Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Chapter 494

"Love or not, I can't say for sure. But what I do know is-there's no way things will work out between you two."

The phone call left Timothy with a heavy heart.

He'd always thought Yates was on his side, speaking up for him, maybe even knowing Jessica was Salome, understanding that he didn't want a divorce, and trying to help him out.

Turns out, he'd gotten it all backwards.

"So," Timothy shot back, "if I can't be with her, you think you can?"

He might be miserable, but he wasn't about to lose his nerve.

His words hit Yates where it hurt, though to be fair, Yates hadn't exactly been a paragon of virtue himself. Back when he didn't know Jessica was Salome, he hadn't made Timothy's life hell the way Vince had.

That much, at least, was true.

"My chances are better than yours, Timothy. You're the one who burned this marriage to the ground. There's no going back."

"Spare me the lecture."

He knew. Of course he knew. But knowing didn't help he didn't want Jessica to leave, yet he couldn't find any way to make her stay.

"I'll say just one thing. There's one thing you did that's truly unforgivable, do you realize that? Today, she showed up in front of Mrs. Zimmerman, and Mrs. Zimmerman recognized her instantly. All I could think was—if you'd introduced her to people, just once in your seven years of marriage, the Zimmermans wouldn't have spent all these years not knowing she was Salome."

Yates' words cut deep.

She really was recognized at a glance?

He almost laughed at himself. All this time, he'd been fantasizing about removing her birthmark.

"What's worse," Yates pressed, "is that even after you found out, you kept it from the Zimmerman family. Tell me, Timothy-when did you know? Was it when Vince told you about the birthmark?"

The call ended abruptly.

snapped his

pressing down

wished he'd realized back when Vince

and Jessica hadn't

But he hadn't.

told himself

told himself that one

if the pain from his wounds was sharper, it could drown out the ache

himself longing

those quiet,

Group. His father, never particularly

day, Timothy had

it was endless schooling, then, as he grew older, the world

only after marrying Jessica that he learned

place he could finally

intimate moments seemed to unravel every knot

always believed that if you let yourself get too comfortable,

finally get what you've always longed for, you start to care, you start to cling,

you lose it,

kept his distance, tried to

end, he'd fallen headlong anyway, and now he was learning just

on a mountainside with clients, negotiating a deal, and went for an early morning walk. As he wandered, he came upon an old chapel. They went inside,

a sermon on the first truth Christ preached after

spoke of three kinds of suffering: suffering from change, suffering from

human life: birth, aging, sickness, death,

the time, Timothy had scoffed. Everyone goes through birth, aging, sickness, and death. As for the

two of them-wanting and not having, and being

the chapel, the priest had said all

lain here, unmoving, for