Jake helps him with practical things occasionally, but nobody is pretending the past didn’t happen.
Megan apologized to me too.
A real apology.
Not “I’m sorry you were upset.”
She said, “I used you to hide something from my husband, and that was wrong.”
I told her I appreciated that.
Then I said, “If you ever invite me to dinner again, I’m asking who is paying before I order water.”
She laughed.
I wasn’t entirely joking.
The strangest part of the whole thing is that for about 10 minutes in that restaurant, we all thought Megan was having an affair.
In some ways, the truth was better.
In other ways, it exposed a different problem.
Megan had convinced herself that because her reason was compassionate, the lying was acceptable.
It wasn’t.
Ryan deserved the chance to rebuild his life.
Megan was allowed to want to help her brother.
Jake was allowed to be cautious after what Ryan had done.
All three things could be true.
What wasn’t fair was secretly spending money, hiding meetings, creating ridiculous cover stories, and then making me pay for the evidence.
Ryan is doing better.
Megan and Jake are working through the trust issue.
And I did eventually get every dollar of that restaurant charge returned.
