Chapter 43
DANIEL
I brought it up at dinner one night, carefully, the way I approached anything lately that touched on whatever had shifted in her these past weeks. I waited until we were most of the way through the meal, the easy, ordinary conversation about her day, about mine, already worn down into comfortable silence, before I set my fork down and looked at her directly.
"I feel bad," I said, choosing the words slowly, watching her face the whole time. "About us. About how things have been. We haven't really been together, not properly, since before the wedding practically. I know I've been the one making excuses, and I just wanted to say I'm sorry for that."
I watched her carefully as I said it, some old instinct bracing for the reaction I remembered from the early weeks, the fli
