Page 152 of The Love Operation

“Yeah. I guess so.” I sit back, and the maneuver seems to pull him forward.

“You said you needed someone to talk to.” He rests his elbows on his thighs, his clear eyes looking up through his lashes in earnest. “You can talk to me. You know that, right?”

I swallow. “You’re part of what I need to talk about.”

His lips curl. “Can’t think of a better person to talk to about me.”

I glance at Tad Cooper, hoping for silent backup, but he’s completely checked out, as if to say It’s on that guy now. I’m off the clock.

“It’s not just you, though. It’s a lot. The past several days have completely shifted everything, and for the first time—maybe ever—I don’t know what to do.”

“I told you earlier, I’ve got nowhere to be, and I’m very invested. So . . . let’s have it.”

“All of it?”

“I mean, I don’t think I can handle any super personal details about you and your boyfriend, but I’m here for this. Most of this.”

I smile, then the smile fades. “I’m not sure he’s my boyfriend anymore.”

His eyebrows rise. “Then I definitely want to hear it.”

So I tell him.

I tell him about the memory study—what it gave me, how it changed me, how I convinced myself I could analyze the past to fix the present. I tell him that this is what I was doing when he found me unresponsive in my room that morning. I tell him about Isaac, about the mess of our relationship, the tension at the hospital, the things I wish I could undo . . . and the ones I can’t.

Sitting in the house he rebuilt with his own hands, I tell him everything I’ve been holding in. Everything that’s unraveling. Everything I told my mother. Everything she forgot.

I don’t think about how he’ll take it or what he’ll think of me when I’m done. I’m simply a person who has always known her way and suddenly doesn’t.

His reactions shift as I talk. Sometimes he asks questions. Sometimes he just listens. Once, he gets up and refills our water glasses.

Later, we reheat the meal he made earlier. We eat while we keep talking, until there’s almost nothing left to say.

I feel lighter in some ways. In others, I feel like I’ve just dumped a puzzle onto the coffee table and now we have to figure out how the pieces fit together without the image on the box to help guide us.

Shockingly, he’s still here.

But I guess . . . this is his house.

And then I need to ask the one thing that’s confusing me most. “Benedict, how could you tell me just the other day that you’ve always loved me . . . when back in college, you told me you needed to stop pretending to love me?”

His eyes narrow slightly. “Is that what you remember?”

“I remember sitting across from you at that picnic table on campus. You said you couldn’t pretend anymore. That you didn’t feel the way I did. That I loved you more.”

His eyebrows shoot up, nearly brushing the beams above us.

The air thickens—heavy with old wounds, dense enough to reach out and touch.

“Cord,” he says, and my name carries so much weight I feel it in my chest. “That’s not what I said. And it’s not what I meant.”

He leans back and looks down at the arm of his chair. Running fingers across the engraved animals is compulsive. I feel the need to do the same, but I need him to keep talking more.

“I was in love with you—completely. Recklessly,” he continues. “You were my world.” His voice goes quieter. “I just couldn’t keep pretending I wanted the same future you did.”

I hear the words, but they scrape against what I’ve always believed.

My breath comes faster as I study his face, as our eyes have a second conversation.