When I finished, there was silence.
“Are you safe?” Clara asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I looked around the condo.
The place that had always represented independence.
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
“I knew something bothered me about him.”
I closed my eyes.
“You never liked him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Clara was quiet.
Then she said something unexpected.
“I didn’t dislike him because he was confident. I disliked him because every time you talked about your achievements, he changed the subject.”
I thought about that.
She was right.
Whenever I mentioned a promotion, he joked that I worked too much.
Whenever I talked about a difficult project, he said I was too serious.
Whenever someone complimented me, he found a way to make the moment smaller.
I had mistaken it for teasing.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe it was something else.
“Do you know what I regret?” I whispered.
“What?”
“I spent so much time trying to prove I was lovable that I forgot to ask whether I was being loved.”
Clara didn’t answer immediately.
Then she said:
“That’s the question you need to answer now.”
Three days passed.
Julian did not apologize.
Instead, he sent messages.
At first, they were casual.
“Are you still upset?”
Then:
“We need to talk.”
Then:
“You’re making this bigger than it is.”
Each message revealed the same thing.
He wanted the situation resolved.
But he did not want to acknowledge why it happened.
Finally, on Friday evening, he arrived at the condo.
I opened the door but did not invite him in.
He looked different.
Calmer.
More controlled.
The version of Julian that other people knew.
“I want to apologize,” he said.
I waited.
He looked uncomfortable.
“I shouldn’t have kicked the table.”
A strange sadness passed through me.
Not anger.
Sadness.
Because even now, he apologized for the object.
Not for me.
