Chapter Five

The One Who Was Always There

The days after meeting Justin were confusing.

I still thought about him.

I still wondered about the women I had seen on his phone.

And I couldn't forget the name the taxi driver had accidentally given me.

Liam.

But I didn't ask him about any of it.

I continued talking to him as though nothing had happened.

He still answered when I called.

He still replied when I messaged.

But I could feel that something had changed.

Before we met, our conversations had felt effortless. We could talk for hours, and I never had to wonder whether he actually wanted to hear from me.

After we met, he became distant.

Not completely.

That almost made it worse.

If he had stopped talking to me completely, maybe I would have been able to let him go.

But he didn't.

He answered.

He replied.

He was still there.

Just not in the same way.

Sometimes I would stare at my phone after sending him a message, wondering whether I should send another one.

Then I'd stop myself.

No.

I wasn't going to chase him.

I had already spent enough of my life trying to convince someone to love me.

I wasn't going to do it again.

And then there was James.

I hadn't planned for James to become part of my life.

He simply appeared at a time when I was beginning to feel lonely again.

Unlike Liam, James was consistent.

If he wanted to see me, he came.

If he wanted to talk, he called.

If I told him I was hungry, somehow food would appear.

He never made me feel like I was asking for too much.

And I liked that.

I liked talking to him.

I liked the way he listened.

Most of all, I liked that I didn't have to sit around wondering whether he wanted me there.

James didn't know I was married.

I had never told him.

It wasn't something I was proud of, but I didn't know how to explain my life to him.

How could I tell him I was married to a man who had gone home and married someone else?

How could I explain that I was still technically his wife while I was trying to understand what my life had become?

So I kept that part of myself hidden.

James only knew Amara.

The woman who laughed with him.

The woman who enjoyed going out.

The woman who liked sitting in his car and talking for hours.

And for a while, that was enough.

April became our month.

Whenever James had time, he came to see me.

Sometimes we'd go to restaurants.

Nothing fancy.

Just somewhere we could sit, eat and talk.

There were evenings when we ordered food and somehow spent more time talking than eating.

I'd look at the time and realize hours had passed.

"You talk too much," I would tease him.

He would laugh.

"You're the one who keeps answering me."

"Because you don't know when to stop."

"And yet you're still here."

I'd roll my eyes.

But secretly, I loved it.

There were days when he would simply come to see me.

We'd sit inside his car, listening to music and talking about everything.

Sometimes there wasn't even anything important to discuss.

We could talk about work.

People we knew.

Funny things that happened during the day.

Food.

Money.

Life.

His plans.

My plans.

It felt easy.

There was no pressure.

James eventually told me something I remembered clearly.

"I don't want kids."

I looked at him.

"Ever?"

"Ever."

He shook his head.

"I don't see myself having children."

I smiled.

"Okay."

He looked at me.

"What about you?"

I hesitated.

There were so many things I could have said.

Instead, I shrugged.

"I don't know."

He didn't question me.

And I was grateful.

I also continued making excuses whenever he asked me to come to his house.

"I have things to do."

"Maybe another day."

"I'm tired."

Sometimes I even laughed at myself afterward.

The truth was simple.

I enjoyed James.

I enjoyed his company.

But I didn't see him as someone I wanted to sleep with.

I didn't want to take what we had and turn it into something complicated.

Sitting in his car and talking was enough for me.

I didn't realize how much I needed that kind of companionship until I had it.

And slowly, without making a decision, I started moving away from Liam.

Not completely.

I still thought about him.

I still wondered why he was distant.

I still looked at my phone whenever it rang.

But I stopped chasing him.

I stopped trying to keep the conversations alive by myself.

If he wanted to talk, he knew where to find me.

And strangely, once I stopped trying so hard, I felt lighter.

For the first time since Vince's betrayal, I wasn't sitting around waiting for one man to decide whether I mattered.

I had people around me.

I had my work.

I had my friends.

I had James.

And I was beginning to find pieces of myself again.

Then May arrived.

And with it came something I wasn't expecting.

Vince.

It was May 1.

A public holiday.

I had known I would be home early from work, so when Vince contacted me and asked if we could meet, I immediately became uneasy.

I stared at his message for a long time.

My first thought was:

Why now?

Months had passed since he had gone home.

Months since that video call.

Months since I had watched him standing there in wedding clothes with that happy smile on his face.

I had spent those months trying to understand how the man who had once promised he would never hurt me could do something like that.

And now he wanted to see me.

I didn't know what he wanted.

Maybe he wanted to explain himself.

Maybe he wanted to apologize.

Maybe he wanted something from me.

I didn't know.

But I agreed to meet him.

He chose our usual place.

The place where we had met many times before.

That made it even stranger.

It was almost as if he expected us to simply continue where we had left off.

After work, I went home and got ready.

As I stood in front of the mirror, memories started coming back.

The first time I met Vince.

Our six months of dating.

Our wedding.

The two years we had been married.

The weekends when I waited to see him.

The times I visited him at work and felt like I was bothering him because his attention was always somewhere else.

The promises.

The arguments.

The moments when I convinced myself everything was normal.

And then the wedding.

His wedding.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

So much had happened since December.

I wasn't the same woman who had watched that video call and broken down.

I had met new people.

I had started talking to Liam.

I had spent April with James.

I had laughed again.

I had begun to understand that my life couldn't end simply because Vince had chosen another woman.

Still, seeing his name on my phone had brought back feelings I thought I had buried.

I got dressed.

I checked my reflection one last time.

Then I picked up my phone.

A message from James was waiting.

James: Have you eaten?

I smiled.

For a moment, I wondered whether I should tell him where I was going.

But I didn't.

James still didn't know about Vince.

He didn't know I was married.

He didn't know the man I was about to meet was the reason my life had become so complicated.

I put my phone away.

Then I left.

As I made my way to our usual meeting place, one thought kept repeating in my mind.

Why did Vince want to see me?

I had no idea that the answer would leave me questioning everything all over again.

And I certainly didn't know that when I saw him, he would casually tell me something that would make me realize he hadn't been where I thought he was for the past three months.

He had already returned.

He had simply chosen not to tell me.

And that was only the beginning.