Page 37 of Secrets Hidden In The Glass
He didn’t want to. Tonight was supposed to be about him and Callie, not the past. But it seemed that the past always had a way of haunting the present if you were too afraid to look back. “Yeah, I do. If we’re going to do this right, I do.”
“We can just dance.”
He shook his head. “No, we can’t.”
She held his gaze for several seconds. “All right. What’s your ex-wife’s name?”
He sighed, ready to get this over with. “Elizabeth. We grew up on the island together. I had a crush on her for most of my life. In eighth grade, I invited her to my birthday party. We took a walk on the beach and I kissed her. We were together pretty much every moment afterwards.”
“Sounds special.”
“I knew I was going to marry her. We went to college together—both criminal justice majors. She wanted to be an attorney and I’ve always wanted to be in law enforcement.”
“Is Elizabeth a lawyer?”
He nodded. “A damn good one. She cares about her clients—always tries to do the right thing. She worked her ass off—graduated in two years then went to law school while I completed my junior and senior years and went to the police academy. We had this little apartment.” He chuckled as he remembered the awful place. “Pretty much a hellhole, but it was ours. I finished up at the academy and started on the force in Boston. Our plan was to come back here after she passed the bar and do our thing on the island.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She got the job in Virginia. It was with a top firm—a dream come true for her.”
“But it wasn’t yours.”
He shook his head, remembering the day Elizabeth told him his life wasn’t going to work out quite the way he’d planned. “I just wanted to be here, but I wanted her to be happy more. We moved down, got married that summer, bought a house, and grew further and further apart. It started long before we went south—the distance growing between us—but we ignored it. Eventually we couldn’t anymore. I wanted kids; she decided she didn’t. She was into cocktail parties and nights out at the theater; I wasn’t. Somewhere along the way, we’d both changed and forgot to tell each other. Or I believe that’s how the saying goes.”
“I’m sorry.”
He’d been sorry too—for a long damn time, but tonight, as he breathed in Callie and stared into her eyes, he knew that there was finally something else—something entirely different. Better. “For a year we went through the motions. Pretending. We didn’t fight. We rarely made love. Elizabeth went her way and I went mine. Then she told me she was finished.” He swallowed the familiar wash of shame. “I was relieved. My marriage was ending and I couldn’t wait to walk away.”
“That must have been tough.”
“Easily the worst time of my life.”
“How long have you been divorced?”
“Just over four and a half years. Elizabeth pushed the papers through. We both took our own stuff, split the profits from the sale of our house, and moved on.”
She nodded. “Are you happy?”
He held her gaze. “Yes.”
“Do you think Elizabeth is?”
“She’s remarried.”
“Are you okay with that?”
He nodded. “I truly wish her nothing but the best.”
“I envy that.”
He lifted his brow. “You envy me my divorce?”
She shook her head. “That you’ve had that kind of connection. You loved someone enough to build a life together. It didn’t work out, but you tried.”
He’d never thought about it like that. He’d only ever looked at his marriage as a colossal failure.
“Love isn’t for the faint of heart,” Callie continued. “I’ve never been brave enough to give it a try.”
