She stood and walked to the window. "I didn't know I did until I met him. That's what you're not understanding. I wasn't planning to hurt you."
"But you did hurt me. And then you came home and kept seeing him behind my back."
She crossed her arms. "Are we going to spend all afternoon making me the villain?"
I had expected denial, maybe tears, maybe genuine shame. Her impatience was harder to take than any of those would have been. She didn't want to discuss the secrecy. She wanted the conversation to move quickly past it into a story where she'd discovered something important about herself and I was supposed to appreciate her courage for saying so. The more calmly I spoke, the more frustrated she seemed to become.
"You're safe," she told me. "You're stable. You're a good guy. I'm not saying you're a bad person."
"Then why does it feel like you're describing a problem?"
"Because I need more than safe."
I thought of the money we'd saved, the job I'd declined, the way she held me when we were younger. I wanted to tell her those things mattered. I also realized, with a strange sudden clarity, that I could list every sacrifice and still not persuade a person to value what she no longer valued. A relationship isn't won by presenting invoices. If she wanted to leave, I couldn't make her stay by proving I'd earned her loyalty.
"Have you decided what you want?" I asked.
"I want to see where things go with Jake. He wants me to visit again. Maybe I could move there eventually."
"And us?"
"We've plateaued. I don't think dragging it out is fair to either of us."
I nodded. For a moment she watched me as though waiting for the argument to begin. When it didn't, she frowned. I said, "Then go see where it goes."
"Really? Just like that?"
"What would you like me to do, Zoe? Beg you not to cheat on me again?"
She looked away. I wasn't trying to sound cruel. I was trying to get a little air into a room that had suddenly become too small. I told her I wasn't going to continue sharing a home with someone actively planning a life with another man. She said she hadn't expected me to be so final, and I reminded her that she'd been the one describing our relationship in the past tense.
We talked about practical things because practical things were the only ones I could still manage. Our lease was in both names. Some of the furniture was hers; some was mine; most of it had been bought together. I said we would review the lease and divide the remaining responsibilities fairly, in writing, once we'd both cooled down. I wasn't going to pretend a breakup erased commitments made to a landlord or gave me the right to throw away her property.
She said she could book a flight to Vegas the next morning if she found a seat. I told her I would sleep on the couch and let her use the bedroom to pack. She followed me when I went to get the suitcase from the closet. I set it on the bed and opened it, then stepped aside. She stared at me with a baffled expression.