“Where are we going?” I ask as I take in the familiar scenery. I’m not sure why I’m even asking when I know exactly where this road leads. How many times have I found myself driving down this street in the last couple of years, without even consciously realizing what I was doing?
Celeste parks her car in front of her old house and turns to face me. My wife’s expression is so vulnerable that my guard instantly lowers, and I sigh, unable to deny her anything when she looks at me like that. “There’s something I want to show you,” she says, her tone filled with uncertainty.
I tear my gaze off her and run a hand through my hair. I’m not sure what I was expecting when she asked for a few hours of my time today, but I hadn’t expected this.
She looks at me with such hope as she gets out of the car that I can’t help but follow her, my curiosity getting the best of me. She’s been different in the last couple of days, and I can’t quite pinpoint why. Somehow, she seems a little more courageous, a little more optimistic, even though nothing has changed between us.
Celeste’s hand slips into my mine, and she holds on tightly as she leads me into her house and right into the past. “Why are we here?” I ask as I pause in the doorway, my heart aching. Unlike mine, her house is perfectly unchanged, and the mere sight of it makes countless happy memories rush through my mind, each leaving a bittersweet trail of destruction.
She looks over her shoulder and drags me to her living room, where we’ve watched countless movies, made love hundreds of times. It’s where she whispered she loved me for the very first time, thinking I was asleep.
She pulls me down on the sofa. “I wanted to show you this,” she says as she grabs a box from her coffee table and places it between us. I suck in a breath when she opens it and carefully takes out a variety of dried flowers. “I kept one from each bouquet you’ve ever given me.”
My hand trembles as I reach for the dried red rose from my mother’s rose garden, my breathing rapidly becoming uneven. “Why?”
“Because I love you, Zane. Despite everything that happened, I couldn’t let go of you, of our memories. Each time I tried, I’d burst into tears and pulled this box close to my chest, wishing I could go back in time.”
She takes the rose from me and carefully places it back in the box with such care that my heart wrenches. The look in her eyes conveys how much these flowers still mean to her, and I just don’t know what to make of that.
“There’s more,” she says, holding out her hand. I stare at it for a moment, unsure whether I should take it. I sigh as I slip my fingers between hers, giving in. She throws me a shaky smile as she pulls me up, and I follow her reluctantly. I don’t understand what she’s up to, and seeing how carefully she preserved our memories just confuses me further.
“It wasn’t just the flowers, Zane,” she says as she leads me into her bedroom. I let go of her and lean back against the wall, the room bringing back feelings I wish I could eradicate.
Celeste looks over her shoulder as she opens her wardrobe and pulls out countless of my t-shirts, letting them fall to her bed. “I stole these from you and kept them. Each time I came here, I’d wear them, even though doing so inspired more guilt than you could possibly understand.”
I bite down on my lip when she kneels on the floor and pulls one of our many vision boards out from the back. Fuck. I still remember the way we’d cut photos out of wedding magazines on a Sunday night, when I’d come here after dinner at my grandma’s, feeling more discouraged than ever. Celeste and I would dream of our wedding together, drowning out the pain in our present with dreams of the future. She looks up at me from her seated position on the floor, her eyes swimming with tears.
“Zane, despite what you might think, I never stopped loving you.”
I push off the wall and walk toward her, unable to take that look in her eyes. I can’t bear her tears, never could. She draws a shaky breath as I kneel in front of her, and my heart fucking shatters. “I never stopped loving you either, Celeste. But love isn’t enough. Love can’t fix this.”
More tears run down her cheeks, and her eyes fall closed for a moment, almost like she’s steeling herself. “You don’t understand,” she tells me, her voice breaking. Her hands tremble as she pulls another box out of her wardrobe, and she pushes it toward me, a sob tearing through her throat as she opens it. “I always loved you, Zane, but you weren’t the only one I loved.”
I watch her as she pulls out photos of Lily and her, and vision boards filled with road trips and mockups of the offices they thought they’d have at Harrison Developments. She begins to cry in earnest but smiles through her tears as she looks at an unopened bottle of rosé, only to set it aside to grab a letter. She hands it to me, and my stomach drops when I realize what it is. Lily’s suicide letter.
“You have to understand,” she pleads. “She was like a sister to me, and I stood on that bridge with her as she told me she’d been dating you. Lily looked me in the eye and told me she couldn’t bear to watch me marry you, that she was scared I’d forgive you for what you’d done. To her, your relationship was real, and it seemed that way to me too. I was overcome with grief, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. All I could focus on was making her last wish come true, and I wanted you to feel the way I was feeling — betrayed, lost, and all alone.”
She rises to her knees and reaches for me, her trembling hand wrapping over my cheek. I look into her lost eyes, wishing I could take her pain. “Despite that, I loved you so much I couldn’t get rid of a single trace of our relationship. I believed with every fiber of my being that you’d cheated on me with my best friend, and I forgave you for it, because I love you more than I love myself, more than I ever loved her.”
She buries her face in her hands as sobs rack her body, and I pull her into my arms, trying my best to hold her together as she falls apart. “Celestial,” I whisper, my hand threading through her hair. I wish I knew what the right thing to do is, but I can’t make her false promises.
“I love you,” she whispers, her arms wrapping around my neck. “I love you s-so much, Zane, and I… I don’t know how to… I’m trying so hard… please…”
I pull her onto my lap and hug her tightly, my heart wrenching so painfully that I suck in a breath. “I love you too, Celeste Windsor,” I tell her, leaning back to look at her. “I love you with all my heart. I always have, and I always will. I don’t know where to go from here, Goddess. Fuck, I don’t know if the trust we broke can ever be fixed, but we’ll try, okay? Let’s try.”
She searches my face like she doesn’t believe me, and I try my hardest to smile for her. I don’t know how to undo the mutual destruction we caused, but fuck, if it’s within my power, there’s nothing I won’t do for her. I know I’ll end up regretting this, but I can’t bear her tears — I never could.
