Page 58 of The Replay

Somehow this helps. A couple of well-aimed stitches close a puncture hole in my heart. Mariana and I loved each other three months into our relationship. However long she was with Henry before they got engaged, she still didn't love him.

Anger may be dissolving like old snow on a spring day, but it's only being replaced by a hell of a lot of confusion. Especially when I hear her sniffle. I hear her move but can't see a damn thing.

"Fuck," I mutter barely loud enough to make a sound.

I grab my phone and turn on the flashlight again. Not much light comes out, but I see her drying a tear.

"You married him even though you didn't love him?" I ask.

She doesn't look at me.

"You were smiling in that picture," I insist. "You looked happy."

"I thought maybe love would grow, okay?" She sniffles again. "That's how it was for my parents, but it didn't happen for me. I failed at that too. I thought being married could be the way the relationship lasted. That common goals and paperwork were the missing piece, because love for sure wasn't enough, when you and I had broken up. It worked for my parents. Maybe it could work for me. Except… it didn't."

Pain mars her face. I want to bring her close, kiss her temple, but I don't.

"You said that I was selfish to call you," I say.

It could have been her escape. She could have ended things with him and come back to me, but she chose him anyway. Despite the doubts she had back then.

She gives me a long stare and dries another tear. "You called me because you wanted another try, and you didn't like that I was getting married to someone else. From the first time we met. Counting on getting another chance. Remember how you asked me out on two dates, in case things didn't feel good enough the first time around?"

She's right. And I remember.

This is why she's hurt by everything. She never knew I had kept hoping. Counting on another chance, like she said. Only without ever bothering to tell her, so that all she knew was that our love was in the past.

"Your call devastated me, Dom. I crashed— hard. I kept going in circles in my head, spun by every lesson my family ever gave me about life. The assumptions I was meant to hold about us, about my future, while wondering why you called. How many mistakes did I make to cause it? At the end, I realized that for you to pick up the phone, you must have not believed me. You didn't stop me when I left, but you either didn't mean it when you agreed we'd break up, or didn't accept it when the time came. And then you thought you could come back out of nowhere and you'd be granted another chance."

I sigh and hang my head. "I guess that's what I did."

Lights come back to the panel. Static breaks through the round, small grill at the bottom of it.

"Anyone there?" Someone asks. "Press the speaker button to reply."

I'm the closest. I press the button. "Yes. We're here."

"How many people? Everyone okay?"

"Two. We're okay… now. It's been some time since we got here."

"Yep, sorry. It happens once in a while. We're fixing it. Should be less than thirty minutes."

"Okay."

The static sound comes through again. There's enough light now with the panel on. I turn off my flashlight.

I sigh. "I called you because I had to try. It's all I kept hearing in my head. Maybe your family would accept me with a good contract. And shouldn't I tell you I would fight for us? That I still wanted to? I had to try. Even if I was too late."

"My family didn't dislike you, Dom." She presses her lips. "We broke up because long before I met you, I had designed my future and felt like I couldn'tchange it. I'm my parents daughter in so many ways and I'm just now figuring out who I want to be and what I want. A little late, I know."

I snort.

She smirks. "It doesn't mean I'm not goal-oriented like they are. It only means I'm parsing through the million rules they gave me about fighting for what I want. What that looks like, and what really matters in life. Especially with the kind of privilege we have."

A long, deep breath makes its way through her lips. I can't do the same. The weight in my chest has not moved. If only, it has intensified.

She gazes at me with tears building on her lashes. The view cuts through me, blending tenderness and hurt of my own.