Which was another reason it made me sick when Renn said, “Thank you for listening. I appreciate you’re so easy to talk to.”
What the fuck?
Shewas easy to talk to?
And that was when he looked over and saw me. Just as his words registered. Just as my jaw dropped and my knees threatened to buckle. Electricity shot through my nerves, gremlins dancing on my insides as my heart tried to thump its way out of my body. I quickly shut my mouth and turned, fleetingly catching Renn’s stunned expression. Not wanting to satisfy Hannah with a confrontation, I returned to the office, dropping off my badge before sprinting to my car.
I assumed Renn would follow me. Offer some sort of explanation. Or apology. Even as I left Robbie’s school, unsure of what else to do, I figured I’d hear from him soon. But he didn’t reach out. He didn’t come after me. He didn’t text me. I had to endure hours of alternating between humiliated and furious. Renn’s bullshit was starting tohurt.
I could have tried to text or call him, but we already had plans to meet at Studio Obscurum and attend Gage’s game, so I figured I could wait until I saw him in person that afternoon. I intended tohavethat conversation. No more waiting. We had lots of things to talk about, and this morning’s performance with Hannah was just one more addition to the list.
Rather than gohome to stew and stress, I called my manager and asked if I could still work the second half of the day shift. She was grateful since the coffee shop was busier than usual, so I headed in. It was hectic enough to keep my mind off Renn. In fact, I was so busy pulling shots and subbing almond milk for two percent that I didn’t notice when Henri came in.
One minute, I was putting new napkins in the dispenser at the condiment bar, and the next, I was looking up at Henri across the shop, smiling eagerly at me with his hands in his pockets. I didn’t want to cause a scene, and I was almost off shift anyway, so I gave an aggressive head tilt toward a corner table and he got the message, coming to sit down across from me.
“How did you find me?” I was calm. I’d been expecting this.
“I noticed your jacket at the restaurant. I figured there was a connection. I tried coming in Sunday and you weren’t here. When I mentioned your name, the barista said you were scheduled for today.” My Chester’s Coffee Shop fleece had given me away. Not a surprise. Henri had always loved to nitpick my clothes.
He’d deduced where I worked since I’d literally been advertising the company’s logo on my person. And I realized that—despite all his texts and talk—solving an easy puzzle was about the extent of the effort Henri would put in to force this reunion. When I’d left Boston, I’d worried he might have true stalkerish tendencies, his voice so consuming in my head. Some part of me had expected threatening letters crafted out of cut up bits of magazines, or dead roses on my doorstep. At the very least, I’d worried he’d easily be able to reel me back in if I let him near me, let him speak to me.
But now I saw him through the lens of someone who wasn’t in his thrall. I understood that all his “I’ll never stop loving yous” were mostly hyperbole. I was sure he wanted me. But I was also sure he wasn’t about to wreck his life to have me. At the restaurant, he’d confirmed as much when he’d said that he’d intended to come after me—except his son, his mother, his job, and his overall situation had to be taken care of first. Our supposedly all-consuming love had been pretty darn low on the priority list. In the end, I’d been forced to conclude that Henri wasn’t a diabolical Bond villain. He was just a terrible human being. An emotional abuser who’d used my aching desire to be loved to his advantage. A petulant man-baby who’d tied us both in knots trying to attain his parents’ vision of success, taking it out on me when those unrealistic expectations went unfulfilled.
I stuck out my bottom lip so my breath would blow upward, moving the stray hairs off my forehead.
“Okay. You found me. Congratulations. But I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish here. I meant what I said. We have nothing left to say to each other.” He looked different, smaller somehow. I leaned back in my chair and flattened my lips.
He flinched at my defiant expression but soldiered on. “Darling, when I saw you at the restaurant, I felt that pull again, and there was a moment where you seemed unsure…like you felt it too, that you remembered how good it was between us.” He inched closer but at my continued grimace his voice faltered. “I thought, now that you’ve had some time to think about it, you might have…realized.”
Looking at him across from me, with his stupid face, I berated myself for my brief bout of compassion in the restaurant, offering support when he told me about his father’s passing.
“Henri, you are just…wrong. There wasn’t one thing I said or did that should have given you that impression. Truly, your ego knows no bounds.”
“Darling—”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me. I’ve always hated it. Whatever you thought you sensed at the restaurant, you were mistaken. You should leave.” He leaned closer, but I held my ground.
“Sadie, I understand you needed a break. Time to think. But are you really going to throw away the eight years we spent together? We can make it good again. Have our second chance.”
“That’s just it, Henri—it was never good. Not for me, at least.” I debated whether it was worth it to say more. I didn’t think he had the capacity to comprehend what he had done. And I knew that had a lot to do with his father. But I didn’t care what the root cause of his ugliness was. I just didn’t want it near me any longer.
“C’mon, Sadie, we had some great times together. We can again.” At the hint of true emotion—possibly even confusion—in his voice, I figured I could give it one shot.Okay, Henri, ready or not, gigantic truth bomb coming your way.I clasped my hands together in front of me and took a deep breath.
“No. We didn’t have great times. You’re remembering things only from your fucked up perspective.” Emboldened, I moved my chair closer to him. “Every supposedly good memory I might have is tainted by all the crappy ones around it. Every time you took me out and told me I should have worn different clothes. Every time you made fun of my cooking or complained about how I didn’t take care of the apartment. Every time you reminded me I owed you for everything, from my money to my living situation to my appearance. Every time you hinted that I’d somehow embarrassed you because I offered an opinion on anything. Every time you would belittle me in front of your friends, just hurtful enough to keep me quiet for the night, but subtle enough that no one could say you were a total dick. Every time you woke up and left the house without giving me a kiss goodbye, or came home and went straight to the couch without acknowledging my presence. Every time you refused to tell me you loved me, but then talked about how needy I was. Should I go on?”
He looked genuinely affronted. “Sadie…it wasn’t…like that.” He spoke quietly, with a conviction that didn’t carry over into his expression. “You make everything sound terrible, but I was there. We had a life together, and you just walked out on me. All I wanted was for you to be the best version of yourself. For us to be the best version of us! Maybe there were bad days, but there were also good times. There were! I’m sorry about Marlene. That was a mistake. I’ll own it. But you didn’t even try to let me make it right.” He ran a palm aggressively from chin to forehead, pulling on his hair as he bent his fingers over his scalp.
“This isn’t about you putting your dick in Marlene, Henri. Even if that was the last straw. It was everything that happened before that.” Every pent-up emotion in me rose to the surface. “I tried for years, Henri. Years! That’s what staying through all that shit was—that was metrying. I kept trying to make you happy, trying to make you act like you even liked me, let alone loved me. The more I tried, the more you made me feel like garbage—”
“Ididlove you. I still do.”
I sat there with my arms crossed, unspeaking. I’d said my piece. He undid the top two buttons of his navy polo, shaking the collar to fan himself. His mouth opened and closed a few times with no sound coming out until finally he rasped, “I’m…sorry.” He’d said those words before, but the timber of his voice was new. The faintest whisper bubbled from his lips as he conceded, “I didn’t…appreciate you.”
There was some satisfaction in hearing him admit it. “No. You didn’t. You almost destroyed me. If it hadn’t been for Zach, I probably would have kept making excuses for you and faded away to nothing.”
“Always golden boy Zach,” Henri said angrily.
“Yeah, golden boy Zach—the best friend anyone ever had. But he could only get me so far. Just to Los Angeles. The rest of the break-up I had to do on my own. And it hasn’t been easy getting past us, Henri, getting past you. You fucked me up good. But I didn’t break completely.”
