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“That’s not my business.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not!” she yells. “It’s between you and your wife.”
“Anything about me is your business. Just like you are my business.”
She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Chris, you are not getting it. You’re married. We are done.”
“Stop saying that because you know it isn’t true. You already said when I’m single—”
“You’re not though.”
Anger flares through me because she knows it won’t be forever and it’s beginning to sound like she’s not planning to wait. “I will be eventually! Stop acting like you and I are not the fucking endgame here.”
“Look,” she says before letting out an exasperated breath, “I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay? And neither should you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I don’t want to get caught up thinking about a future with a man who’s currently in the present with someone else.”
“I’m getting out of it,” I argue and I feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record.
“We’re going in circles,” she says. “I’m out right now. I have to go.”
“Marissa—”
“Don’t,” she warns.
“I love you.” I don’t think she wants to hear these words but I say them anyway because I want her to know that despite this shitty situation, I knowingly brought her into, she is in fact my endgame. I want her, and at this point, I don’t care who knows it.
“I said don’t.” Her voice is tiny and I can hear the tears in it. “I can’t say it back,” she says and I’m hoping that even though she can’t say it she does feel it.
“I hate this,” I tell her.
“Me too. I have to go.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Be safe. Keep yourself out of trouble until I’m around to do it myself.”
“Goodbye, Chris.”
“We aren’t—” I start but then I hear the beep indicating the end of the call and my heart fucking sinks.
Two and a half years later
May 2021
“Welcome to the United States, we hope you enjoyed your flight,” are the first words I hear when I’m back on Pennsylvania soil for the first time in almost two years.
“I did, yes, thank you.” I smile at the flight attendant as I get off the plane and make my way through the terminal. I can’t believe I haven’t been home in two and a half years. My parents came to visit a lot, using the fact that they had a daughter abroad to travel to Europe multiple times. Autumn and Shane came a few times too, and we even spent last Christmas in Paris together. I contemplated staying another year, but Autumn is finally getting married after what my parents dramatically deemed the longest engagement in the history of the world, so it was time to come home.
I tried to tell myself that it had nothing to do with the fact that my married ex-boyfriend is finally no longer married. The year of separation somehow turned into almost two years of back and forth, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s finally divorced. I half expected him to show up on my doorstep the second he was free but he didn’t.
Maybe because you’ve barely talked to him.
There was a change in structure, and the Paris team had its own in-house senior leadership, so I didn’t report directly to Chris anymore, and with there being no reason for us to have any contact, we haven’t talked. There were a handful of multi-person Zoom meetings we were on at the same time where I’m sure his eyes were trained on me the entire time, but we hadn’t uttered more than a few business-related words on a group email chain in over two years.
I didn’t stay away just because of Chris, but I’ll admit he was an incentive. I didn’t want a front-row seat to his messy divorce. I knew one look from him or one drunken night from me would have had us back in bed together. Neither of us had the power to stay away from each other, so I kept an ocean between us to prevent the temptation.
