Page 94 of Lessons in Forgiving
He sighed, and I stupidly said, “As great as yours must’ve been?”
On to round two, I thought.
His eyes stayed on the winding drive-up, and the trees that lined it. Like it was the easiest thing in the world—not payingattention to me. Just when I thought he’d ignore me, he swallowed thickly, spoke into the morning air.
“The things you mentioned last night.” He began. “Are not at all why I had to break up with you.” He said it like he wished he hadn’t.
I did, too. And with a sense of dread, stomach plummeting, I realizedfuck, it’s going to be so much harder getting over him this time. Because he wasn’t my boyfriend and I wasn’t his girlfriend—I had norightto his heart, not a sliver of a claim. We were just Henry and Paula. Friends. Partners.Exes.
“You didn’t have to—” I wanted to say, but Henry shook his head, gaze still on the driveway.
“I did,” he stressed. “Even if you didn’t like it, and I did even less. I had to.”
My head shook, and I felt some of the anger from last night stir. “What is it, then?” I finally turned from the view to face him. “Why did youhaveto break my heart?”
“Paula—” He began, worry in his tone. Probably because my eyes were stinging, and my vision was blurry and that was a tear rolling down my cheek. I didn’t care.
“No.” My head shook fiercely. “Go on. Look at me and say it. Tell me.”
His throat worked, but no words came out. He just looked at me in silence. It drove me mad. “Say something!” I demanded, loud voice wavering. “Because I deserve better? Because you’re not good enough?” I mocked. “Surely you can come up with a better excuse—”
“God damn it, Paula!” His calm demeanor snapped, and he matched my tone. I think we were yelling at each other. “Yes!” he roared unapologetically. “That’s exactly it. Congrats.”
The cup, still standing on the banister, had been forgotten when he stemmed his hands on the stone. It fell to the groundwith a loud, high-pitchedclink,like it might’ve been porcelain. He only sighed, hand washing over his face.
“You have dreams. Aspirations. Goals and ambitions!” He said it like those were bad things, then clarified, “And I almost ruined that for you. I almost fucked up your entire future because I’m selfish.” His voicecracked. “When you told me what happened with that article, I couldn’t think of anything other than the fact it was my fault. I’d blame myself for the rest of my life if you couldn’t do what you wanted becauseIgot in the way. Because I stood between you and your career. Don’t you understand that?”
“Mark wasn’t—”
I wanted to tell him that Mark hadn’treallybeen his fault. Even though I’d been trying to make myself believe it for a year now, I knew it wasn’t true. Henry couldn’t have known what might come of the introduction. He’d only wanted to help me, even if it had backfired massively.
“It’s not just about him.” Henry cut me off. “It’s abouteverything. You kept sacrificing, over and over again. Don’t you think I noticed how much you gave just for us to see each other? I didn’t want that for you, Paula. You do deserve better than that. You know that.”
My eyes closed when I shook my head, huffing and puffing until I could get my next words out.
“You know,” I said, sounding and feeling defeated. “When a man says you deserve better, he’s usually right.”
He rubbed his temple similarly. Like we were both too tired to argue. “I know.”
The silence that followed almost choked me. Neither the song of the birds nor the rays of sun on my skin could make it feel less like it was about to suffocate me. Swallow me whole and honest to God kill me.
Through it, I watched him carefully. Monitoring how his brows twitched when he told himselfFuck itunder his breath, only to dismiss the thought. Whatever thought. “I just—” Hesitation again. His eyes flicked to mine, burning through me, eating me alive. “Jesus, Paula! I just can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I’mtryingto let you go,” he stressed. “I’vebeentrying. Because you do deserve better.” He repeated, pushing himself off the stone, frustrated. “You deserve everything. Someone who has all the time in the world for you, doesn’t have to schedule ten fucking minutes between practice and dinner to learn the language you grew up in.” He huffed a dry laugh. “It’s pathetic. I should’ve been at it all day—have at least been able to.” His head shook again, throwing it back in resignation. Like he’d gone over this list before and just found another addition. “Fuck, your cat doesn’t even like me.”
“Pip doesn’t like any—”
His eyes slid back to me, and he straightened. “I just can’t picture it,” he confessed, the bite in his tone gone. “You with anyone else. I want to be the man you deserve, and I’ve been trying to figure out how for… a while now.” He exhaled sharply, hands running across his face in frustration and stress and agony—trying to walk off any of the three.
“Henry,” I breathed, nothing but a whisper coming from my lips. Even through the sound of the breeze in the trees, the humming of insects and birds in the air, he stopped his pacing. Looked at me.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t, either.” My voice shook, I think. “Picture me with anyone else.”
He looked at me for a long moment, from the other side of the ornamented balcony. His brows pinched, and his breath stuttered in his throat before he finally crossed the distancebetween us. Slow steps, heavy and echoing in my mind until he stopped so close, I had to look up to level our gaze.
