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My mouth fell open. “You just told me you’re trying not to see your ex-wife when you look at me!”

“And?”

“And you don’t see why I was scared?”

“No. I understand why you were nervous.” He sat down. “I don’t understand why you’ve already decided what it means about you.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

Nash leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You ever heard of cognitive dissonance?”

I stared at him. “Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m explaining something.”

“That’s how it starts.”

“It’s when people hold two beliefs that don’t fit together, the brain doesn’t like that shit.”

I listened.

“You believed you were a good person. Maybe, you were.”

“Maybe?”

“Listen.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You also knew that deep down sleeping with someone’s husband went against your values.”

I nodded.

“Those two things don’t fit comfortably together.”

He held up both hands. “So your mind needed a bridge.”

I swallowed.

“You told yourself that his wife was unstable. The marriage is already over. He’s leaving eventually. She’s aware there’s another woman. You aren’t destroying anything because it’s already destroyed.”

My chest tightened.

“Every explanation made what you were doing fit better with the person you believed yourself to be.”

I looked down.

“And once you’d invested months… then a year… then two?” He shook his head. “Now walking away doesn’t just mean losing him. It means admitting what you sacrificed for him might’ve been for nothing.”

Nash nodded. “So you double down.”

I stared at him. “That doesn’t make it okay.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

He leaned back. “Understanding why someone did some shit isn’t the same thing as excusing the shit. You can understand the psychological process and still hold yourself accountable.”

He looked directly at me. “And from everything you’ve told me, you have.”