Page 3 of Returned Mail

“Mia, please⁠—”

“How long?”

He hesitates, and I swear that hesitation destroys me more than the confession did. Because if it were meaningless, he'd answer immediately. If it was a mistake, he'd answer immediately. But he doesn't. He hesitates.

God.

He hesitates.

“How long has it been happening, Sebastian?”

“Just a few months.”

The room spins. Just a few months? Not weeks. Not days. No ‘it just started’. Months. I laugh. “Wow.”

“Mia—”

“Wow.” I don't even recognize my own voice anymore. “Who is she?”

He rubs a hand over his face. “Mia, please.”

“Who. Is. She.”

I ask, but it’s no longer a question. It’s more like a plea, or a demand.

“A woman from work, you don’t know her.” He says after a long pause.

Of course she is.

I almost laugh again because apparently every cliché exists for a reason. A woman from work. Somehow that hurts even more because now I can see it.

All of it.

Every sign I ignored. Every excuse I made on his behalf. Every time I chose to trust him.

“Do you have feelings for her?” Why the fuck do I keep torturing myself with these questions? His entire body goes still just for a second, but it's more than enough for me to notice. Six years is long enough to understand what that silence means. And there it is. The thing that finally breaks me.

I stare at him.

At the man I've loved since I was twenty years old. The man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. The man whose last name I've written after mine more times than I'd ever admit.

Suddenly I don't know him.

I truly don't.

“I can't believe this,” I say as tears blur my vision. “I can't believe you're doing this to me. To us.”

He stands and starts walking towards me. “Mia, I never wanted to hurt you.”

The sentence hits like gasoline on a fire. I laugh through my tears. “Then why did you?”

His mouth opens, and quickly closes. Nothing is coming out of it. Because there is no answer. Not one that matters, anyway. Not one that gives me back the future I thought was waiting for me.

“I didn't plan for this.”

I actually flinch. Somehow, that makes it worse. Like love happened to him. Like betrayal happened to him. Like he was merely a passenger in the destruction of our relationship.

“You didn't plan it?”