I couldn't bring myself to say it immediately.
The words were simple.
I had rehearsed them in my head several times.
But saying them aloud would make the damage real in a way that thinking about it never had.
Skyla waited.
I looked at the table.
Then at the glass of water.
Then at the woman who had spent five days trying to help me with a problem I had invented.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She frowned slightly.
"For what?"
I felt my face grow hot.
I had imagined this moment before, though never honestly.
In my imagination, I had always been the one asking questions.
I had always been the person who knew more than the other person.
Now I was the one who had to explain himself.
"I shouldn't have treated you the way I did."
She looked at me.
"What do you mean?"
I couldn't keep avoiding the truth.
I told her that I had been listening to what my friends said about our relationship.
I told her that my parents had questioned whether she loved me or whether my money had something to do with it.
I admitted that I had allowed those opinions to make me suspicious of her.
She listened without interrupting.
That made it harder.
I had expected anger.
I had prepared myself to defend my actions.
But she simply sat there, waiting for me to finish.
"I started wondering whether you'd stay if I couldn't give you anything."
The words sounded foolish as soon as I said them.
I had given her no reason to believe that I was suddenly unable to provide for myself.
I had simply told her that I was ill and couldn't afford treatment.
And then I had waited for her to react.
"I wanted to know if you really loved me."
Skyla's face became still.
I knew she was beginning to understand.
I looked down.
"I lied to you."
The room seemed to go quiet around those words.
"I wasn't telling you the truth about being sick."
She didn't move.
I forced myself to continue.
"There was no illness. I made the whole thing up because I wanted to see what you would do."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
I could hear the faint sound of the house around us.
I could hear my own breathing.
Skyla stared at me as if she were trying to understand how the person sitting across from her could have done something so cruel.
I wanted to take the words back.
I wanted to tell her that I hadn't meant to hurt her.
But that would have been another way of making my feelings more important than what I had done to hers.
I had meant to test her.
I had meant to make her believe I was in danger.
I had meant to see how she responded when she thought she might lose me.
The fact that I hadn't wanted to hurt her didn't erase any of that.
Skyla looked away.
I watched her press her lips together.
She seemed to be holding back a response, but I didn't know what it was.
I didn't ask her to forgive me.
I didn't tell her I had done it because I loved her.
That would have been an insult.
Love wasn't the reason I had lied.
Fear was.
Pride was.
My need to control an uncertain situation was.
I had been afraid of being used, and I had decided that the answer was to use her fear against her.
I sat with that truth.
After a while, Skyla spoke.
"You told me you might die."
Her voice was so quiet that I almost wished she had shouted.
I nodded.
"I know."
"You let me believe you were dying."
I couldn't look at her.
"Yes."
She took a slow breath.
"I spent five days trying to figure out what I could do."
I closed my eyes.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
She didn't raise her voice.
That made the words harder to hear.
"You don't know what it was like to believe that and not know how to help you."
I had no answer.
I had wanted to know whether she would sacrifice something for me.
I had never stopped to imagine what it meant to ask someone to make sacrifices under false pretenses.
She looked at me again.
"I wasn't trying to abandon you."
I felt my eyes fill.
"I know that now."
She shook her head slightly.
"You don't get to decide what I feel by putting me through something like that."
I had no defense.
She was right.
I had turned our relationship into an examination she hadn't agreed to take.
I had decided that her love needed to be demonstrated in a way I could measure.
And when she didn't respond in the exact way I expected, I had punished her in my mind before giving her a chance to explain.
"I was wrong," I said.
It was the first thing I had said that felt completely honest.
I told her I had been wrong to listen to other people's suspicions instead of talking to her.
I told her I had been wrong to invent an illness.
I told her I had been wrong to make her think she might lose me.
I didn't ask her to reassure me.
I didn't ask whether she still loved me.
I knew I had no right to demand an answer to either question.
Skyla sat quietly for a long time.
Then she looked at the object she had brought home.
"I did all of that because I believed you needed help."
My chest tightened.
She had spent five days trying to respond to the emergency I had invented.
I had spent those same days imagining her as a person who cared only about herself.
I had been wrong about her.
But the fact that I was wrong didn't automatically repair what I had done.
"I can't undo those days," I said.
"No," she replied.
There was no cruelty in her answer.
There was only truth.
I wanted to promise that I would never make another mistake.
I wanted to tell her I would spend the rest of my life proving I could be trusted.
But promises were easy.
I had already shown how easily I could say one thing while hiding another.
What mattered now was whether I could accept the consequences of what I had done.
Skyla looked exhausted again.
I wondered how much of that exhaustion came from the five days she had spent away and how much came from hearing the truth.
I didn't reach for her.
I didn't tell her that I needed her to stay.
I sat still and let her decide what she wanted to do next.
For nearly two years, I had admired her independence without fully respecting it.
Now I finally understood that respecting someone meant allowing them to make choices I couldn't control.
Even when those choices frightened me.
Especially then.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Gift I Could Never Have Bought Was the Truth About Skyla, and the Chance to Become Someone Worth Trusting
I Had Everything Money Could Buy, Yet I Was Afraid the One Person I Loved Might Only Want What I Owned
Part 7 of 8
