The Doctor Who Has No Chance (Soulless 11)

All I could do was stare as she stared at me, replay that confession over and over in my head. I pictured the same flashbacks she mentioned, watching her walk down the aisle in her beautiful gown on that summer afternoon in the Hamptons, her father walking her to me to hand her over, holding her when she sobbed about the negative results of her pregnancy test when we’d been trying nonstop for a month, of the snow angels we would make together outside the cabin, the way she and my sister were so close, like they were sisters themselves. The best years of my life had happened when I was married to her.

She waited for me to respond to what she’d said.

I didn’t have a response, even though I’d imagined this conversation a million times in my head, when she’d come back to me and admit she was wrong, that she still loved me, had never stopped. Whenever I pictured this moment, I always took her back, always. But now that it actually happened…that wasn’t my first impulse.

“Please say something…”

I stared at her teary eyes.

“Please, please give me another chance. I know I don’t deserve it. I know…I know I don’t. But you’re right, if this never happened, we would still be together right now. We would still be happy—”

“If you hadn’t left me, then none of this would have happened. If you hadn’t packed your bags and moved out, none of this would have happened. If you hadn’t rejected marriage counseling, none of this would have happened. Your father died, but his death didn’t rip us apart. It was your response to it.”

She closed her eyes, and new tears dripped down her cheeks.

“I can’t count the number of times my phone lit up and I wished it were you and not someone else. When people came to my front door, my heart jumped because I thought you were finally coming back to me, but it was always someone else checking on me, always someone else making sure I was okay—never you. Months passed, and I continued to wish. Three months turned into six, and even then, I was still desperately in love with you, would take you back in a heartbeat. But then six turned to nine…and the hope dwindled. And then a year happened, and…everything changed.” I suddenly thought of Sicily, the person who put my life back together, who was there for me every single day, pushing me forward, believing in me…always. “I moved on…mostly.”

She wouldn’t look at me again.

“I give so much to other people, have dedicated my life to strangers, have pledged to heal people with everything I have. I deserve to have someone who’s going to give me that dedication, through the good, the bad, and the everything.” And there was only one person I’d ever met who was willing to do that with a goddamn smile on her face. “I deserve more, Catherine.”

“I was completely dedicated to you before my father—”

“And you abandoned me. You have no idea what the guilt did to me. It ripped me apart. I stopped taking care of people who needed me because I was so scarred by the way you made me feel. I have to live with that for the rest of my life, knowing patients couldn’t get quality care because I was so incapacitated by what you’d done to me. It’s easy to be committed when things are good, but what really defines you is what you do when things are bad. We tried to get pregnant, and it didn’t happen for us like we thought it would. Was I disappointed? Yes. But did I ever make you feel like it was your fault? Like you were less of a woman? If you could never get pregnant, you think I would have loved you any less? No, Catherine. Even if you were infertile and we could never have children, I would have counted my blessings every single day that we were together.”

Now she started to cry, her hand over her mouth to suppress it as much as possible.

“If I could undo what happened, I probably would. Because I was deliriously happy married to you. If I could just make that go away, erase it from history and our minds, I would. But I can’t do that, Catherine. It happened, and over a year has gone by. And if you’d come to me sooner, I would have taken you back in a heartbeat…but you didn’t.” I couldn’t believe I was saying these things to the love of my life, the woman I loved more than life itself, the woman who claimed my heart from the moment I saw her. “I need to be with someone who’s going to be there when things are bad…not just when things are good.”