CHAPTER2
The room smelled of dust and cardboard, the sharp tang of packing tape lingering in the air.Ashley sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by half-packed boxes and piles of bubble wrap.The late afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the hardwood as she worked through the seemingly endless task of sorting their things.
Her gaze landed on a box tucked in the corner, its edges yellowed and softened with age.The tape securing it had cracked in places, the label scrawled in a hand she didn’t recognize:Misc.– College.
She hesitated, brushing her hands on her thighs before scooting closer.The box had the feel of something that hadn’t been touched in years, maybe longer.She glanced toward the kitchen, where she could hear the faint clatter of Cole setting up the dinner table.
It wasn’t prying, she told herself, not really.They were moving, after all, and everything needed to be sorted.Still, her fingers hovered over the edge of the tape, guilt flickering faintly in her chest.
“Just a peek,” she murmured as if to absolve herself.
The tape resisted briefly before peeling away with a faint snap.She lifted the flaps carefully, the musty scent of old paper wafting out to greet her.Inside, she found a stack of faded notebooks, loose papers, and a scattering of what looked like graded assignments.Her heart quickened with a strange mix of curiosity and hesitation.
The first thing she pulled out was a slim folder markedMath 201.She opened it to find a neatly typed midterm with a bold “A+” scrawled in red at the top.Of course, she thought, smiling faintly to herself.Her Mr.Perfect husband naturally excelled in the one subject that would go on to define his career.
She set the paper aside and dug deeper, finding more assignments and score reports.Most were pristine, with glowing marks and notes in the margins likeExcellent work!andImpressive clarity.She pictured Cole as a student, meticulous and diligent, his sharp gray eyes scanning formulas and proofs with that quiet, unshakable focus he carried even now.
Her smile deepened as she traced her fingers over a paper markedLinear Algebra – A.
But as she moved further through the stack, her brow furrowed.The grades weren’t all perfect.A handwritten essay onShakespeare’s Influence on Romanticismbore a jagged red “C” circled at the top.Notes from the professor–terse, almost exasperated–lined the margins:Needs development.Missing critical analysis.
She pulled out another:Intro to Philosophy – B-.
And another:Psych 101 – D.
Her lips parted, a quiet laugh escaping her.“Cole,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head.
It didn’t make sense–not for the man she knew, who seemed incapable of half-measures.She thought of the way he approached his lectures at Harvard, the precision of his explanations, the way he jotted down notes like they were etched in stone.And yet, here he was, fumbling through Intro to Philosophy.
Curiosity sparked deeper, and she dug toward the bottom of the box, flipping through a thin pile of papers that seemed older than the rest.At the very bottom, she found a report card–Yale’s embossed crest at the top.
The first semester grades made her frown.They were scattered, almost chaotic:Calculus – A.History of Art – C.English Composition – F.
Her stomach twisted, not unpleasantly, as she scanned the uneven marks.She traced the list with her finger, wondering at the contrast between the man she’d married and the boy he must have been.It was… endearing, in a way, to picture him as someone who hadn’t always had it together.
She leaned back, the papers still in her hands, and laughed softly.“You were a mess,” she murmured.
Her thoughts drifted to her own college years.While Cole had been busy stumbling his way through literature and philosophy, she’d been curled up in her dorm, her textbooks spread across the desk and her phone never far from reach.She could still feel the anticipation that had tied her stomach in knots every time her long-distance boyfriend called, the way her heart raced at the sound of his ringtone.It was a different kind of fumbling, but fumbling nonetheless.
She glanced back at the pile of papers, noting the steady rise in grades over time, the gradual shift from “C”s and “D”s to rows of “A”s.The man she knew now had emerged somewhere in the middle of those messy semesters, and she found herself wanting to know how.
From the kitchen, Cole’s voice broke her thoughts.“Ash?Everything okay in there?”
She jolted, snapping the folder shut.“Yeah!Just… going through some old boxes.”
“Find anything interesting?”
Her gaze flicked to the report card in her lap, her smile returning.“Nothing I’ll tell you about.Yet.”
“Uh-oh.”His laugh carried into the room, warm and easy.
Ashley reached for the box to push it aside when something at the bottom caught her eye–a corner of Manila peeking out beneath the stack of loose papers.Pausing, she tilted the box slightly, dislodging the pile to reveal a neatly labeled folder.
Her breath hitched.Dale Westwood – Academic Records.
For a moment, she just stared at it, her mind racing.She’d known Dale had died during Cole’s college years, but she hadn’t realized he’d also been a student at Yale.Her hand hovered over the folder, torn between the urge to know more and the nagging guilt of prying into something so deeply personal.
Finally, she pulled it free, opening it with careful fingers.Inside was a collection of transcripts and diplomas, each one stamped with Yale’s crest.Her eyes skimmed the documents, her heart sinking as she processed what she was seeing.
