“I’m not comparing them. I’m just saying—yes, I messed up on a colossal level. I should have told you the truth. I shouldn’t have let anything happen between us until I broke things off with Madison. In almost every aspect of my life I’m a logical person, but when it comes to you, I lose my mind.”

Ryan moves to approach me again but then thinks the better of it.

“I told you we should keep our distance. I thought if I stayed away from you until after the wedding I could get my head straight and sort everything out, but then all of a sudden there you were at Jason’s and I was being shoved into your apartment whether I wanted it or not.”

“This is all real compelling but it still doesn’t explain why you’re a spineless sociopath!”

“What should I have done, Sullivan? Should I have blurted it out right off the bat? I know, I’d walk up to you when I first saw you at the party and say, ‘Hey, remember that girl I used to be friends with who made you completely miserable? The same girl you were convinced I cheated on you with? Yeah, I’m engaged to her now. You still want to catch up over drinks?’”

I shake my head and say nothing.

“I couldn’t have told you then. You would have instantly hated me, and from the moment I saw you all I wanted was to talk to you and be around you 24/7. In the space of one night I morphed back into the desperate twenty-year-old who was obsessed with you in college and who would do anything to keep you near me regardless of the consequences. I knew I was lying and I knew what I was doing was wrong but I couldn’t stop because stopping meant letting you go and I’m incapable of doing that. I always was.”

“I swear, if you don’t stop saying that all this happened because you care about me so much, I’m going to rip my ears off and shove them down your throat.”

“I thought I’d be able to tell you the truth without anything physical happening between us. I thought we’d spend some time together and then I’d explain my situation and deal with whatever happened in the aftermath. I’d break up with Madison as soon as I got home, and hopefully you’d be willing to talk to me again when you saw how serious I was about you. Maybe we’d be friends for a while before we became something bigger. We could start fresh.”