Chapter 12
I wanted to finish the garden project I'd abandoned years earlier.
Michael smiled.
“Then do those things.”
I shook my head.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Not easy. Possible.”
At ten thirty, we stood to leave.
Michael had parked across the street, and he offered to walk me to my car.
As we crossed the lobby, I noticed Rachel sitting alone near the elevators.
Her coat was draped across her knees.
Daniel was nowhere in sight.
She looked up when we passed.
“Claire?”
I stopped.
Michael glanced at me.
“I'll wait outside.”
I nodded.
Rachel stood.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I owe you an apology.”
I had not expected that.
She looked exhausted.
“I knew he was married when we started seeing each other.”
I said nothing.
“He told me you were living separate lives. He said you had both accepted that the marriage was over.”
I watched her carefully.
“I wanted to believe him,” she admitted. “So I didn't ask enough questions.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You didn't.”
She accepted that without arguing.
“I thought I was different.”
Those words hurt more than I expected.
Not because they were cruel.
Because they were honest.
Rachel looked down at her hands.
“He made me feel like I was the only person who really understood him.”
I remembered Daniel saying similar things when we were young.
How I was the one person he could always talk to.
How he'd never felt so completely himself with anyone else.
I wondered when he had stopped believing those words.
Or whether he still believed them whenever someone new was listening.
Rachel took a shaky breath.
“He's upstairs right now telling me he needs space.”
I felt a familiar ache.
“I'm sorry.”
She looked startled.
“You're sorry?”
“You're hurting. I recognize that.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don't expect you to forgive me.”
“Good,” I said gently. “Because I'm not ready to.”
She nodded.
“But I also don't wish this pain on you.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
She wiped it away quickly.
“Do you still love him?” she asked.
I looked toward the glass doors.
Outside, Michael was waiting under the hotel awning, his hands in his coat pockets.
I thought carefully before answering.
“I love the man I thought I was growing old with.”
Rachel's face crumpled slightly.
“But I don't know who Daniel is anymore.”