By the time Sophie threw the bouquet, Elise had stopped worrying about whether Thomas would propose.
That did not mean she had stopped thinking about it.
There was a difference.
For almost two years, her friends had been asking in the casual, intrusive way people did when a relationship had lasted long enough to become public property.
When are you two getting married?
Has he talked about rings?
Surely it’s coming soon.
Elise had learned to smile.
“Eventually.”
Sometimes Thomas answered for her.
“When she stops rejecting every restaurant I choose.”
People laughed.
Elise did too.
It was easier than admitting they had discussed marriage only twice and both conversations had ended strangely.
The first time, Thomas said he absolutely wanted children someday but hated the idea of becoming one of those couples who married because everyone expected them to.
The second time, after Elise’s younger sister got engaged, he said he wanted to marry her but wanted to “do it properly.”
Elise asked what properly meant.
He kissed her forehead and said:
“You’ll know.”
She had hated that answer.
She had also spent the following seven months wondering whether every weekend away, expensive dinner or unusually nice shirt meant something.
Eventually she became embarrassed by her own anticipation.
She stopped checking his coat pockets for jewellery-store receipts.
Stopped looking at his hands when he reached into his jacket.
Stopped interpreting birthdays.
Mostly.
Sophie’s wedding took place at a converted eighteenth-century estate outside Leuven on one of the warmest Saturdays of June.
Elise had known Sophie since university. They had lived together for two years, survived the same terrible landlord, two breakups, one failed master’s application and a six-month period when Sophie tried to bake sourdough every Sunday despite being astonishingly bad at it.
Thomas had been part of the group long enough that nobody remembered exactly when he stopped being Elise’s boyfriend and became simply Thomas.
He was thirty-seven, eight years older than Elise, and worked in commercial property development.
He had an ease with people that Elise once found remarkable.
He remembered names.
He shook hands properly.
He could join a table of strangers and make himself seem invited.
At weddings he was especially good.
He danced with older women.
Remembered the names of distant cousins.
Made jokes with waiters without embarrassing them.
That afternoon he spent twenty minutes helping Sophie’s grandfather find a missing hearing aid that turned out to be in the man’s jacket pocket.
Sophie’s mother told Elise:
“You have a good one.”
Elise smiled.
“I know.”
At the time, she believed it.
Claire Martin arrived alone.
Nobody noticed.
She was twenty-nine and knew Sophie through a marketing consultancy where they had worked together for eighteen months.
They were not close enough that Claire had expected an invitation, which made Sophie’s message in April pleasantly surprising.
You should come. You survived the launch disaster with me. That qualifies as friendship.
Claire had laughed.
She bought a pale green dress, booked a small hotel nearby and nearly cancelled twice because she knew almost nobody attending.
The reason she finally went was Thomas.
Not because she expected to see him.
Because she expected not to.
Thomas had told her he would be in Luxembourg that weekend.
A development conference.
Three days.
Terrible coffee.
Men in expensive shoes talking about zoning.
Claire believed him because Thomas told stories with unnecessary detail.
The name of the hotel.
The colleague who snored.
The panel he had been asked to moderate.
He even sent her a photograph Friday evening of a glass-walled conference room.
She did not ask whether the picture had been taken that day.
Why would she?
Thomas was not her boyfriend.
Not officially.
That was what made everything so difficult afterward.
They had met eleven months earlier.
Claire’s consultancy had been hired to develop branding for a mixed-use redevelopment Thomas’s company was involved in.
He attended three meetings.
At the first, Claire thought he was arrogant.
At the second, funny.
At the third, attractive enough that she became irritated with herself.
Thomas noticed.
He had always been good at noticing.
After a client dinner, they found themselves walking toward the same station.
He asked whether she wanted another drink.
She said no.
Then changed her mind.
Nothing happened that night.
That mattered later, because Claire spent months trying to identify the exact moment she should have known better.
It was not the first drink.
Not the second.
Not even the first kiss three weeks afterward.
It was perhaps the first Sunday he came to her apartment with pastries and stayed until evening.
Or the first time she asked:
“Are you seeing anyone?”
Thomas had been standing in her kitchen slicing a pear with one of her blunt knives.
He did not answer immediately.
Claire noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
Thomas put the knife down.
“My last relationship was complicated.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Claire waited.
He sighed.
“I’m not married.”
She laughed.
“That is an impressively low bar.”
“I know.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly that time.
Claire believed it.
She had no reason not to.
What Thomas did not explain was that he had never decided whether what he said was technically a lie.
Elise was his girlfriend.
Everyone who knew them understood that.
They lived separately but spent four nights a week together.
They had keys to each other’s apartments.
They attended birthdays, funerals and family dinners as a couple.
Thomas had been listed as Elise’s emergency contact for six years.
There was no ambiguity.
Except inside Thomas’s head.
He and Elise had been struggling when he met Claire.
Not dramatically.
No screaming.
No infidelity that Elise knew about.
Just the dull accumulation of things neither wanted to discuss.
Thomas wanted to buy a house outside Brussels.
Elise wanted to remain in the city.
He wanted children within a few years.
She wanted them eventually but disliked the deadline hidden inside the conversation.
He thought she worked too much.
She thought he resented her work because he liked being the more successful one.
They had started using phrases like:
“Let’s not do this tonight.”
And:
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Later became months.
Thomas began telling himself they were already half over.
He never told Elise that.
He also never left.
Claire existed in the space created by that cowardice.
For eleven months, Thomas divided himself.
Thursday nights sometimes belonged to Claire.
Weekends usually belonged to Elise.
Business travel became useful.
So did vague meetings.
He turned off notification previews.
Bought a second phone charger.
Learned which lies required detail and which became suspicious if overexplained.
He did not think of himself as someone capable of maintaining two lives.
He thought of each lie individually.
That was easier.
Just tonight.
Just until after Sophie’s wedding.
Just until Elise finishes this project.
Just until Claire’s birthday.
Just until he knows what he wants.
Whenever guilt became unbearable, he became more affectionate with whichever woman he was with.
Both noticed.
Neither understood why.
The first sign for Elise came in March.
Thomas was showering at her apartment.
His phone lit up on the bedside table.
CLAIRE M.
Elise saw only the beginning of the message.
I found the place you were talk…
She did not open it.
When Thomas returned, towel around his waist, she asked:
“Who’s Claire?”
He stopped for less than a second.
“Claire?”
“Someone messaged you.”
“Oh. Work.”
“What work?”
“The Saint-Gilles project.”
Elise nodded.
“She messages late.”
“It’s nine thirty.”
“I know what time it is.”
Thomas picked up the phone.
“You’re being weird.”
That irritated her.
“I asked a question.”
“And I answered.”
Elise looked at him.
He smiled.
“Come on.”
Then he kissed her.
She let him.
The uneasiness remained for perhaps an hour.
By morning, she felt embarrassed by it.
Thomas had never given her a reason not to trust him.
At least none she had recognised.
Claire had asked about Elise once too.
She found a restaurant receipt in Thomas’s coat after he stayed over.
Dinner for two.
A Friday.
The night he had told her he was eating with his brother.
She held it up.
“Your brother drinks rosé?”
Thomas looked at the receipt.
“My brother drinks anything free.”
“You paid.”
“He paid me back.”
Claire laughed.
Thomas kissed her shoulder.
“Detective Martin.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She turned.
“Is there someone else?”
The expression on Thomas’s face hurt later because Claire remembered how convincing it had been.
Not outrage.
Not panic.
Sadness.
“Do you think I’d do that?”
Claire felt guilty immediately.
“That’s not what I said.”
“It kind of is.”
“I’m asking because I don’t know where I stand.”
Thomas softened.
He touched her cheek.
“You’re with me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is to me.”
She should have pushed.
Instead she kissed him.
At Sophie’s wedding, Claire saw Thomas forty minutes after arriving.
She was talking to a woman from her old office when she noticed him across the garden.
At first, her mind rejected the obvious.
The man was wearing Thomas’s navy suit.
Thomas’s watch.
Thomas’s way of standing with one hand in his pocket.
But Thomas was in Luxembourg.
Claire stopped listening to the conversation.
The woman beside her said:
“You okay?”
Claire did not answer.
Thomas turned.
For one second, their eyes met.
His entire body changed.
Nobody else would have noticed.
Claire did.
His shoulders tightened.
His smile disappeared.
Then Elise returned from the bar carrying two glasses of champagne.
She handed one to him.
Thomas looked at Elise.
Then at Claire.
Claire understood something.
Not everything.
Enough.
She looked away first.
Thomas found her near the side entrance ten minutes later.
“Claire.”
She kept walking.
“Claire, wait.”
She stopped.
Turned.
“Luxembourg?”
He looked around.
“Can we not do this here?”
She laughed once.
“Do what?”
“I can explain.”
“Who is she?”
Thomas said nothing.
Claire looked toward the lawn.
Elise was speaking to Sophie’s father.
Beautiful, relaxed, completely unaware.
Claire looked back at Thomas.
“Who is she?”
“Elise.”
“I heard someone call her that. Who is she to you?”
Thomas rubbed his forehead.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s complicated.”
Her stomach turned.
“No.”
“What?”
“That phrase. Don’t say that.”
“I wasn’t trying to-”
“How long?”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
“How long?”
People passed through the doorway behind them.
Thomas waited until they were gone.
“Seven years.”
Claire stared.
For a second she thought she had misunderstood.
“Seven?”
“We’ve had problems.”
Claire’s face changed.
Thomas continued too quickly.
“We’ve been trying to figure things out for a long time.”
“Does she know about me?”
He looked down.
That was answer enough.
Claire stepped backward.
“Jesus Christ.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s honest.”
“Claire.”
“You told me you were single.”
“I said I wasn’t married.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I asked if you had a girlfriend.”
Thomas stopped.
Claire remembered the pear.
The kitchen.
His answer.
No.
She felt briefly nauseous.
“You said no.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know what Elise and I were anymore.”
Claire stared at him.
“She looks like she knows.”
Thomas glanced toward the garden.
Claire followed his eyes.
Elise was laughing.
Something about that was unbearable.
Claire said:
“You should tell her.”
“I will.”
“Today.”
“Not at Sophie’s wedding.”
Claire laughed in disbelief.
“That’s where your manners begin?”
Thomas flinched.
“Don’t.”
“You lie to two women for a year and suddenly the wedding must remain tasteful?”
“Keep your voice down.”
That made her angrier.
She stepped closer.
“You don’t get to manage my volume.”
Thomas looked frightened now.
Not of her.
Of being seen.
Claire noticed.
“You’re scared she’ll find out.”
“Of course I am.”
“Good.”
She walked away.
Claire planned to leave.
She went upstairs, collected her coat and called a taxi.
Then Sophie found her.
“You’re leaving?”
Claire turned.
Sophie was flushed from dancing, veil gone, lipstick mostly faded.
“I’m tired.”
“It’s nine.”
“I’m very old.”
“You’re twenty-nine.”
“Ancient.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“Something happened.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“It’s your wedding.”
“Yes, which means everyone legally has to tell me the truth today.”
Claire almost laughed.
Instead she looked at Sophie.
For one reckless second, she considered telling her.
Then she saw how happy Sophie looked.
“No. Really. Migraine.”
Sophie hugged her.
“Stay for the bouquet.”
“I don’t catch flowers.”
“That is exactly why you should stay.”
Claire hesitated.
The taxi was twelve minutes away.
She cancelled it.
Later she would wonder whether things would have happened differently if she had simply gone home.
Probably.
But Thomas’s deception would still have existed.
Only the location of its discovery would have changed.
Elise noticed Claire properly during dinner.
She was seated three tables away.
Pale green dress.
Platinum-blonde hair cut just below her shoulders.
She seemed distracted.
Once, Elise caught her looking toward their table.
Claire immediately looked down.
Elise turned to Thomas.
“Do you know that woman?”
Thomas followed her gaze too slowly.
“Which one?”
“The blonde.”
He looked.
“Oh. Claire.”
Elise’s fork stopped.
“Work Claire?”
“Yes.”
“The one who messages you?”
Thomas drank some wine.
“She worked on Saint-Gilles.”
“You didn’t say she’d be here.”
“I didn’t know.”
Elise looked at Claire again.
Something about Thomas’s tone bothered her.
Not what he said.
How careful it sounded.
“You two close?”
“No.”
Claire looked up again.
This time she and Elise held each other’s gaze for a second.
Claire looked miserable.
Elise felt an unpleasant little movement in her stomach.
Thomas touched her knee under the table.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’ve decided something and haven’t told me.”
Elise smiled.
“I haven’t decided anything.”
Thomas kissed her temple.
She let him.
Across the room, Claire looked away.
Near ten, Sophie climbed onto the small platform beside the dance floor and demanded that all unmarried women come outside.
Half refused.
She threatened them.
People laughed.
Eventually twenty women gathered beneath strings of garden lights behind the estate.
Elise tried to stay at the edge.
Thomas’s sister pushed her forward.
“Absolutely not. Seven years. You’re basically cheating.”
Elise laughed.
“On what?”
“The institution.”
Thomas stood nearby with several men.
He was smiling.
Claire remained near the terrace.
She should not have joined.
Sophie saw her.
“Claire!”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“You stayed for this!”
“I stayed because you bullied me.”
“Exactly. Come here.”
People turned.
Claire had no graceful way to refuse.
She walked over.
For a moment, she stood two places away from Elise.
Neither spoke.
Sophie turned her back.
Someone counted.
Three.
Two.
One.
The bouquet went high.
Several women reached.
Elise did not.
The flowers struck her shoulder.
She reacted instinctively.
Caught them against her chest.
The garden erupted.
Elise stared at the bouquet.
Then laughed.
“Oh, no.”
People cheered.
Thomas’s sister screamed.
Sophie pointed at Thomas.
“Your move!”
More laughter.
Elise looked at him.
Thomas stood perfectly still.
For perhaps two seconds.
Then something shifted in his face.
Elise knew him well enough to recognise decisions being made.
He put down his champagne.
Walked toward her.
Someone shouted:
“No way!”
Elise’s smile disappeared.
“Thomas.”
He reached inside his jacket.
Her hands tightened around the bouquet.
“Thomas.”
He knelt.
The cheering became deafening.
Elise covered her mouth.
For seven months she had imagined this.
She had imagined restaurants, holidays, birthdays.
Never this.
Not in front of everyone.
Thomas opened the small velvet box.
“Elise.”
She began laughing and crying at the same time.
He smiled.
“Will you marry me?”
The noise around them blurred into applause.
Elise looked down at him.
For one second she saw only Thomas.
Their apartment keys.
Christmases.
His mother’s kitchen.
Seven years.
The arguments they had survived.
The things she believed they would eventually fix.
“Yes.”
Thomas stood.
People shouted.
He kissed her.
Elise wrapped one arm around him, bouquet crushed awkwardly between them.
Then came the sound of breaking glass.
Sharp enough that several people turned before they understood what it was.
A champagne flute had shattered against the stone terrace.
Claire stood beside the fragments.
Her face had gone white.
Thomas froze.
Elise felt it.
His hand stopped on her back.
Claire stared at him.
“Liar.”
Nobody moved.
Thomas said:
“Claire.”
The way he said her name changed everything.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Fear.
Elise slowly stepped away from him.
Claire laughed once, breathlessly.
“No. Don’t.”
Thomas took a step toward her.
Claire pointed at him.
“Don’t come near me.”
Sophie looked between them.
“What’s happening?”
Claire’s eyes filled.
She looked at Elise.
The anger left her face for a moment.
What replaced it was worse.
“Oh God.”
Elise stared.
Claire shook her head.
“I didn’t know.”
Thomas said:
“Claire, please.”
She turned on him.
“You proposed to her?”
Elise’s stomach dropped.
Someone behind them whispered something.
Elise barely heard.
She looked at Thomas.
“What does she mean?”
Thomas said nothing.
Elise repeated:
“What does she mean?”
“Can we go inside?”
“No.”
“Elise.”
“No. Answer me.”
Claire wiped at her face angrily.
“He told me he was single.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Elise looked at her.
Claire continued.
“For almost a year.”
Silence.
Elise’s hand opened.
The bouquet dropped onto the grass.
The first ten minutes afterward were chaotic mostly because everyone wanted to help.
Sophie tried to clear the terrace.
Her husband asked people to go back inside.
Thomas’s sister started crying.
Someone fetched water.
Someone else tried to collect broken glass until a waiter gently moved them away.
Elise remained where she was.
Thomas kept saying:
“Can we talk privately?”
Each time, Elise said no.
Finally Sophie touched her arm.
“Elise.”
Elise looked at her.
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
She nodded.
Claire stood several metres away.
She looked as though she wanted to disappear.
Elise glanced at her.
Then at Thomas.
“Both of you.”
Thomas said:
“Elise.”
She turned.
“Both.”
They went into a small library off the main hall.
Sophie closed the door behind them.
She stayed outside.
Elise sat in an armchair.
Claire remained standing.
Thomas stood near the window.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Elise looked at Claire.
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
Elise nodded slowly.
“How did you meet?”
“Work.”
“Saint-Gilles?”
“Yes.”
Elise looked at Thomas.
“You told me she was just work.”
He said:
“I know.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“You told me she didn’t exist.”
Thomas looked at her.
“I never said that.”
Claire stared.
Then actually laughed.
“You’re doing this now?”
“I’m not. I just mean-”
“You said you were single.”
“I know.”
“So what exactly are we clarifying?”
Thomas rubbed both hands over his face.
Elise watched him.
She had seen this gesture hundreds of times.
When he lost his keys.
When a deal went badly.
When his father irritated him.
It was strange to recognise something familiar inside a person who had suddenly become unfamiliar.
“Did you sleep with her?”
Thomas looked at Elise.
Claire looked away.
Elise nodded.
“Right.”
“It wasn’t-”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Elise asked:
“Where?”
Thomas stared.
“What?”
“Where did you sleep with her?”
“Elise.”
“Her apartment?”
Claire spoke quietly.
“Mostly.”
Elise looked at her.
Claire looked ashamed.
That surprised Elise.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“No.”
Elise studied her face.
“You never suspected?”
Claire hesitated.
“Yes.”
Thomas turned.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know. Suspecting something isn’t knowing.”
Elise understood that immediately.
She wished she did not.
Claire continued.
“There were things that didn’t make sense. Weekends. Calls he wouldn’t take. A dinner receipt.”
Elise’s eyes moved to Thomas.
Claire said:
“I asked him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said there wasn’t anyone else.”
Thomas interrupted.
“I said-”
Both women turned toward him.
He stopped.
Claire shook her head.
“Please. Tell us what exact wording makes this better.”
Thomas sat down.
For the first time, he looked frightened rather than cornered.
“I messed up.”
Elise stared at him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You didn’t mess up.”
“I know what I did.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“Elise-”
“You proposed to me ten minutes ago.”
“I know.”
“While she was standing there.”
“I didn’t know she’d be here.”
Claire recoiled.
Elise saw it.
“So that’s the problem?”
Thomas shook his head.
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I mean I wasn’t planning for any of this.”
Claire laughed.
“Neither were we.”
Thomas’s explanation took forty minutes.
It made things worse.
He and Elise had been unhappy.
Not unhappy enough to leave.
Unhappy enough, apparently, for Thomas to decide the relationship was emotionally over without informing Elise.
Then he met Claire.
He liked her.
Things happened.
He intended to end one relationship.
He kept delaying.
Then he became afraid of losing both.
Claire sat quietly through most of it.
Elise interrupted constantly.
“You were afraid of losing us?”
“Yes.”
“So you kept lying.”
“I know it sounds-”
“It sounds accurate.”
“I loved you.”
Elise stared.
“Past tense?”
Thomas’s face changed.
“I love you.”
“And her?”
He looked at Claire.
That hesitation was unbearable.
Claire stood.
“I’m leaving.”
Thomas stood too.
“Claire.”
“Sit down.”
“Please.”
She turned toward him.
“For once in your life, stop trying to follow the person leaving.”
He froze.
Claire looked at Elise.
“I’m sorry.”
Elise’s mouth tightened.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem.”
Claire looked down.
Elise immediately regretted it.
Not because the sentence was unfair.
Because Claire’s face made clear she already believed herself guilty.
Elise said:
“Did you know about me?”
“No.”
“Then don’t apologise for sleeping with my boyfriend.”
Thomas flinched.
Elise looked at him.
“He can do that.”
Claire stared at her.
Neither woman smiled.
Nothing had become friendship.
They had simply located the person responsible.
Claire left first.
She cried in the taxi.
Not loudly.
The driver kept looking at her in the mirror until she said:
“I’m fine.”
He stopped looking.
At the hotel, she removed her dress, washed her face and sat on the bathroom floor wearing an oversized T-shirt.
Thomas called six times.
She blocked him after the third.
The remaining calls came through an unknown number.
She turned off the phone.
At three in the morning she opened her laptop and searched Elise’s name.
She hated herself immediately.
Elise had a public professional profile.
A few old photographs.
One showed Elise and Thomas in Copenhagen four years earlier.
Another at Christmas.
Another at a marathon finish line.
Four years.
Five years.
Six.
Claire kept scrolling until the dates made her sick.
Thomas had not hidden a girlfriend.
He had hidden a life.
Elise did not leave the wedding until nearly one.
She remained in the library long after Thomas was asked to go.
Sophie sat beside her.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally Sophie said:
“I’m so sorry.”
Elise looked at her.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I made you catch the bouquet.”
Despite everything, Elise laughed.
It sounded awful.
Sophie began crying.
“Oh God. Don’t laugh. I’m going to cry more.”
Elise leaned against her.
Sophie asked:
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to hate him?”
“Yes.”
“Done.”
Elise closed her eyes.
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Sophie waited.
Elise looked toward the door.
“I still love him.”
Sophie did not say anything.
That helped more than advice would have.
Thomas spent the next month trying to repair things with Elise.
He did not contact Claire after she threatened to involve his employer if he appeared at her apartment again.
With Elise, he tried everything.
Counselling.
Letters.
Apologies.
He gave her passwords.
Offered location sharing.
Moved out voluntarily.
Told his family the truth.
Elise agreed to counselling twice.
At the second session, the therapist asked what Thomas wanted.
Thomas said:
“Elise.”
The therapist asked:
“What does that mean?”
Thomas looked confused.
Elise almost smiled.
That was the problem.
Thomas had always been better at wanting people than understanding what being with them required.
When it was Elise’s turn, the therapist asked what she wanted.
She said:
“I want to be the person I was before Sophie’s wedding.”
Thomas looked at her.
The therapist asked:
“Can you be?”
Elise thought for a long time.
“No.”
That was their last session together.
Claire and Elise saw each other again four months later.
By accident.
A café near Avenue Louise.
Claire was waiting for coffee.
Elise entered.
Both stopped.
Claire considered leaving.
Elise noticed.
“You don’t have to.”
Claire stayed.
They stood awkwardly near the counter.
Finally Claire asked:
“How are you?”
Elise laughed quietly.
“That’s a terrible question.”
“I know.”
“You?”
“Also terrible.”
That surprised them both into smiling.
Small.
Brief.
They took their drinks to separate tables.
Five minutes later Elise picked up hers and moved to Claire’s.
Neither mentioned Thomas immediately.
They talked about work.
Sophie.
The wedding.
Claire said:
“I paid for the glass.”
Elise stared.
“What?”
“The champagne flute.”
“You’re joking.”
“Sophie sent me the invoice.”
“She did not.”
“No. I asked.”
Elise laughed.
Claire smiled.
Then the silence became more serious.
Claire said:
“I kept thinking you must hate me.”
“I did.”
Claire nodded.
“Fair.”
“For about two weeks.”
Claire looked up.
Elise continued.
“Then I realised I was spending more time imagining what you knew than thinking about what he did.”
“I really didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
Claire looked relieved despite herself.
Elise noticed.
“You don’t need me to absolve you.”
“I know.”
“You look like you do.”
Claire stared into her coffee.
“Maybe.”
They did not become close friends.
Not then.
They exchanged numbers.
That was all.
It was enough.
Thomas eventually stopped asking Elise to come back.
Not because he stopped loving her.
Because she stopped answering.
The engagement ring remained in his apartment for almost a year before he returned it.
He changed jobs.
Moved neighbourhoods.
Saw a therapist alone.
Some people thought this represented growth.
Perhaps it did.
Growth did not reverse consequence.
Claire never resumed contact.
Elise did not either.
Two years after Sophie’s wedding, Claire received an invitation to Sophie’s birthday dinner.
Elise was there.
They greeted each other normally.
Later, Sophie brought out a cake and joked that all glassware had been inspected for structural integrity.
Claire stared at her.
“You waited two years for that?”
“Yes.”
Elise laughed.
Claire did too.
The incident had become something they could reference without immediately becoming the women they had been that night.
That mattered.
After dinner, Elise and Claire walked toward the tram stop together.
Claire asked:
“Do you ever think about the proposal?”
“Sometimes.”
“Badly?”
Elise considered it.
“Less than I used to.”
They stopped at the crossing.
Claire said:
“For a long time I thought the worst part was finding out he had a girlfriend.”
Elise looked at her.
“What is it now?”
Claire waited for the light.
“That I almost believed his version of me.”
Elise understood.
Thomas had made Claire believe she was demanding for wanting clarity.
He had made Elise believe she was suspicious for asking ordinary questions.
Each had adjusted herself around gaps he created.
Elise said:
“Yeah.”
The light changed.
They crossed.
At the opposite pavement, Claire smiled.
“Good night.”
“Night.”
They went in different directions.
Neither woman had taken anything from the other.
That was the story Thomas had almost created for them.
A girlfriend and a mistress.
One legitimate.
One guilty.
One chosen.
One discarded.
The truth had been less convenient.
There had been two women making decisions with incomplete information and one man who had benefited from keeping it incomplete.
Elise eventually understood that catching Sophie’s bouquet had not ruined her relationship.
Claire’s broken glass had not ruined it either.
By the time Thomas knelt in the garden, the relationship was already carrying everything he had refused to say.
The only thing that happened at the wedding was that, finally, both women heard it.
