The Real

“Sure.” Billy kissed her temple, ever the doting father as the wind gusted over us and left her shivering. I took off my coat and handed it to her.

She bit her lip as she cast her eyes down at my mother’s picture. “She was so beautiful.”

“She was.”

“I really loved her, you know? I felt so close to her.”

I nodded. “You two were thick as thieves.”

“I bet she would hate me now,” she sniffed.

I kept my jaw clamped tight. “My dad . . . he’s been,” she swallowed, “well we’ve been talking and I’m thinking about getting help. There’s a place I checked out in Florida a few months ago. I think it might be good for me.”

“I hope you go, and I hope it sticks,” I said carefully in an attempt to keep the peace. “I really do, Kat.”

“I’m high now,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get clean. You were right to leave.”

I stayed mute. I resented her for being there. I resented everything about the conversation that I’d begged for that seemed to flow so easily at that moment.

“And after what I’ve done to you,” she swallowed hard. “The guilt is worse than anything I’ve ever felt. I want you to know that’s one of the reason’s I haven’t stopped using. I know what I’ve done. I know what I’ve done to us, mostly to you. I’m sorry Cameron, with my whole heart, I’m sorry. You deserved so much better.”

My whole body jerked at her admission. I swallowed the emotion down and the anger that threatened. “What do you want, Kat?”

“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t help the suspicion, it fit.

“That’s all?”

“No catch,” she said before biting her lip. “I know it’s hard to believe. But I don’t want to be this person anymore.”

“Why couldn’t you say that to me then? All I wanted was for you to say you were still there.”

“I wasn’t,” she said solemnly, “I’m still not, Cameron. I’ve been posing for pictures nobody’s taking for so long, I have no idea who in the hell I am anymore.”

A long moment of silent resolution passed between us.

“I don’t think I was ever the woman you thought you married,” she admitted, her voice low.

Her hair whipped around her pale face as her blue eyes implored mine for anything I would offer. Kat was startlingly beautiful, had always been. Even in her sickness, it hadn’t faded, which made her beauty deceptive in a way that made me feel sick. And her admitting to that deception only made me feel worse.

It made me a fool. It made me feel taken. And for the first time since I left her, I saw she never wanted it to work out between us. And maybe that was the truth for me too. Ours was a marriage of convenience and I’d paid hell for it while she played numb and indifferent.

“Can you ever forgive me?” Her eyes were cloudy as I swallowed my bite and sighed. “I don’t want to know you anymore, Kat. I know that sounds cruel. But it’s the truth. I’m sorry.”

She nodded as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I deserve that.”

“I just can’t,” I told her. “But I will remember I loved you once. And I want you to be well. I’ll hope for that, for you.”

She cried quietly as I tamped down any human need to console her, and it wasn’t difficult. I’d hardened myself to the point where I couldn’t care. I couldn’t afford to. What was left of my heart, my loyalty, resided with a woman in Wicker Park.

Kat broke the uncomfortable silence. “I won’t contest the divorce. I’ll accept your terms, it’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you.”

“And Abbie?” She said as a question and I confirmed it with my silence. “What a fucked up and small world we live in.”

“Please don’t talk about her—”