The Paper Palace

by Miranda Cowley Heller

And I thought: now there is no turning back. No more regrets for what I haven’t done. Now only regrets for what I have done. I love him, I hate myself; I love myself, I hate him. This is the end of a long story.

There is no such thing as unforgivable between people who love each other. But even as I’m thinking it, I know it’s not really true.

“I’ve been in love with you since I was eight.”

It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and already, when I’m not with him, I’m marking time until I am—as if my own life has ceased to exist and is only the time in between him and him.

“So, I can get my hopes up again?” “I’m too old for you,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe myself. “I know you think that, but you’re wrong.” “And you’re way too good for me.” And this I know is true.

“Well, I hope you made it clear to him you’re already engaged to me.”

“Peter isn’t the ring guy,” he says. “I’m the ring guy.”

“Just so we are clear,” he says, “I will never love anyone the way I love you.”

The waiting begins early, I think. The lies begin early. But so do dreams and hopes and stories.

We were always meant to be together. Marriage, children—nothing has changed this essential truth. If I could take back what I have done, I would do it. Every bad decision when the road forked. Every terrible choice that led me away from him.

I am in love with Jonas. I always have been. I cannot live without him, cannot give him up now, after waiting for so long. But I’m in love with Peter, too. I have two choices. One I can’t have. One I don’t deserve to have.

Does letting go mean losing everything you have, or does it mean gaining everything you never had?