I've already missed two possible trains and have less than an hour until the last one of the night, but I can't leave until Ryan and I have things straightened out.
So far they're still far too twisty.
"I need to understand," I say yet again, "why Donna didn't tell anyone anything. Nobody would be surprised she didn't like Colleen after what happened, and from what I hear of Colleen nobody much likes her anyhow." The pain of seeing my husband's other woman rips through me again and I add, "Except for you."
He sighs. "I don't, trust me. I don't think I really knew her until I told her I wouldn't see her any more. She always seemed so sweet, but her nastiness when I ended it... But that's not the point."
"No, it's not. Why was Donna so secretive?"
Ryan shakes his head. "She just was, Kate. I don't know what you want me to say."
"Why am I not secretive then? I admit how I feel, I talk to people more openly than it seems like she ever did. Why? We're the same person on the inside. We lived the exact same life until we were seventeen, so why are we so different?"
He sighs, looking suddenly so old. "I can't help you. There's nothing I can say."
We've been dancing around this for hours and I think we both know it's time to say it. So I do. "Ryan, what about us? You say you love me, and I know I love you." Even meeting his mistress didn't change that. "So what are we going to do?"
His eyes fill with such pain and such love that I can barely breathe. "I don't know," he says softly, then looks down at his hands.
I look down too, at the diamonds on my right hand. I really believed, at the beginning, that I'd eventually become Donna again and move my husband's rings back to my wedding finger. It doesn't look like either of those things is going to happen.
"Ryan, you do love me, right?" I whisper.
He doesn't look up. "Yes."
It's what I want to hear, but oh, does it sound final. Like a door slamming, not one opening. "It's not enough, though, is it?"
We sit without speaking for a long time. The silence answers my question, and it's just salt in the wound when he looks up at me and says, "No."
My eyes fill with tears at the sadness and finality in his face. "But..."
He shakes his head. "I hurt Donna so badly. Over and over. If I can save you from that..." He stops and stares down at his hands again.
"You think sending me away will save me from pain?"
His fingers brush his wedding ring. "Donna thought it would. That's why she left."
"You don't know that."
His shoulders slump and he says, "Come on. Why else would she have gone?"
I have no answer and he knows it. I've seen nothing to make Donna leave except her relationship with Ryan.
"Kate, I can't do it. I loved Donna and I broke her heart. I love you too much to do it to you as well."
Fighting to keep from crying, I say, "So, what then? I should just walk away? Do I go back to Toronto or stay in Ottawa? Do you even care where I go?"
His head snaps up and he grabs my hand in a painful grip. "I care. Don't ever think I don't. I'll always care. I love you."
I pull my hand away. "Not enough to stay with me."
"If it makes it easier to think that, then do it."
"Don't you dare," I say, fury tearing through me. "Don't put it off on me. What would make it easier would be to have my husband by my side helping me figure out who I am."
"I'm not your husband because you're not my wife!"
The pain and anger in his voice are mixed with something like fear but I can't figure out why and I don't have time to try because he goes on. "Kate, you're not her. I love you now but I loved her first and I still do. And I have to keep her safe, keep you both safe, and the only way I know to do that is to let you go."
"Go to what? My life is here. My job, my home, the acquaintances that seem to be all Donna had for friends. It's all here. I have nowhere else to be."
Ryan closes his eyes. "I don't want you here just because you have nowhere else to be."
I don't want that either. I want him to reach for me and hold me and kiss me and make love to me, and he's clearly not going to do any of that.
"Now and forever." Ignoring his flinch, I say, "I guess that means nothing."
He doesn't open his eyes.
"Ryan, she's gone. Donna's not coming back, those memories are gone. I think we know that now. But I'm here and I love you. Doesn't that mean anything?"
A single tear slides down his cheek from one closed eye but he still doesn't speak. The sight of it breaks my heart. I feel it, feel my heart crack and the love I feel for him spill through me, then feel that love begin to fade. If he wasn't being so damned inflexible, we could make this work. We could find a way. But instead he's pushing me away. He won't even try. There's nothing I can do.
"I'll move out of the apartment," I say, defeated. "Maybe Hannah will let me stay with her."
He flicks the tear away and his eyes open. They're cool and somehow guarded. "No," he says. "Keep the apartment, and the credit cards. As long as you want. I don't want you to want for anything."
I want for my husband, but apparently that doesn't count. "What about MMC?"
He shakes his head slowly. "I don't know. It's been running okay, so you could probably let it keep on that way for a while. I don't know how long though."
He doesn't know much. Except that he doesn't want to be married to me. I give a grim laugh. "I'm getting divorced and I don't even remember getting married."
His shoulders stiffen and he looks away. "Kate, I..."
The passion in his voice startles me. It's like he's come alive for the first time in the discussion. "What?"
He looks back, his face and eyes now blank. "Nothing. I'm sorry. I'll take care of everything."
Everything being the divorce, I assume but can't bring myself to ask.
"I'll take a taxi to the train station," I say, but he shakes his head and says, "The least I can do is drive you there."
But I don't want that, I realize. Saying goodbye at the train station? I don't know if I'll be able to control my emotions, or my desire to hug him one more time. "No. Let's just end this. Why drag it out any more?"
He sits silent for a moment, then picks up his phone and calls for a taxi.
We wait without speaking for the car to arrive. It takes twenty of the longest minutes of my life, and neither of us says a word. I've never felt such pain.
How the hell did Donna walk away from love? Having it ripped away from me hurts beyond anything I could imagine, and she did it voluntarily?
Maybe...
Maybe he's right. Maybe she didn't love him any more and that's why she left.
But I do. I love him. And he loves me. But somehow that's not enough.
I sit beside the man I love, breathing the same air as him for the last time, until the taxi finally shows up. Ryan walks me to the door then stands a few feet away as if afraid I'll throw myself on him.
We look at each other.
I take a deep breath and slide off my wedding rings, setting them carefully on the hall table.
I wait for a response, but Ryan just looks at the rings and doesn't speak.
Then I pick up my suitcase and walk away from the remnants of Donna's life.
*****
I curl up against the window of the train, trying to look like I'm sleeping, trying not to cry loud enough to break that illusion. He sent me away. I believe he loves me, it's written all over him, but he's still letting me go. No, it's more than that: he's actively pushing me away.
The realization angers me and makes me stop crying, and suddenly I want to let his pushing send me much further away than Toronto. I have identification now, so I could go anywhere. I want to go. I don't want to be anywhere I was with Ryan. Even sitting on the train hurts, since I went to see him with such hope a few days ago. Seeing all the places in my life where he should be and won't be is going to be unbearable.
It hits me, hard, that he must feel that way about Donna, and by extension about me. The woman he loved is gone from him, and the one he loves now, me, is only there because his first love (real love?) is gone. It must be so hard for him to see me.
But then why not admit that? Why all the "I can't say" stuff? I hate it. And I want to hate him, but I can't. I can't do anything but love him.
Actually, I can. I can leave. I can go somewhere that I'll never run into him, somewhere he won't have to face me and I won't ever have to face someone who knows me.
I'll tell him, and Jake and Hannah and my brother, once I get there. I won't be like Donna, running away under the cover of secrecy. But I'm still going to go. I will start my own life, one without Donna's shadow lurking over it. I might have her name, but I will be me. Whoever that is.
I need to choose where to begin my new life, and by the time the train reaches Toronto, I have decided I will fly to Vancouver and start again there. I'll keep the consulting business, which will give me more than enough to live on, but I will move across the country and never again have to see anyone I remember. No Jake, no Hannah, and definitely no Ryan. A true fresh start.
When I get home, I ignore my fatigue and order myself a plane ticket, one-way, to Vancouver for the next day. It costs a bundle but I don't care.
It's the price of freedom.
***
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying Kate's story. The next chapter will be uploaded on Friday! :) (Please note - I'm working really hard on another book and am behind on comments here - but I hugely appreciate them and will respond shortly! :)
You can also check out my completed book "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" here on Wattpad, or download it for free from most retailers.
If you can't wait for another chapter of "Blank Slate Kate", you can pick up the book for just $3.99 right now - visit http://heatherwardell.com/book-blankslatekate.shtml for the buy links! :)