“You don’t get to turn this into some romantic story about loving twice.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
His voice became firmer.
“What I did was wrong.”
The room fell silent.
Daniel swallowed.
“I should have told you.”
I looked at him.
“I should have told you before we married.”
He continued.
“I should have stopped my brothers the first time they made that joke.”
Mark looked down.
“I should never have allowed you to be the only person in the room who didn’t understand.”
That was the first thing anyone had said all night that gave me space to breathe.
No excuse.
No request that I forgive him.
No claim that he had only been protecting me.
Just:
I was wrong.
Mark spoke quietly.
“We were wrong too.”
I looked at him.
“The joke started because we didn’t know how else to talk about her.”
