So Wrong

Patrick laughed, but he didn’t sound happy or all that amused. “I couldn’t figure it out. Why the fuck should it matter if you hated me, if I disappointed you? I just thought you were pretty, I kept telling myself. I was just attracted to you. It wasn’t that bad because we can’t help noticing attractive people, right? That’s what I always said to myself. Then that night I was in bed and it finally came to me that I loved you. That I always had, particularly when I got to know you. You might have been recalcitrant in my company but you still spoke. I still found out things about you.”

I sat next to him and put my head in my hands. It felt like it was going to explode any minute. “You can’t possibly love me, Patrick. We were never close enough for that.”

He ignored me. “Two or three months later I told Chloe I didn’t love her anymore and things weren’t working out. Then she filed for divorce.” He moved cautiously closer to me. “I wasn’t going to seek you out, Nina. I thought I’d get ove