She scoffed. "That's different. Men always make it sexual. With you, it would be predatory. With me and Gavin, it was spiritual. We have a soul connection, Mark. Honestly, I feel safer with him emotionally than I do with you half the time, because he doesn't judge me."
She stood up, walking around the island to stand in front of me. She looked at me with genuine pity, as if I were a primitive creature unable to grasp her evolved state of being.
"My work husband and I cuddle sometimes," she said, enunciating every word. "It's platonic. It's harmless. If you don't get it, if you're too insecure to handle me providing emotional support to a friend, then that's your issue. It's something you need to fix in therapy. I'm not going to shrink myself or my capacity for love just to soothe your ego."
I looked at her. I looked at the woman I had spent three years building a life with. I thought about the ring I had hidden in the safe deposit box, the one I was planning to propose with next year. I thought about the $4,000 currently pending on my credit card for her birthday weekend.
And then, I felt it.
It wasn't anger. It wasn't sadness. It was the sensation of a heavy weight simply vanishing. It was the click of a lock disengaging.
I realized, in that exact moment, that she didn't respect me. She didn't even fear losing me. She was so confident in her control over me, so certain that I was the safe option who would pay the bills while Gavin provided the spark, that she felt comfortable telling me to my face that she was intimate with another man. She was waiting for me to beg. She was waiting for me to yell so she could call me abusive. She was waiting for me to apologize for being jealous.
I took a breath. I picked up the wine bottle and topped off her glass.
"You know what?" I said. My voice was calm—the voice I used when firing a contractor who had violated safety protocols. "You're right."
She blinked. The smug lecture died on her lips. She looked confused. "I am?"
"Yeah," I said. "I've been looking at this all wrong. You're an autonomous person. If that's what you need to do to support your friend, who am I to police that? It was insecure of me to question your judgment."