"I'm sorry it's been hard," I told her. "I hope you have people who can help you through it."
"I don't," she whispered. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm alone, Alex. I miss you. I miss us."
Her voice cracked on the last word. I remembered all the times I had reacted to that sound by moving closer, putting my arms around her, and promising I would figure something out. For five years, comforting her had been one of the most automatic things I did. The impulse was still there somewhere, faint but recognizable, and for a moment it made my chest ache.
Then I remembered the Sunday dinner. She had told me I was safe and predictable while praising a man she had been sleeping with behind my back. She had said the affair was necessary and declined to apologize. When I left quietly, she had accused me of making the evening difficult. The memory did not erase my sympathy, but it gave me a clear answer to what she was asking now.
"Sarah," I said, "the person who planned that wedding with you was prepared to spend his life by your side. He believed we were building something together. He was still making plans with you while you were choosing somebody else."
Tears filled her eyes. She started to speak, but I continued because I needed to finish what I had begun. I did not raise my voice. I did not mention Liam's indictment as a weapon. I wanted my words to be about us and the boundary she had spent months refusing to accept.
"That relationship ended when you told me you were seeing him and that you weren't sorry," I said. "You had every right to decide you wanted a different life. You did not have the right to make that decision while keeping me committed to a future you were already walking away from."
She swallowed hard. "I know. I was selfish. I was stupid. I thought he was everything I wanted, and he wasn't."
"Maybe he wasn't," I said. "But the reason I can't come back isn't that Liam turned out differently from what you expected. It's what happened between us before any of that came out."
She looked down at the table, then at Emily's hand resting near mine. "I know you've moved on," she said. "I can see that. But five years have to mean something."
The sentence hurt because it was true in a different way from the one she intended. Five years did mean something. They had shaped my habits, my hopes, and the way I thought about sharing a life with another person. They did not mean I owed her a sixth year after she had broken the trust on which the first five depended.
"They mean a lot," I said. "I won't pretend otherwise. But they don't mean I have to restart our relationship."