"Foundational?" I repeated the word, trying to mine it for meaning. "The foundation is that we love each other. That we want a life together. That's pretty solid, Sarah."
"But how do we know?" she burst out, her hands fluttering. "How do I know?"
"Know what?"
"That you're the one." She said it like it was a term she'd studied in a textbook. "Jake, you're the only serious relationship I've ever had. We got together in college. What if... what if I'm settling? What if there's someone out there who is a better fit for me, and I'm just choosing you because you're here? Because you're safe and familiar?"
The ice water was now a full stream, freezing my insides. "Are you saying you have feelings for someone else?"
"No, not specifically. It's not about a person. It's about an experience. A certainty." She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a zealous, self-absorbed light. "I need to experience other men. To date. To be with other people. To be sure. Otherwise, I'll always wonder. And I can't go into a marriage with that kind of doubt hanging over me. It wouldn't be fair to either of us."
The room tilted slightly. I heard the words, but they seemed to bounce off a newly formed layer of numb shock. "So, you want to break up?" The sentence felt foreign in my mouth.
"No. God, Jake, you're not listening." She sighed, exasperated, as if I was a slow student. "Not break up. Just press pause. You wait for me. I go out. I have my experiences. I live a little. And if, after I've seen what's out there, I choose you, then I'll know it's real. It'll be unshakable. And the wedding will be back on, stronger than ever."
She paused, letting the monstrous logic of it hang in the air between us. When I didn't speak, she added the kicker, her voice softening into a manipulative croon: "Otherwise, the wedding is off. I can't commit with this uncertainty. Don't you want me to be sure? Don't you want a wife who is 100% irrevocably certain you are her person? If you love me, you'll understand this is for us."
I stared at her. The woman I'd planned a future with, whose family I'd sat through countless dinners with, whose dreams I'd memorized, was gone. In her place was a stranger wearing her face, speaking a language of breathtaking selfishness. The love I felt didn't vanish; it curdled, hardening into something cold and heavy in my chest.
I needed absolute clarity. I needed to hear her say it in the plainest terms possible. My voice, when it came out, was disturbingly calm. Flat.