Adam’s voice was hoarse. His tie was loosened, and he smelled of alcohol.
“I don’t understand why we ended up like this.” He looked at me, his eyes filled with suppressed pain. “We were supposed to get
married. Today should have been our child’s first birthday party…”
My pleasant mood vanished.
“Are you blaming me?”
“No, that’s not what I mean..” he denied quickly. But then he stubbornly lifted his head. “But I want an answer, Jenna, Why won’t you
forgive me?
I suddenly realized how arrogant Adam was. I don’t know if it was because he’d always been put on a pedestal, or because my past
compliance had spoiled him.
“Forgive you? Forgive you for letting Chloe publicly humiliate me?”
“Forgive you for slapping me in front of everyone?”
“Forgive you for hitting me, and then storming into my home to blame me for it?”
I was filled with a profound sense of bewilderment.
“On what grounds do you think I should forgive you for any of that? Because you’re a man? Because you’re your mother’s precious baby boy?”
The color drained from his face.
“I didn’t mean that… I just..”
“You just thought I was already in your pocket, so it didn’t matter how you treated me. You thought that in the end, I’d just swallow my pride and forgive you.” I took a step closer, looking him straight in the eye. “Just like how I tolerated your mother’s demand that I give up my music to be a housewife?”
“Or how I complied when you demanded I bring you lunch at the institute every day?”
“Or how I put up with Chloe’s repeated provocations without complaint?”
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“As long as you cooed a few sweet nothings, I’d come running back… Adam, what did you take me for?”
He took a step back, his eyes bloodshot, his face a ghostly white. He looked at me with a broken expression
“You don’t respect me, Adam. And you don’t respect anyone else who comes into your life,” I said, coldly tearing away his mask. “B- ecause no matter how much you enjoy the service someone provides, deep down, you look down on them.”
“It doesn’t matter who she is,” I said mockingly. “You tell me. A man like you… why should anyone choose you??
He struggled to compose himself. “That day. if I hadn’t hit you… would we have 7”
“We still wouldn’t be together,” I cut him off.
“Adam, our breakup was inevitable. Because you’re not worthy.”
Even if it hadn’t been that day, it would have been another. Adam might have had feelings for me, but was that tiny shred of affect ion born from love, or just from the familiarity of growing up together? No one could say for sure. We had fallen into a relationship that was comfortable, with a plain, happy future stretching out before us. But he was restless. When he met the bold and daring Chloe, he found it exciting. He found it amusing to provoke such strong reactions from me.
The last of the color drained from Adam’s face. I had ripped away the ugly truth he kept hidden.
“Have I lost you? Do you not love me anymore?”
