"How?" she managed to croak. "Does it matter? The point is, I know. And now you're going to sign these papers, take responsibility for your choices, and get the hell out of my life."
She tried to sit up straighter, which was a mistake given her current medical situation. The movement sent a wave of pain across her face that was almost worth the price of admission. "You can't do this," she said, and there was a note of desperation creeping into her voice. "Not like this."
"Not while I'm hurt and vulnerable." Hurt and vulnerable. I laughed, and it came out darker than I'd intended. "That's rich."
"You were perfectly capable of making decisions when you were sneaking around behind my back. You were perfectly capable of planning hotel meetings and applying lubricant to other men. But now that there are consequences, suddenly you're too hurt and vulnerable to face them." "It wasn't... it didn't mean anything," she said, and I could see tears starting to form in her eyes.
"Leo means nothing to me. It was just... it was just physical. It was a mistake." A mistake.
I let the word hang in the air between us. "You know what a mistake is, Marissa? A mistake is forgetting to pick up milk on the way home. A mistake is double-booking a dinner reservation."
"What you did was make a series of deliberate choices over a period of months, each one designed to betray the trust of the man who loved you." The tears were flowing freely now, and she was making those little hiccuping sounds that people make when they're trying to cry quietly. Under different circumstances, I might have felt sorry for her, but these weren't different circumstances. "Please," she whispered.
"We can work through this. We can go to counseling. I'll do anything to make this right. Anything."
I leaned forward, genuinely curious. "Would you undo the affair? Would you give me back the nights I spent alone while you were with him? Would you take back the lies, the deception, the complete destruction of everything we built together?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but I held up a hand to stop her. "Because if you can't do any of that, and we both know you can't, then there's nothing to work through. There's just cleanup." I stood up and moved the papers closer to her bed.