Goodbye, Mr. Regret

"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.

his phone

pressing down

back when Vince first

him and

But he hadn't.

himself

told himself that one year's

his wounds was sharper, it could drown out the ache choking his

longing

those quiet, gentle

mother had left on the day he was born, and his grandfather had set his sights on molding him into the heir of the Lawson Group. His father, never particularly capable, had remarried and started a new family. His grandfather was eager to raise him, and his father was only too happy to hand him

Timothy had

as he grew older, the world

Jessica that he learned what

pressure, a place

seemed to unravel every knot inside

you let yourself get too comfortable,

what you've always longed for, you

it, the pain

kept his distance, tried to run

anyway, and now he was learning just

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

sermon on the first truth Christ preached after his resurrection: the reality

kinds of suffering: suffering from change, suffering from

two; the third, though-the suffering of pain-he remembered. The priest listed eight great pains of human life: birth, aging, sickness, death, wanting and

through birth, aging, sickness, and death. As for the rest-never. Those were things that

and not having, and being separated from someone he loved-for a

remembered, as they'd left the chapel, the priest had said all suffering