8 months before my wedding, I took a Friday off from work to sign a prenuptial agreement and have lunch with my fiancé.
Chapter 2
We stayed at the restaurant until the staff began wiping down empty tables around us.
I told Evan about the year I traveled. The casual relationships. The two times I’d been unfaithful in my twenties.
That disturbed him more than the number.
“You cheated?”
“Twice. Years ago.”
“On the same person?”
“No.”
His face tightened again.
“There were circumstances.”
“There always are.”
“I was young.”
“So was I.”
“I know that.”
“Did the men you cheated on know?”
“One did eventually.”
“And the other?”
“No.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
I wanted to reach across the table, but something told me not to.
Finally he said, “Do you understand what this looks like from where I’m sitting?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“I’ve been faithful to you every day we’ve been together.”
“I believe that.”
His answer surprised me.
“Then what are we fighting about?”
“We aren’t fighting about whether you cheated on me. We’re fighting because I asked you something important when we were getting serious, and you looked at me and gave me an answer designed to make me see you differently.”
I wiped my face with a napkin.
“It shouldn’t have been important.”
“But it was important to me.”
“Why?”
He sighed.
“Because I wanted to know who I was marrying.”
“You do know me.”
“Do I?”
The words landed harder than anything else he’d said.
I pushed my plate away.
“I’m not the woman I was at twenty-three.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you acting as if thirty-seven men are sitting at this table?”
“I’m not.”
“It feels like you are.”
He was quiet for several seconds.
Then he said, “You want me to tell you it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
“Because you think I’m dirty?”
His eyes flashed.
“Don’t put that word in my mouth.”
“What am I supposed to think?”
“You can think I’m hurt. You can think I’m shocked. You can think I feel stupid because for three years I believed something about the woman I was going to marry that she knew wasn’t true.”
He looked down.
“And yes, part of me is bothered by the number.”
My face burned.
“Why?”
“Because we’re different.”
“Different doesn’t mean wrong.”
“I didn’t say wrong.”
“It sounds like it.”
He hesitated before saying, “I’ve slept with eight women. I remember every one of them. I knew them. Most were girlfriends. A couple are still in my social circle. That’s how I lived.”
“And I lived differently.”
“Exactly.”
Something cold entered the conversation then.
Not anger.
Recognition.
For the first time, we weren’t arguing about facts. We were looking at a difference in values we’d managed not to see for three years.
Still, Evan kept asking questions.
Were any of the men people he knew?
Had I ever been with married men?
Had I ever slept with someone on a first date?
Were there things I’d done with former lovers that I refused to do with him?
That last question opened another wound.
Months earlier, Evan had learned accidentally that I’d done something sexually adventurous with a former boyfriend that I’d declined when Evan asked.
He’d been hurt for weeks.
I’d tried to explain that experience was precisely why I knew I didn’t enjoy it.
To him, it felt like another man had received something I was withholding from the person I planned to marry.
That night he returned to it.
“So there were men you hardly knew who got parts of you I don’t get.”
“That’s not how intimacy works.”
“It may not be how it works to you.”
I looked away.
“Did you enjoy sex more with any of them than with me?”
I closed my eyes.
“Don’t ask me that.”
“I want the truth.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Rachel.”
“There are questions people shouldn’t ask if the only possible answers will hurt them.”
He insisted.
Eventually, exhausted and angry, I admitted there had been men who were technically more skilled lovers. One or two had been better endowed.
I hated myself the second the words left my mouth.
Evan went silent.
“See?” I whispered. “This is why some details don’t help.”
He stared at the table.
“Maybe.”
I reached for his hand.
He pulled it away—not violently, just enough.
That tiny movement broke something inside me.
“What happens now?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Finally he said, “We’re not doing the polygraph tomorrow.”
Relief came so quickly I nearly laughed.
Then he continued.
“And I’m postponing the wedding.”
My chest tightened.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Evan.”
“I need time.”
“We can talk through this.”
“We’ve been talking for four hours.”
“Then we keep talking.”
He shook his head.
“If I stay here tonight, I’ll either say something cruel or let you talk me into pretending I’m okay. I’m not going to do either.”
When the restaurant closed, he put me in a cab.
He kissed my forehead before shutting the door.
That was worse than if he’d left without touching me.
I woke the next morning on our sofa still wearing my dress.
I had called him four times during the night.
By ten, I’d called twice more.
No answer.
At noon, I left another voicemail.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m making this worse. Please just tell me you’re okay.”
Then I saw myself reflected in the black television screen—hair tangled, mascara smudged, clutching my phone like a teenager waiting for a boy to call.
I put it down.
For the first time since the conversation began, another emotion appeared beside panic.
Anger.
I was angry that a polygraph had been put into our marriage preparations at all.
Angry that we’d treated marriage as if it required an interrogation.
Angry at Evan for measuring the woman I was against choices I’d made fifteen years earlier.
But mostly, I was angry at myself.
Because the uncomfortable truth was that none of those things erased my lie.
I could object to the question.
I could object to his values.
I could object to the polygraph.
But I had still chosen an answer I knew would make me more acceptable to him.
That afternoon, I called Mr. Lawson.
“Cancel tomorrow’s signing.”
“Already done. Mr. Carter’s counsel contacted me this morning.”
My stomach sank.
“Is Evan ending the engagement?”
“He didn’t say that.”
I thanked him and hung up.
Then I removed my engagement ring.
Not because the engagement was over.
Because I couldn’t bear looking at it while I had no idea whether it still meant what it had meant yesterday.
