex-wife gets remarried a year after she left you?” I lifted my chin and stared him down. “When she blames you for her father’s death and decides the relationship isn’t worth salvaging? No offense, Derek, but your fiancée having an affair when you were twenty is not the same thing as being happily married for years and then your wife leaves you because she thinks you’re a goddamn murderer.”
“Dex—”
“A year. A fucking year. And she’s ready to be with someone else for the rest of her life?”
He moved his hand to my arm. “Look—”
“Being in a new relationship after a year?” I shoved his arm down then stood up, just so he wouldn’t touch me again. “Fine. I can see that. But marrying someone?” I started to pace over the concrete, scrubbing my hand into my cheek. “That would mean she’d been with this guy from the second I was gone. She replaced me like that.” I snapped my fingers harshly. “Like she was never married to me, like she never loved me. I’m sorry, but is my memory of our relationship completely different from reality?” I stopped in front of him, screaming at him like he was Catherine himself. “Was she miserable that entire time? Did she ever love me? Am I losing my goddamn mind?”
Derek watched me pace, his eyes carrying a look of defeat. “I shouldn’t have told you—”
“Shouldn’t have told me what? That my ex-wife is a fucking cunt?” Spit flew out of my mouth everywhere because I spoke with such rage, both of my hands tightening into fists, my body shaking with angry tremors. “Fuck her. Man. Fuck. Her.”
“Dex, it’s her loss—”
“Really?” I snapped. “Because from my point of view, it looks like I’m the one who lost everything.” My heart was permanently broken, I’d lost my business, I’d stopped helping people because my entire sense of self had been destroyed. “She lost nothing.”
“Dex, I’m sorry.”
I ignored what he said, staring at the door where I came in, my arms crossed over my chest. Silence fell in the hangar, Derek on his stool, watching me, while I thought of a million things at once. “I’m done.”
“Done with what?”
“Everything.” I turned back around and looked at him. “Maybe we’re good people and we devote our lives to others, but everyone else out there is worthless pieces of shit. All they do is take advantage of people then jump to the next opportunity. All of them.”