SIXTY-TWO

I hesitantly opened the door to our apartment for the second time today. This time, Thomas was not there to confront me. I found him sitting on the edge of our bed, holding my engagement ring in the palm of his hand and staring at it intently. He jumped when he heard me enter the room.

"I didn't hear you come in," he said quietly.

I slid onto the bed next to him and smiled weakly. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, both watching Thomas turn the ring over and over in his hand.

Thomas finally broke the awkward silence. "So…I guess you came back to talk."

"Yeah…" I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. "Where do we even start?"

His eyes met mine in an intense stare. "I don't want you seeing him again. Ever."

"I…I don't know if I can do that."

"It's him or me, Karine."

My heart was racing as I thought about the decision I was about to make. My eyes returned to the engagement ring…a large diamond surrounded with sapphires. Taking it back, promising to never see Sid again, it meant I would have a stable future with Thomas. He could provide for me, and eventually support our family. I knew he would be around for holidays, birthdays, pee-wee hockey games. Choosing Sid was not the logical thing to do. For more than half the year he would be traveling for games, and when he was in town he would be practicing. Plus, after the short disaster that was our relationship, I could not guarantee that we would even get to the point where we could decide to get married or have children.

I took a deep breath and dove in. "Can I be honest with you?" I asked, laying a comforting hand on Thomas's thigh.

"Please."

"Seeing him again…it made me realize that I haven't been happy in a long time."

Thomas let out an incredulous half-laugh and shook his head. "How long?" he asked after a long pause.

"Since…since I left Pittsburgh."

Thomas exhaled loudly, like I had just punched him in the stomach. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Tears stung my eyes. "I'm so sorry…I thought…I thought I could just forget about him and move on with you. I love you. You are an amazing person."

"But…"

"But you aren't him."

He sat beside me, shaking his head over and over, as if to shake what I had just said away. "You're leaving me for him."

I hesitated and stumbled over my words. "I…I don't know if I'm going back to him."

"Then stay with me. We'll work it out."

"I can't," I choked, crying freely now. "You deserve someone who can be 100 percent yours. I can never do that for you. No matter what happens, part of me will always be with him. If I marry you…I think I'll regret it. And you shouldn't have to live with that."

He wrapped my hand in his and brushed my hair out of my face. "Karine, I want to be with you. I've always known you weren't over him…I just thought I was good enough to make you forget about him, even if it was just for a little while." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I always tried to be perfect. I wanted to be the best boyfriend, the best fiancé, the perfect husband…I always tried to be perfect because I was terrified that if I messed up you would go back to him. He was this constant threat to me, and until Christmas I had never even met the guy. I felt so insignificant compared to him."

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

"I tried. You would blow me off or change the subject. And the fact that you were afraid to talk about him, to even say his name…God, Karine. I knew this was coming. I knew it."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I do love you."

"Just not enough," he replied bitterly.

I stood up and walked to our closet. "I'm going to pack a bag and go to Sylvie's," I said, trying to keep my voice strong and steady.

"Yeah." He stood up with a heavy sigh and moved into the living room. I shoved a change of clothes into a duffle and texted Sylvie to let her know I would be coming.

Thomas was standing in the living room, staring at our apartment like it was a foreign country. "We bought all this stuff together," he said without turning around to face me. He was referring to the furniture, curtains, pillows, blankets, even the television.

"It's yours," I replied.

He shook his head. "I don't want any of it."

"Neither do I." I left the apartment without telling Thomas goodbye. As I stepped out into the harsh Montreal cold, a wave of nausea hit me, accompanied with the realization that I had just given up my chance of a stable, secure life with Thomas. We were over. Irrevocably, irreversibly over.

I took a few deep breaths to settle my nerves and continued walking to my car. I wasn't going to let anxiety get the best of me. No matter what may happen, I knew that I had made the right choice by ending the engagement. I tried to convince myself that it had nothing to do with Sid, but in reality it had everything to do with him. I didn't break up with Thomas for him but because of him. If I would have spent the rest of my life avoiding Sid, I never would have realized that Thomas and I were not meant to be together.

"Are you okay?" Sylvie asked when I arrived at her apartment.

"I don't know." I didn't feel at peace like I should have. Instead, I felt lost.
I couldn't help but second guess my decision.

It was too late for second guesses, though. The next day, Sylvie and I took off work and went to the apartment to pack up my belongings. I only took my personal items—clothes, shoes, purses, etc. Everything else I felt for Thomas to keep or sell. I didn't want any artifacts from our life together. I didn't want to look at my dining room table and feel a pang of regret for the heart that I had broken.

Sylvie graciously converted her office into a makeshift bedroom for me and told me I could stay as long as I needed to.

About a week after the breakup, once I was sure that I could talk about it without breaking down, I began making the phone calls. First to the church, then the caterer, then the reception hall, to let them know that there would no longer be a Lemieux/Martin wedding in August. Next, I called my parents.

"Oh, Karine, stop being so dramatic," my mother said once I told her the news. I could tell by her tone that she was rolling her eyes. "So you had a fight. You two will talk in the morning and everything will be fine."

"No, Mother, you don't get it. It happened a week ago. I moved out. I've already made the cancellations. The wedding is not going to happen."

There was a long pause. "Oh." We talked a little longer and decided that it was unnecessary for me to go through the painful process of individually calling each family member and telling them the news—either my parents would let them know, or they would get the hint when no invitation came.

I hung up with my mother and rested my head on the arm of the couch. Sylvie was peering at me over the book she was pretending to read.

"What?" I muttered irritably.

"I think there might be one more person who may be interested in certain recent developments," she replied.

"Why should I tell him?"

"He's the reason why you ended it, isn't he?"

I shook my head. "I ended it because I wasn't happy."

"You could be happy with him again."

"I'm not having this conversation," I replied testily as I stood up and went into my bedroom.

"I just think you should tell him before Mario does," Sylvie yelled as I closed my door.