Derek turned quiet.
I continued to stare at my beer.
“I didn’t know that you still had feelings for her.”
I lifted my gaze and looked at him again. “I don’t. I just… I play it again and again in my head, questioning everything, trying to make sense of it. Our relationship, our commitment, was severed by…that? I haven’t spoken to her once, and I guess I always wonder…does she have any regrets? No one goes into a marriage thinking it’ll end in divorce, obviously. But I never, ever imagined my marriage would end like that, that I would be divorced before I turned thirty, having to start over when other people my age are just beginning.”
Derek digested what I said for a while. “I used to do the same thing with Kevin and Tabitha. I wondered if Kevin and I had ever really been friends. I wondered if Tabitha had ever really loved me or were we just too young to know what love was. Did I ever mean anything to either of them?”
“And what did you conclude?”
“This is going to be hard to believe, but…sometimes things just happen. We’re all humans, and we make mistakes without thinking clearly. You get caught up in a moment, and before you know it, you’ve done something really terrible even though it’s not a true reflection of who you are. I know Kevin is a good guy, and I’m glad that we’re close friends again. I know Tabitha was just young at the time. I’ve forgiven them both and let it go—because I’ve done shitty things that aren’t a true reflection of who I am. Look what I did to Emerson—unforgivable. But you know, shit happens, and it impacts our behavior, our emotions, our critical thinking, our judgment. Bottom line, just because Catherine did that doesn’t mean everything prior to that wasn’t real. It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you and wasn’t just as happy as you were. This terrible event happened, impaired her judgment, made her behave in a way she wouldn’t normally behave if the conditions had never changed…and she made a bad decision. Don’t overthink it. And I’m sure that someday, when she’s back to a good place, she’ll look back and realize she made a mistake. Maybe she’ll tell you and give you the closure you need. Maybe she won’t. Doesn’t matter.”
All of that made complete sense, so I gave a nod. “I didn’t realize you were so wise, Derek.”
He shrugged. “If you think about every issue you have with someone, either you or the other person probably behaved in a certain way because they were going through a hard time. We don’t realize that because a lot of people don’t share their battles with us. But every betrayal, every fight, every terrible thing someone does is triggered by that. So, the next time someone does something that hurts you, just remember it’s not really who they are, it’s what they’re going through.”
“And how did you learn that?”
He took a drink of his scotch before he set it down again. “Emerson, actually. Because she could always see me, the real me, through the tornado of bullshit that spun around me. Always.”
13
Sicily
Once a week had passed, things were a little better.
We weren’t thinking about that conversation every time we were together anymore.
Disappointment still lingered inside my heart, a gentle flutter that remained. I’d put myself on the line like that, made a complete idiot out of myself just because I saw a tiny ray of hope, a glimmer of a chance. Dex was the lottery, and even though I wasted my money on tickets, I continued to buy them, despite the fact that the odds were with three hundred million-to-one.
Because he was the fucking jackpot.
His rejection didn’t just sting because I couldn’t get what I wanted, but because he didn’t deserve to be in this eternal torment. That woman had ripped apart a good man, and it was infuriating.
But maybe he was right. He’d only been divorced for a year. Would it be realistic for someone like that to be capable of having a true and deep relationship with a new person when he’d thought he was going to spend his life with someone else just a year ago? He didn’t say it, but it made me wonder if he still loved her.
Why else did he keep that picture?
The first time I got my heart broken, I wasn’t over the guy for about a year. And if that was Dex’s only relationship, maybe it was reasonable he wasn’t over it either.
So, I should just move on and find someone else. I shouldn’t wait around for a remote possibility, especially when that possibility was my boss, which would make things even more complicated.
I stood in his living room and waited for him to come down the hallway so we could leave for his interview. Instead of responding to emails and getting some work done while I waited, my mind turned back to the conversation I had with Dex, the cringeworthy moment of my life that I couldn’t stop replaying.