I cared too much about the wrong things, and in doing so I lost the man I love.Love,not loved. Because as much as I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise, I love Nikhil. I don’t think there’s been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t loved Nikhil. I loved him when we got married, and I loved him when I left him. I loved him in those early days, when I first moved to D.C., when I spent every sleepless night staring at his name on my phone. I loved him when Igoogled him every few months to find out what he’d been up to. I loved him even when I tried to make things work with Shake. And I loved him when I sent him the divorce papers.
I have spent every moment of the past seven years loving this man. It’s been an ache inside me that I haven’t acknowledged until now, and now that I’ve put a name to it, now that I’ve called it what it is, it’s like a dam has broken. Emotions flood in, barreling through every corner of my body.
I sink to the floor, my eyes transfixed by this picture of us. This impossibly perfect picture of the two of us in love.
I don’t know what to do with this brand-new, but not-quite-new, information. I don’t know how it changes things. Orifit changes things. We’re so different now. But I know that the feelings I have aren’t just for the Nikhil I once knew. The youthful, grinning, barefaced man staring back at me. I have feelings for the man who remembered I like chicken noodle soup with stars in it. The man who ran out to help his neighbor even though we were in the middle of a hurricane. The man who’s been searching for a place to call his own and dreams about opening an inn, a place others can feel at home. The man who makes me feel known. Like I can tell him anything and be immediately understood.
That thought spurs me into motion. I pick myself up, taking a moment to compose myself before leaving the garage.
I have to talk to Nikhil. I’m not sure what I’ll tell him exactly.Even though I have newfound clarity on how I feel, I’m not sure what this means. For me. For him. For my career. For this marriage. For Shake. For us.
But I can start with the piece I know without a doubt. That I love him. That I’ve always loved him. I can start with that and let the rest fall into place. I can start with that and find out whether there’s any chance he feels that way too.
I rush through the house, my eyes searching for a glimpse of Nikhil. I come to a sudden halt when I find him sitting at the dining room table.
He looks good. He always looks good, but he looks different this morning. His hair a bit sleep-rumpled. His stubble a little more grown-in. He looks like the worn-in leather couch in the living room. He looks like the beat-up desk in the guest bedroom. The one he made for me. The one that didn’t wobble no matter how many textbooks I dropped on it, how many tears I spilled on it, how many hours I spent studying late into the night. He looks like woodworking in the garage and cooking in the kitchen and sleeping bags in a closet.
He looks like home.
Nikhil glances up, and when our eyes meet, his lips curve into a smile. But it’s not the smile I love. This one is strained. He’s trying to hide it, but his mouth is tight. The muscles in his face tense.
My stomach twists.
He has a cup of coffee in his right hand, the steam twisting and curling above it. There’s a matching mug on the place mat opposite his. And a stack of papers on the table, lying right between the two seats.
This sight is so familiar to me. It’s the layout of every mediation and settlement conference I’ve ever attended. It’s the pretense of peace between the parties before the negotiations begin in earnest.It’s the exact scenario I’ve been wanting to happen since I arrived here, but now it’s a nightmare come to life.
“Good morning,” he says.
Emotion clogs my throat. I swallow, trying to clear it. “Good morning,” I say.
“Sleep okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.” He extends an arm, as if asking me to take a seat, but I choose to stay standing.
“I was up early,” I say, “just exploring the house. Taking a look around.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I was trying to find you. To let you know that I have a flight back home tomorrow. In the afternoon.”
His strained smile falls slightly before bouncing back into place. “Good,” he says. “That’s good news.”
“Right?” I say, the word tasting bitter. There’s nothing right about this. Everything, all of this, it feels so wrong. “I checked for you in the garage but got a bit distracted. I, uhh, found that picture of us.”
Embarrassment, and maybe a touch of guilt, travels over his features.
I come around to stand across from him, my hands gripping the top of my chair. “I hadn’t seen it in a long time and it was…it was nice to see it. Though it looks like the glass is broken? Did it fall or did something happen or—”
“It was an accident,” Nikhil says. “I knocked it over, but it was byaccident.” Hesitation flits across his face. A second later, he continues. “It was up for a long time. Years, actually. It’s probably why Alan thought he recognized you. I never took it down from the mantel.”
My pulse jumps. Dangerous and desperate hope grows within me, but it dies the moment he continues.
“Not until I got the papers.” His gaze shoots toward the stack of papers on the table, and then back to me. “But the glass only broke later. I took the picture down and moved it to the garage and propped it up against the wall, and…one day I didn’t look where I was going, and my foot caught the edge of it. It fell before I could grab it.
“I probably should have taken it down sooner. I probably left it up too long.” He rubs the back of his neck, his expression growing uneasy. “That’s what I wanted to talk about, actually. I think I’ve…I’ve been holding on to the past too long. Holding on to us too long. And I think you’re right. We both need to let this go. We both need to move on.”