“I am not fucked up.” I wasn’t angry. This conversation was draining everything out of me.

“Yeah, right. Your mom is a manic-depressive. You’re the one with the dad who orders Chinese mail-order brides from a magazine. You have no idea what family is about. You have no idea of the importance of having that center.”

“Dave, I’m aware that the way I grew up wasn’t typical, but just because you’re from a ‘good Catholic family,’ and you went to church on Sundays and said your prayers at night doesn’t make up for the fact that you have been a world-class shit and been totally dishonest with me.”

I realized I had vaulted myself off the couch and was pacing the length of my living room.

“You think you’re a better person because of your religious beliefs, that you have a strong faith. But how do you explain the cheating? How do you explain your extensive porn collection hidden in your closet behind your rain boots?”

I was almost out of breath from getting all this out.

“Shut up, shut the fuck up, you are a psycho. You are a total psycho bitch!” Never in all the highs and lows of our years together had he spoken to me like this. His vehemence pushed me to cut him off.

“And you know what you are?” I shot back. “You are so not the person I ever gave you credit for being. I would probably have missed you these past months if I hadn’t realized it was all fake.” I was sputtering now. “There’s nothing to miss when I’d been wrong the entire time. I was so, so wrong about you!”

Now he was silent. I knew that I’d wounded him, if only a little bit.

I flashed forward to the scene tonight in his bungalow, when he would kick back on his living room sofa while the fiancée brought him an ice-cold beer. He would just recount this conversation to Madison, saying how right he was about my being a psycho and no wonder he had been pushed to cheat, and how glad he was that we were over. Knowing what the postscript to this conversation would be only fueled me further. “I never should have given you my number that night at the airport.”

Dave started to respond, but I cut him off. “I never should have believed you when you said that Chloe was ‘just a friend.’” Then I went in for the kill. “And I never should have given you those seven chances before you were ever good in bed.”

I placed the phone down in the receiver. I didn’t slam it. I just hung up. I felt totally wiped out. He was marrying someone else and I’d said everything I needed to say.

SEVENTEEN

SEVENTEEN

On Monday morning I couldn’t face work. This was a first.