The Scars He Thought Were Forgotten Led Me Back to the One Truth Our Marriage Could Never Survive

by

Chapter 19

THEME:
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Our attorneys stayed in the next room at our request.

For the first time since separating, there was no audience.

No judge.

No mistress.

No board members.

No reporters.

Just two people who had once built something together and then spent years pretending they didn't remember how.

Jason looked tired.

I noticed how much gray had appeared near his temples.

He noticed me noticing.

“I'm getting old,” he said.

“So am I.”

“You hide it better.”

“That sounds dangerously like charm.”

He almost smiled.

Then the smile disappeared.

“Iris…”

“Don't start with an apology if you're going to explain it away afterward.”

He looked down.

“All right.”

Silence.

Then:

“I was wrong.”

It was almost irritatingly small.

After everything, I expected a speech.

Maybe he understood that.

“I don't mean one decision,” he said. “I mean I spent years telling myself that because I had kept the company alive, I had earned the right to decide what happened to it.”

I said nothing.

“And because you weren't objecting loudly, I decided you agreed.”

“I didn't.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

His voice was quiet.

“I know now that you stopped arguing with me because arguing had stopped changing anything.”

That was the closest he had ever come to understanding.

I looked through the window.

Traffic moved several floors below.

“What about Madison?”

Jason's face tightened.

“She and I are no longer together.”

I waited.

He didn't elaborate.

“That isn't my business anymore.”

“I know.”

“Did you love her?”

He looked surprised.

I was surprised I had asked.

Jason thought for a long time.

“I loved how uncomplicated I felt around her.”

The answer hurt.

But it was honest.

“She knew the version of me that existed after the company succeeded. No old arguments. No hospital rooms. No memory of every mistake I made when I was twenty-seven.”

“That isn't the same as loving someone.”

“No.”

“Did she know you were still married when it started?”

“Yes.”

There were no excuses.

I appreciated that more than I expected.

“She left after the first hearing,” he added.

“Because of the company?”

“Partly.”

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table.

“She said if I could rewrite my marriage that easily, she didn't know which version of our relationship was true either.”

I almost smiled.

“She was smarter than either of us gave her credit for.”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

Then Jason slid a document toward me.

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