I’m asking because my name is on the lease and you told me—”
“My wife left me with my newborn son.”
“I know.”
“My career may be in trouble.”
“I said I know.”
“And you’re asking me about rent?”
“Because those things affect me too!”
That sentence ended something.
Not the affair.
That had probably ended the second I opened Corinne’s envelope.
But it ended the illusion surrounding it.
For almost a year, I insisted Tessa understood me better than Corinne did.
She complimented me.
She never asked why I was late because lateness was the condition of our relationship.
She never asked whether I was becoming a good father.
She never expected me to sit through medical appointments.
She knew the version of me who arrived with reservations already booked and problems temporarily hidden.
That version was easy to love.
Because he never stayed long enough to become disappointing.
