I sit at the dining room table with my hands clasped around a hot cup of honey and lemon tea and cry my heart out. Lena sits beside me, rubbing my back comfortingly. I am so thankful that she hasn’t said, “I told you so.” James stands nearby, his arms folded over his chest and a solemn expression on his face.

“Don’t cry for him. He’s not worth it,” Lena tells me softly.

“I don’t understand,” I say through tears. “I didn’t force him into this. He reconnected with me. He pursued me. I was the one with reservations, and he convinced me that we were meant to be.”

“Don’t blame yourself. He knew all the right things to say.” Even after all her warnings, Lena is still there to pick up the pieces when I’ve ignored all her advice.

“I told him to go. If things are going to be like they were before, what’s the point?”

“You made the right call, sweetie. You deserve better than flying visits and half-assed attempts at pretending to care.”

“Then why do I feel like a bitch?” I sob. “Cole has talent. God knows he’s good at what he does. The biggest paper in New York City is begging him to come back to them. And I’m stamping my foot like a toddler, telling him that I’m more important. Am I the selfish one? Am I wrong?”

Lena strokes my hair. “No, you’re not. No woman wants to be last priority all the time.”

“I can’t help feeling like I’m making a huge mistake.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “You know how long it took me to get over him. Forget that—I never got over him. Despite his faults, I love him, and I always have. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel special.”

“Until something better comes along and then he makes you feel this big.” Lena holds her fingers an inch apart. “You want a man who’s going to build his whole world around you.”

“I feel so disloyal.”

“Are you kidding me?” James interjects. He pulls up a chair beside me and clasps his hands on the tabletop. “You’ve given him so many chances. At some point, he’s got to give something back. He made you a promise that he went back on.”

“Besides, the issue isn’t that he has a job he loves or that he’s good at,” Lena adds. “The problem is that you’re invisible to him when he’s doing it. You used to call me night after night, crying about how you’d cooked another dinner, and he hadn’t come home. You used to get so worried about him. ‘Lena, Cole’s not home—do you think he’s okay?’ You were depressed.”

“It was a big change,” I remind her. “We’d spent a couple of years completely absorbed in each other. When we were traveling, we might as well have been the only two people in the world.” At the memory, a sad smile spreads across my face. “We woke together, ate breakfast together, spent the days wandering new streets, ate dinner together, went to bed together. It was only us. Then, we came back to America, and all of a sudden, I hardly ever saw him. Maybe my expectations were too high.”

Lena bristles and leans down to catch my eye. “Stop it, Sophie. You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Make excuses for him. You act like the sun shines out that man’s ass while putting yourself down. Why is it your responsibility to wait for him? Sacrifices need to run both ways. What has he ever given up for you?”

I look down at the table and my empty cup. “I love him.”

“Sometimes that’s just not enough.”

James rests his hand on my shoulder gently. “I don’t speak for all men, but what I will say, is that I wouldn’t give up Lena for the world. No matter what opportunity came my way, nothing will ever compare to her.” He lifts his eyes and glances across the table at my sister with pure adoration in his eyes. “If the man you’re with doesn’t feel like that, then maybe it’s best you let him go. Lena’s right—you deserve someone who wants what you want from life. Or at least someone who’s willing to compromise to make sure you’re happy. It sounds like Cole’s not in that place.”

Fresh tears rise in my eyes. “I really thought he was. He wasn’t working for the paper anymore, and everything was perfect. I felt like he only had eyes for me. I didn’t think anything would change that.”

“I’ve never had a calling that I feel that passionate about,” James tells me, “but it must be something pretty powerful to make him give you up.”

“James is right,” Lena says. “I think Cole’s an idiot, but there’s no way he’d walk away if he didn’t really feel like it was something he had to do, and when someone feels that strongly about something, what can you do?”

“I either had to accept him as he was or accept that it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Exactly,” Lena says. She gives my hand a squeeze. “You wouldn’t have been happy. Maybe you could have faked it for a while, but eventually, the loneliness and resentment would have set in like before. And how long did it take last time? Only weeks. Maybe now that you’re older, you’ll drag it out for months, or even years, but eventually, you won’t be able to take it anymore.”

“But I can’t imagine life without him.”

“You’ve lived life without him for years and years, Soph. Maybe these few months with him will be enough to finally get him out your system. The big ‘what if’ has been answered. It was not meant to be.”

I nod. “It wasn’t meant to be.” I force a smile.

When James suggests ordering take-out, I agree and then make small talk while we eat. All the while, I’m dying inside. No matter what reassurances I have from Lena and James, I’m not convinced that I’ve made the right choice. I already ache for Cole. I miss him.

But I’ve made my decision, and I have to be strong. I could spend my whole life taking Cole back and then throwing ultimatums at him. At some point, something has to give. After ten years, one marriage, one divorce, and a second chance, maybe that time has come.