“You never liked him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Clara was quiet.
Then she said something unexpected.
“I didn’t dislike him because he was confident. I disliked him because every time you talked about your achievements, he changed the subject.”
I thought about that.
She was right.
Whenever I mentioned a promotion, he joked that I worked too much.
Whenever I talked about a difficult project, he said I was too serious.
Whenever someone complimented me, he found a way to make the moment smaller.
I had mistaken it for teasing.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe it was something else.
“Do you know what I regret?” I whispered.
“What?”
“I spent so much time trying to prove I was lovable that I forgot to ask whether I was being loved.”
Clara didn’t answer immediately.
Then she said:
“That’s the question you need to answer now.”
