Page 118 of Absolution

He stops just before we reach the passenger door, gently tugging on my hand. I pause. His eyes are on mine, searching. I know exactly what he’s about to do.

He leans in.

It’s slow, familiar. Like muscle memory. Just like he did on our first date years ago, outside a diner, nervous and sweet.

But this time, my body doesn’t cooperate. I step back.

Not on purpose. Just instinct.

His face crumples like I just stabbed him in the chest with something dull and twisted.

He blinks, then steps away, dropping my hand. “Right. Sorry.”

“Kyle,” I start, but my voice wavers. I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.

He doesn’t look at me. “It’s fine.”

“No,” I say, stepping toward him. “It’s not fine. I just…”

He finally meets my gaze, eyes tired and sad in a way that guts me. “You’re never gonna forgive me, are you?”

I don’t answer right away. My eyes lift to the sky instead, watching stars glitter above us, cold and still.

“I have forgiven what you did,” I say quietly. “I just can’t forget it.”

He swallows hard.

“I wanted this,” I go on. “Tonight. Us. But the thought that you’ve done this with other women. Kyle, it lives in me now. I can’t look at you and not see that. I wish I could.”

His hand drags through his hair, rough and frustrated. “I never kissed them.”

I blink.

He gestures vaguely toward the restaurant. “I never took them out. I didn’t hold their hands or ask how their day was. They weren’t… they weren’t my loves. They weren’t affairs. They were just-” He shakes his head, disgusted. “They were my way of taking what I thought I was owed.”

His voice cracks. “I fucked them. Okay? That’s the word. I didn’t make love. I didn’t even have sex. I used them.”

My chest tightens, nausea creeping in.

“I get it,” I say bitterly, folding my arms.

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “You don’t. Those women… they meantnothing. I didn’t know their last names. I didn’t care where they came from, what they liked, what they feared. I honestly don’t even remember their faces. I didn’t want to.”

I stare at him. At the shadow of the man I used to trust with everything. A man I still don’t know how to hate.

“I wasn’t chasing connection,” he continues, voice low. “I was chasing oblivion. I wanted to disappear into something meaningless. I wanted to punish myself. Or you. Or maybe both. I don’t even know anymore.”

My jaw trembles, but I hold it together. Barely.

“I didn’t lose myself in them,” he says. “I lost myself in the moment, because it didn’t matter.Theydidn’t matter. You always did.”

I close my eyes. One, two, three seconds of silence.

“I have to go,” I whisper.

“No, Jackie,” Kyle says quickly, stepping toward me. “I’ll drive you.”

“I can’t do this anymore.” My voice breaks, tears threatening to fall, the lump in my throat too thick to swallow.