If Emma won’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll just take matters into my own hands. Fishing my phone out of my back pocket, I pull up Margot’s phone number.
“What are you doing?” Emma asks. She glances down at the name on my phone. “Don’t you dare, Ethan. The last thing Margot needs tonight is another ex-boyfriend suddenly popping back into her life.”
Her words hit me like a sucker punch. Ex-boyfriend… just like Jeremy. It hardly seems fair to put us both in the same category.
“I’m not like that ass—,” I start to object, but Emma steamrolls right over me.
“No. You’re worse than Jeremy.”
I let out a sharp laugh, more defense than amusement. “How the hell am I worse thanhim?”
Emma’s eyes blaze, and for once, Garrett doesn’t even try to play referee.
“Because you were supposed to be the one,” she says, furious with me now. “You and Margot could’ve been perfect for eachother, and you blew it all up because you couldn’t swallow your pride and be honest about your past.”
Her words slice deeper than I want to admit. I open my mouth, but she barrels on.
“I was rooting for you, Ethan. Even before all this crap with Jeremy. Before Garrett and I were even together. I rooted for you and her to end up together. Not because I wanted her as a sister-in-law, but because I wanted you both to be happy. And I don’t know how you two were so oblivious, but it was perfectly fucking clear to everyone else that you made each other happy. All you had to do was tell her the truth. Margot would have understood. Instead, you broke my best friend’s heart, and I honestly don’t know if she’ll ever fully recover.”
Her voice cracks, and the silence that follows is suffocating.
I feel hollowed out, every word carving another piece out of me. She’s right. I broke it. I brokeher. And yet, something sticks in my chest, wedged between the pain.
“You… you said I was supposed to be the one.” My voice is quieter now, almost hoarse. “Are you saying… do you still think there’s a chance?”
Emma freezes, realizing what she let slip. “Dammit, I didn’t mean—" She exhales, shoulders slumping. “Look. I don’t want to get your hopes up, okay? I know I’m yelling at you right now, but I care about you too. But yes,maybethere’s still a chance. Not tonight though. Tonight, Margot needs space, not another guy showing up with a declaration of undying love.”
Emma’s words lodge somewhere deep inside me, half warning, half lifeline.
I nod slowly, gripping my phone so tight it creaks. I want to call Margot. I want to see her, to fix this, to fixus. But Emma’s right. This isn’t the right time.
So I sit there, wrecked and restless, knowing I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want her. And for the first time in weeks, I let myself believe—just barely—that maybe it isn’t too late.
31
Margot
It’s been two months since I walked out of Ethan’s cabin and out of his life. Two months since we exchanged more than a polite smile.
Things are still hard, but I’m making progress. Therapy helps. Not in big, sweeping ways, but in little shifts that I hardly notice until I stop and take stock. I don’t cry in the work bathroom anymore. I don’t cry myself to sleep at night. The ache is still there, but it doesn’t consume me the way it used to.
My new apartment is starting to feel like home. It’s nice to have a place that truly feels like it’s mine, a place I can easily afford without stretching myself too thin every month.
My new job is… fine. It’s mostly spreadsheets and endless emails. I miss the daily challenges of my old position, but I’m learning to tolerate the tedium of this new one. It’s steady, safe, predictable. All the things that I need right now.
Coming home to my cats is the best part of every day. It’s impossible not to smile when they curl up on my lap, purring and kneading their paws.
There’s a future for me without Ethan North. I’m sure of that now. I can see it taking shape around me. The only problem is that I hate the way that future looks. It feels like a book rewritten with a missing chapter.
With Jeremy, I was happy to rip our chapter up and burn the pages to ash. Four years together, and it barely felt like a loss. When he showed up at my apartment last week saying he made a mistake and begging me to take him back, I felt nothing at all— except maybe a flicker of satisfaction that the other woman had come to her senses and dumped his sorry ass.
When I mentioned it to my therapist, she asked what felt different about that breakup. What did I do differently that helped me recover from it so quickly and completely?
Thinking back on the days that followed our breakup, I remember the darkness, but I also remember these little pinholes of light that kept shining through. It was Ethan—I realize that now. A little compliment, an inside joke, a quiet shoulder to lean on. He’s the reason I bounced back so quickly. He was the light. Without him, those pinholes are just a bunch of puncture wounds.
After admitting this out loud, my therapist set her pen down, crossed her legs, and leaned back in her chair. I figured she had given up on me at that point. Instead, she said the last thing I expected to hear: “I think you need to talk to Ethan.”
“Why?” I asked, confused and slightly betrayed. I’ve spent a small fortune and a large chunk of time on therapy. Telling me to talk to Ethan seems an awful lot like outsourcing her own job—not to mention a potentially epic setback to the small amount of progress I’ve made.