My Husband Chose His Ex I Became His Regret novel Chapter 83

Chapter 83

I have survived a marriage.

I know how to read a room for danger. I know how to make my voice smooth when it wants to shake. I know how to agree without agreeing. I know how to be present and absent at the time. I know how to cat dinner in silence and make that silence look like contentment. I know how to sleep on the edge of a bed and not take up space. I know how to not make sounds that might constitute needs.

What I do not know is how to exist inside something good.

It turns out that is a skill entirely.

We swim in the morning. The heat settles over the water. It makes the line between air and ocean hard to find. I go in first. That surprises him. I see it on his face. He was expecting to have to coax me. I don’t tell him that I used to swim every morning before Mark. Before the careful management of my preferences began. I just dive under. I come up with the water streaming off my face. The salt is in my mouth. Something opens in my chest. I’d forgotten it was closed.

He comes in after me.

He does not hover. That’s the thing I notice. He is close. He is always close. It’s the way he loves things. He loves with proximity. He loves with presence.. He does not make it a rule. He does not make it about me. He swims alongside me.

He just swims.

Later on the deck he produces a deck of cards. He has the energy of a man who has been waiting for this moment to be competitive.

“Cards ” he suggests.

“Cards “I agree.

He shuffles with confidence. He has done this a thousand times. I watch his hands. They are deliberate. They are controlled. I think there are versions of this man I have not met yet. I am looking forward to them.

We play three rounds of rummy. He wins the first. I win the second. He wins the third. He wins in a way that makes me put my cards down. I look at him.

“That’s not the card I discarded ” I say.

“It absolutely is ” he says.

“Aidan. I discarded the seven of clubs “I say.

“You discarded the eight ” he says.

I look at the pile. I cannot prove it. He knows I cannot prove it. He watches me. He has the expression of a man who has spent thirty-seven years being the certain person in every room. He sees no reason to stop

now.

Chapter 83

“You cheated “I say.

“I won ” he says.

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I stare at him. He stares back. Then I laugh. It’s the kind that starts in my stomach. It comes out before I can think about whether I should. Whether it’s too loud. Whether it takes up much room. It just comes. Aidan watches it happen. He has the expression he gets sometimes. He thinks I’m not looking. He is focused. He is still. My laugh is a thing he wants to get exactly right in his memory.

“Rematch ” I say.

“Tomorrow ” he says. “I’m having a triumph today.”

In the afternoon he works. I watch him fighting it. He fights the pull toward his laptop. He fights the pull toward emails. He fights the part of him that’s most comfortable when he’s useful. He lasts an hour. I watch him over the top of my book. I pretend to read the paragraph for the fourth time. I watch him answer one message. Then he sits back. Then he forwards. Then he closes his laptop. He makes a sound that’s approximately forty percent louder than necessary.

“Done.” he says.

“How heroic.” I say.

Unnecessary work ” he says. “All of it. Thomas is handling it.”

“I’m sure Thomas agrees,” I say.

“Thomas gets paid well ” he says.

I go back to my book. He sits there for a moment. He has the expression of a man waiting to be forgiven for something he won’t admit he did. Then he picks up my feet. They are resting on the chair beside him. He moves them into his lap. He sits there with one hand resting on my ankle. It’s like a sentence.”

I read three paragraphs.

“What are you reading?”

I show him the cover. He looks at it. He brings the attention he brings to everything. The novel requires his assessment.

“Is it good?”

“It’s very good ” I say.

“What’s it about?”

“A woman who keeps making the mistake ” I say.

“Does she stop?”

I turn a page. “Ask me in a hundred pages “I say.

He settles back. He seems satisfied. His thumb moves across my ankle. It’s unconscious. It’s warm. I read four paragraphs. I retain none of them.

Chapter 83

We eat dinner when the light goes amber. We eat on the deck. Our feet are up. We have leftovers from the resort kitchen. They are significantly better than either of us would admit. We said we’d cook tonight

The conversation is easy. It’s the way things are when you’re not performing for each other. You’re not managing impressions. You’re not filling silence with content.

He tells me about the first deal he ever made. He was twenty-two. He borrowed money he did not have. He almost lost everything on a company that was worth nothing. Then it wasn’t. He tells it without the boardroom version. He tells it as: I was terrified. I did not sleep for six weeks. I called my grandfather every night for the month. I pretended things were fine. He believed me. That was almost worse.

I tell him about the year I spent making Marks dinner parties perfect. I sourced wines he’d mentioned once. I arranged flowers he’d described as elegant. I hosted so much I got very good at it. I started to disappear into the competence of it even though I never got praised for it by him.

He is quiet when I finish.

“I think,” Aidan says slowly “that you are the resilient person I have ever met.. I think you would prefer that I not say that.”

“Resilience is just what damage looks like when it walks upright I say.

His hand is still on my ankle. He does not squeeze it. He just leaves it there. It’s steady. It’s warm. It’s the weight of being seen.

The night comes in gradually. The sky does its brilliant thing. It’s orange and pink. Then it’s the drop into dark. It’s like a curtain being drawn. We move inside without deciding to. The ceiling fan turns slowly. The ocean sounds different at night. It’s lower. It’s more serious. It’s like its telling a version of the same story.

We are lying in the dark. We are not touching. We are both looking up at the ceiling.

“What are you afraid of?” I ask.

It’s the kind of question you can only ask in the dark. In the permission of it.

He does not answer immediately. That’s how I know he’s actually thinking about it. Hes not reaching for the version.

“Becoming someone you’re afraid of ” he says.

I turn my head shocked. He is still looking at the ceiling.

“I have a temper ” he says. “I control it. I have controlled it since I was about seventeen. I understood that the version of me that does not control it does damage.. It’s there. And I know…” He stops. He starts again. “I know what men who love women much can do when they’re scared. When they decide that fear gives them permission.”

The ceiling fan turns.

“Is that supposed to reassure me?” I say.

“No” he says. “Its supposed to be honest.”

I look at him for a moment. I look at his profile in the dark. I look at the stillness of him. The container he

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built because the thing inside it runs hot.

“I lived with a man “I say, “who never once admitted he had a side. Not once, to him he was perfection himself. He was always reasonable. Always measured. Always criticising, always the victim even when he was a bully.” I pause. “I’ll take honesty over performance every time.”

He turns his head.

We look at each other in the dark.

“I used to be scared of doors “I say. “For a year after. When I’d hear one my whole body would think. Am I safe how long until it opens and he comes in to demand I work till I pass out or raise his voice at me. I’m better now.. I wanted you to know it’s still there. In case you ever close a door. I go somewhere else for a second.”

“I’ll leave them open ” he says away.

“That’s not…”

“I’ll leave them open “he says again. “All of them. For long as you need.”

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