The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(142)

“No,” he said. “No. That was David. And we’ve talked about him. Everything else, everyone else—it was your life after I left. All right?”

Eyes closed, she let her breath out, nodding her head. “Thanks,” she whispered. Her shoulders relaxed. “When John and I started sleeping together, naturally he saw the cuts. And right away he was on it. But in such a supportive, awesome way. He knew how fragile I was, he knew just how to approach it. It sounds dramatic but he saved my life. I started going to a therapist and doing the dirty work.”

“Digging.”

“Digging. Learning how to stop scarring and punishing myself. It all circled back to forgiveness. I had to forgive myself. I couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t grow or evolve until I did.”

“And is that when you sent me back my stuff?”

She nodded. “My skin healed. The sun came out and it was spring. Things were going really well. I felt better. Felt like myself again. John and I were turning the corner into our relationship. And I still had this box of your stuff. He kind of gave me a soft ultimatum, asked me, ‘When are you going to let go of him?’ And I said, ‘Right now.’ I packed it all up. I called you, just to let the record show I tried one last time.”

“I hung up on you.”

“And I sent it back. And I was fine. I thought I had moved on. Few months passed, I went to Chicago for the Phantom auditions and when I came home, John told me you had called.”

Erik flopped sideways, putting his forehead into the crook of an elbow. “Could that conversation have been any more awkward?”

She laughed. “Frankly, no.”

“I swear. As it dawned on me you were living together, I was just a blithering idiot.”

“When he told me you called I was a blithering idiot,” she said. “To be fair he sprung it on me the second I walked in the door. Hi, honey. Erik called.”

“Erik called. He was looking for a necklace. I think he was stoned.”

“I was immediately in tears. Not quietly sneak into the bathroom and cry in a towel. No, right there in the doorway, bag still on my shoulder, bursting into tears. John just walked out of the apartment. He couldn’t even watch. And I couldn’t blame him.” Resting her elbows on the table, Daisy pressed her fingers against her eyelids. “I wanted to kill you,” she whispered. “You finally called. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”

“You wrote me the postcard.”

“Yeah, with John looking over my shoulder. God, what a mess. We made up but the whole incident put a crack in the relationship. Then I got into the touring production so being separated didn’t help things. It was over within six months. A civil breakup as far as breakups go, but I know he was hurt. I felt terrible. Yet another guy who gave me his all and saved me from the abyss and I broke his heart. And,” she said, widening her eyes and taking on a chipper tone. “I found myself fondling windows and wine glasses again so back into therapy, y’all. Let’s go digging.”

“I’m sorry that call screwed things up.”

She shook her head. “It’s not about you.” She looked at him. “That sounded harsh.”

“No, I know what you meant.” He reached for another sandwich triangle, pulled it apart and dunked one part in his soup. “Did therapy give you any huge breakthroughs?”

She was in the middle of chewing, so she shook her head, the back of her hand to her mouth. “Lots of little ones,” she finally said. “I still hadn’t forgiven myself for what I did to you. I figured I would need to dig into why I’d slept with David in the first place. And like I told you, it turned out to be a whole lot of little reasons, not one big one. But no, I had no big revelation about how my inner child had been neglected or any such shit. I was always a pretty self-actualized person. You know my family. You know my relationship with my parents. I don’t carry a lot of scars from childhood.”

“You don’t have my baggage,” he said, touching his chest.

She held up her spoon, thinking a moment, then she looked at him. “I did a stupid thing,” she said. “I’d never been a stupid kid. I didn’t look for trouble. You know me, I looked for stillness. And my ballet teachers, all those Russian women I trained with, each and every one said at one point, ‘No stupid girls are in ballet.’ And they aren’t. You have to be smart or you’ll never make it.” Her eyebrows wrinkled, and she stared off at a far wall. “I was always so cerebral. Practical. I had a thing about not being stupid.”

“We all do stupid things,” Erik said.

She glanced at him, smiling. “I suppose you can analyze it and say I was having my rebellion moment. After the shooting, I felt like a victim, and I was struggling with the possibility of not being a girl in ballet. Therefore I could now be stupid.” She shook her head, and set her spoon down in her empty bowl. “But it doesn’t ring true for me. It was an egregious error of judgment. A royal f*ck-up. And I needed to stop beating myself up over it. Let go of it. End of story.”

“As my therapist said, ‘Not everything has to be a thing,’” Erik said.

Daisy laughed now. “I cannot believe, after twelve years, we are sitting in my kitchen comparing anecdotes about therapy.”

He sighed. “I guess this is what we should have been doing thirteen years ago.”