“I blocked Dylan everywhere.”
“You told me.”
“I know.”
“I am not saying it for credit.”
“Okay.”
“I am saying it because I want you to know the boundary exists whether or not you come back.”
Ethan met her eyes.
That distinction mattered.
If Samantha changed only to prevent Ethan from leaving, every improvement would become a transaction.
He needed to know whether she could become different even if the marriage ended.
“What do you want to ask me?” Samantha said.
Ethan had prepared five questions.
He asked the first.
“Did you ever plan to leave me for Dylan?”
Samantha looked down.
“I fantasized about it.”
“That is not the same question.”
“No.”
She raised her eyes.
“I never made a concrete plan to leave you.”
“I think that was part of the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted the feeling Dylan gave me without giving up the life you gave me.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Samantha continued before he could speak.
“That sounds ugly because it was ugly.”
“I wanted excitement without uncertainty.”
“I wanted him without losing you.”
“I told myself I was confused when I was actually being selfish.”
Ethan looked down at the table.
He asked the second question.
“If I had never found out, would you have told me?”
Samantha began to cry.
“No.”
The answer hurt because it arrived so quickly.
Ethan nodded.
“Thank you.”
“I hate that answer.”
“So do I.”
“But it is the truth.”
He asked the third question.
“Did you love Dylan?”
Samantha stared at her tea.
“I loved who I remembered being with him.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I thought I loved him.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when everything became real, I realized I did not know the man in front of me very well.”
“I knew the twenty-four-year-old version in my head.”
“I knew the messages.”
“I knew the way he made me feel when I wanted to escape myself.”
“I did not know what a life with him actually looked like.”
Ethan considered that.
It sounded plausible.
It also did not reduce the betrayal.
He asked the fourth question.
“Did you still love me while this was happening?”
Samantha cried harder.
“Yes.”
Ethan looked away.
That answer hurt more than no would have.
If she had stopped loving him completely, the story would have been easier to organize.
Love should have created safety.
Instead, it had existed beside deception.
Samantha reached across the table.
Then she stopped before touching him.
Her hand returned to her cup.
