It simply gives your anger nowhere to go.
“Do you hate Ruth?” I asked.
“I did.”
“And now?”
“I hate what she chose to do. I still miss the woman I knew.”
I understood immediately.
Perhaps that was what had drawn us together.
Not because our spouses had shared a hidden relationship.
Because David and I were the only two people who understood how love and betrayal could exist inside the same memory.
I placed Michael’s letter in my bag.
“I’m leaving.”
David nodded.
“I’ll walk you to your hotel.”
“No.”
“Eleanor, it’s late.”
“I promised myself I would say yes to everything on this trip.”
His face tightened.
“But that does not mean you get to decide what I say yes to now.”
He stepped away.
“You’re right.”
I left him standing beneath the yellow lights.
Back at the hotel, I packed until sunrise.
I cried while folding clothes I had purchased for a week that suddenly felt stolen from me.
Then I stopped.
David had deceived me.
Michael had deceived me.
But the boat ride had still happened.
The sea had still been blue.
I had tried octopus despite being nervous about it.
I had danced badly in a public square while strangers cheered.
Those memories belonged to me.
No man had created them.
The next morning, I found David sitting near the airport check-in desks.
He did not approach me.
A small paper bag rested beside him.
When I walked closer, he stood.
“I brought your book,” he said.
I had left it at the restaurant.
“Thank you.”
He handed it to me.
No flowers.
No dramatic speech.
No request for immediate forgiveness.
“Clara told me to let you leave.”
“She’s sensible.”
“Painfully sensible.”
I placed the book in my bag.
“My flight boards in an hour.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry our meeting began with a lie.”
“So am I.”
“But I’m not sorry I met you.”
I hated how well I understood what he meant.
“I can’t trust what happened between us this week.”
“I know.”
“And I will not become a consolation prize for what Michael and Ruth did.”
“You aren’t.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
David nodded.
“You’re right.”
Again, no defense.
No attempt to argue me into forgiving him.
He handed me a small card containing his address and phone number.
“If you never contact me, I will understand.”
I took it.
Not as a promise.
Not as hope.
Only as a choice I could make later.
Then I boarded my flight home.
For three months, I did not contact David.
I eventually told Rebecca everything.
