Page 46 of Devotion
“Cut it out, Trisha.”
“I’m being serious. You don’t apologize. You manage. You spin. You redirect. Apologizing requires actually feeling bad, and I need to know if you actually feel bad or if you just feel inconvenienced.”
I didn’t answer immediately. But the truth was that I felt worse than bad. Hollowed out. Something had been scraped clean from the inside, and what was left of me knew I deserved every word she’d said.
“I feel bad,” I said.
Trisha was quiet. When she spoke again, the edge had left her voice. “Okay. That’s a start.”
I walked into the office twenty minutes later. Trisha was waiting at my door. She took one look at my face, specifically the left side where a faint pink mark was still visible if you knew where to look, and her lips pressed into a tight line as she fought back another laugh.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were going to say something.”
“I was going to say that your cheek has a very lovely blush to it today. Very healthy. Very… hand-shaped.”
I glared at her. “Are you going to help me or just enjoy this?”
“Both. I can multitask.” She followed me into my office and sat in the chair across from my desk with her legs crossed and her tablet on her lap. “So. You need to apologize to a woman you lied to, whose career you destroyed, who slapped you in the face, and who is currently living in your house under a contract that says she’s your wife. Did I miss anything?”
“That about covers it.”
“Great. What’s your plan?”
“That’s why I’m asking you. What does your husband do when you’re upset?”
Trisha raised an eyebrow. “That’s really private.”
“Give me a hint.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she said, completely deadpan, “What if it involves some chains and specialized equipment?”
I stared at her. “That sounds like a serial killer confession.”
“It’s called passion, Christopher. You should try it.”
“I’m not taking romantic advice from a woman whose idea of date night involves a hardware store.”
She grinned, unbothered. “For a woman like Miley, a sincere apology would probably be enough. Emphasis onsincere. Not the Christopher Vale version of sincere where you say the rightwords with the right face and feel nothing behind it. Actually sincere.” She tilted her head. “You’re an actor. You’ve done a hundred love stories on screen. What do the men in those movies do when they mess up?”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“And I’m not your therapist.” She stood, gathering her tablet. “I’ll leave you to figure it out. I’m sure something will come to you. You’re a creative man.”
She was halfway to the door when I said her name. She didn’t stop. She waved over her shoulder and disappeared into the hallway, and I heard her laughing again as she went.
Helpful.Very helpful. I was surrounded by people who found my suffering entertaining.
I spent the day at my desk. Meetings. Calls. Reports that made my eyes glaze. A quarterly review that lasted two hours and felt like twelve. The CFO explaining revenue projections while I thought about Miley’s face when she saidyou’re not that person. The head of legal briefing me on a contract dispute while I thought about how she’d flinched after she slapped me, like the violence had surprised her more than it surprised me. A conference call with overseas developers while I thought about the quote.
The quote.
The one she’d asked me to write at the resort. The one I’d penned on cream paper while she watched my hand move across the page and her eyes went glassy with a feeling I didn’t understand at the time.
You don’t have to earn the right to exist. You just do.
