Chapter Text
“Are you okay?” Ed asked Kelly as they stepped outside into the sunlight.
She nodded. “Yeah. I am, actually. … I’m not the person I feared I was.”
Ed shook his head. “You realize… that what happened… what he did to you… was still a terrible thing.” He had known, though Kelly had still been doubtful. Nothing else made sense. But though it made sense, and though he had known, he was still reeling from the revelation.
“It was,” she agreed. “But now… now I know. I can’t heal if I don’t know what I’m healing from. He took a lot from me. But I have my self-respect and my identity back. And no one can take that away. … I’m sorry if it hurt you. I know you didn’t really want to find out.”
“No. You have nothing to apologize for. You deserve the truth.” He put his arm around her as they walked, and she reciprocated the gesture. “But I need you to know that even if you had… made that mistake for real, it’s not who you are. It doesn’t define you. You’ve shown that time and time again. … And I’d realized that long before we knew anything about… him and what he did.”
“Thanks for that.”
“I walked out… back then,” Ed said quietly after a few moments of silence. He stopped walking, and Kelly stopped with him. There was a haunted look in his eyes as he removed his arm from Kelly’s waist. “If I’d just stayed two minutes, maybe… maybe it would’ve been different. He is right. I knew you better than that… and I blew it. … Even the way you were, you wanted me to stay. And I… I left you.” He growled in frustration. “Why didn’t I just use my brain?”
“Ed… stop. You couldn’t have known anything about it. … Our relationship was already suffering.”
“Not badly enough for me to believe that of you… without question.”
She sighed. “I believed it of me. Don’t misunderstand. I’d never thought that was something I would do, but… I mean, come on. Mind control? What was either of us supposed to think? How would we even have guessed that?”
Ed shook his head. “I gave up the fight before it started. … You always dreaded being alone, and I abandoned you.”
“You can’t let what he said affect you. He’s nothing.”
“Answer me one question. That period when we were first divorced but weren’t working together yet… what was it like for you?”
“Ed…”
“Tell me. We’ve talked about me and what I went through. How were you?”
Kelly remembered the guilt, the loneliness, the pain she’d believed she didn’t deserve to feel. The confusion at what she had done and why she had done it. How the story of her infidelity had built up an invisible wall around her that no one could or wanted to penetrate. How she’d come home every night to an empty apartment and would lie awake wondering what was wrong with her and worrying about Ed. How she’d lost most of her friends. How her own family members had talked to her less and less, and rarely about important things. How, in a world where reputation was currency, she’d witnessed her own being torn to shreds… and had agreed wholeheartedly with those doing the tearing. How many times she’d wanted to call Ed and beg him to forgive her, something she’d never actually done because of the obvious pointlessness of the idea. How she’d ultimately decided to take a sledgehammer to her own career if it would help get Ed’s back on track.
These were things she’d never talked about with Ed or anyone else. It was a period she herself put out of her mind in order to avoid the darkness of that time surrounding her again and dragging her back into it.
She shook her head and simply said, “It was bad. … But that’s not your fault.”
Ed sighed. “I feel like it is.”
“It’s not,” Kelly said firmly. She looked at him sadly. “I thought about you a lot, though. I missed you, and… I was worried about you too.”
Ed nodded. “I thought about you too,” he said. “And I felt the same.”
A bit of light came back to her face. “You did?” she asked in surprise.
“Kelly, I thought about you every day,” Ed admitted. “I hated myself for it, but I wanted so many times just to call you, to hear your voice, to know that you were okay… that you were happy, even if it was without me.”
“You know, I think… finding out what really happened might be good for both of us,” Kelly said. “You actually need to heal too.”
After a moment’s pause, Ed said, “You’re probably right. You usually are.”
Kelly smiled at that admission. They continued walking in silence.
At last, Ed spoke. “Those things he said…” Ed didn’t want to speak his name anymore. “Like you said, he’s nothing. Less than nothing. He’s dirt. You can’t let him stay inside your head. … He’s already been there too long.”
Kelly nodded. “I know. But… it’s easier said than done. … Where would we be, Ed? If this hadn’t happened.”
“You can’t dwell on it, Kelly,” Ed said. “What’s done is done. It’s over, and we can’t change it, much as we’d like to.”
Her voice was soft and a bit fearful as she asked, “Were you… hoping for a way out of the marriage, like he said?”
Ed stared at her like she had two heads. “Never! Never in a million years! I didn’t always know how to show it very well, but I loved you. I still do. I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life.”
Kelly gave him a bittersweet smile. “I wanted that too,” she said, her voice still quiet. “Even on our worst day.”
The two of them resumed walking. “Where are we going?” Ed asked at last.
Kelly shrugged. “No idea. Where do you want to go?”
“I want to go get re-married,” Ed answered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
Kelly’s eyes widened, and she drew back a bit. “Ed, I’m…” She hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt him again, but she couldn’t do it. Not right away.
“I’m sorry, Kel,” Ed apologized immediately, seeing the look on her face. “That slipped out. … I know you’re probably not ready. And it’s okay.”
The corner of her mouth turned upward, and she chuckled in spite of herself at Ed’s eagerness. “I do love you,” she said. “And I’m not saying no. I just… I feel like I have a lot to unpack before taking that step again.”
Ed nodded. “I understand. I think we both do. This time, I don’t want to mess it up.”
“We won’t,” Kelly said resolutely. “But… for now, how about just finding a place to eat or something, okay?”
Ed grinned. “Sounds good.” After a moment, he asked, “So, now that this whole thing is done… how do you feel?”
Kelly paused in thought. Doubt. Fear. Confusion. Self-loathing. All of them had plagued her on and off for the past four years, no matter what Ed told her or what she told herself. But now, all these feelings were gone and replaced by a strange but welcome weightlessness.
A smile spread slowly across her face. “You know what? For the first time since all this started… I feel free.”