Chapter 11 - CHLOE’S APOLOGY
Chloe apologized six months after Linda’s birthday.
Not sooner.
The first attempts were explanations.
Emma rejected them.
“I was lonely.”
Explanation.
“He told me you were separating.”
Explanation.
“I thought he loved me.”
Explanation.
“I didn’t understand the money.”
Explanation.
Emma told Linda:
“She keeps telling me why.”
Linda asked:
“What do you want?”
“What.”
A month later, Chloe asked Emma to meet in a public park.
Emma agreed.
Chloe looked thinner.
No makeup.
No dramatic entrance.
They sat on opposite ends of a bench.
Chloe said:
“I betrayed you.”
Emma waited.
“I knew you trusted me.”
Silence.
“I knew you believed your marriage was real.”
Emma looked at her.
Chloe continued.
“Adam lied to me about a lot.”
“Yes.”
“But he never lied to me about the fact he was still sleeping in your bed.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“He never lied that I was your sister.”
Chloe cried.
“I knew.”
There it was.
No but.
No because.
“I helped hide money.”
“Yes.”
“I signed paperwork I knew wasn’t honest.”
“Yes.”
“I let you recommend my business while I was taking money from yours.”
Emma looked away.
That one hurt differently.
Chloe continued.
“When you confronted me at Mom’s, I cried because I was scared of losing Adam.”
Emma turned back.
“Not me.”
Chloe shook her head.
“No.”
Tears fell.
“That is the thing I’m most ashamed of.”
Emma said nothing.
“I only understood I had lost you when Mom stepped away from me.”
The admission was brutal.
Also honest.
Chloe whispered:
“I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
She nodded.
“I want to repay everything connected to my company.”
“That’s being handled legally.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want private deals.”
“I know.”
Emma studied her.
“What do you want from me?”
Chloe looked down.
“Eventually?”
“Yes.”
“I want to become someone you might choose to know again.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
Not someone entitled to sisterhood.
Someone Emma might choose.
That was at least a beginning.
Emma stood.
“I’m not there.”
“I know.”
She walked away.
May you like
Chloe did not follow.
For the first time in four years, she respected a boundary immediately.
