Chapter 9: What Sayan Finally Said
He was on the steps outside the building when she got back.
Tia stopped when she saw him.
He was sitting on the top step with his elbows on his knees, the blue velvet jacket folded across his lap, his shirt untucked at one side.
He looked like a man who had been sitting somewhere for a long time and was not entirely sure why he had stayed.
He stood up when he saw her.
"I didn't know if you'd come back," he said.
"I came back for the dress," she said.
"Not for you."
He nodded.
"I know."
She moved toward the door.
He stepped aside.
Then he said: "Five minutes.
Please."
She stopped but didn't turn around.
"Tia." He came around to face her.
He didn't try to take her hand.
He stood in front of her with nothing left in his face except whatever it actually was.
"I'm not going to tell you it meant nothing with Elena.
It did mean something.
I'm not going to tell you I never meant to hurt either of you, because that's not a reason, it's just an excuse with softer edges.
And I'm not going to promise you something I've already shown you I'm not good at keeping."
She looked at him.
"Then what are you going to say?" she asked.
"I'm going to say that I'm sorry," he said.
"That what I did — keeping both things alive, not choosing, letting you walk into today not knowing — that was cowardly and wrong and you didn't deserve it.
You deserved someone who, when he knew what he wanted, made it clear.
I wasn't that.
I should have been."
A city bus went by.
Somewhere down the block, a dog barked twice and stopped.
"Was the announcement a mistake?" Tia asked.
"The engagement announcement."
"No," he said.
"It wasn't a mistake.
It went out when I told them to send it.
I told Elena it was an error because I couldn't face the conversation.
That was the lie."
Tia looked at him for a long moment.
"Did you want to marry me?" she asked.
"When you sent it."
"Yes," he said.
"I did."
"And Elena?"
A pause.
"I hadn't finished ending it the way I should have.
I kept telling myself there would be a better time.
There wasn't.
There never is."
She turned and looked at the door, then back at him.
"I believe you're sorry," she said.
"I want you to know that.
I'm not standing here thinking you're a bad person who felt nothing.
I think you're a person who found it easier to hold on than to let go, and the people around you paid for that."
Sayan's jaw tightened.
Not against her.
Against himself.
"Yes," he said.
"That's not something I can stay for," she said.
"Not now.
Maybe not ever.
But I'm telling you that so you understand exactly where I am, not to punish you."
"I know," he said.
"The dress," she said.
"I'm getting the dress, and I'm taking it to Dora.
Marissa is paying for the repair."
"I'll pay for it," he said immediately.
"Marissa will pay for it," Tia said again.
Calmly.
"Because Marissa is the one who cut it.
Consequences stay with the right person.
That's important to me."
He looked at her.
There was something in his expression that was not quite grief and not quite respect — something that sits between the two, in the territory of recognizing too late what something was worth.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked.
Tia thought about it.
"Nothing right now," she said.
"One day, if Elena calls you and says she wants closure — a real conversation, not another managed exit — give her that.
She deserves it.
You owe her that much."
"I will," he said.
"All right," Tia said.
She went inside.
She went up the stairs to the dressing room.
The room was exactly as she had left it — sunlight still coming through the tall windows, flowers still in the mirror, scissors and handbag on the table.
The torn orange gown lay across the surface where she had placed it.
She picked it up carefully.
She folded it the way Dora had shown her at the third fitting — fabric face to fabric face, seam against seam — and she tucked it under her arm.
She looked at the scissors.
She looked at the table.
She left the scissors where they were.
She went back downstairs.
Sayan was gone from the steps.
May you like
The street was just the street.
She turned left and walked toward the studio.
