Pete wonders if he has the strength to get through this again.
The house feels hostile now. Every room is wired with tension, every floorboard ready to creak at the wrong time. Pete moves through it quietly, checking locks, double-checking. James is out for the evening, but that doesn’t mean safety — it only means time.
He showers quickly, water scalding, scrubbing until his skin is raw. When he steps into the spare bedroom and closes the door, he pulls the chair up under the handle, makes sure it’s wedged tightly.
Then he lifts the pillow.
The knife is still there, cool against his fingers, reassuring and terrifying all at once.
Pete slides into bed, muscles aching, every sound in the house amplified — tick of the clock, hum of the pipes, the faintest shift of wind outside. He stares at the ceiling, listening, waiting.
Because he knows something is coming.
And he isn’t sure how much longer he can hold everything together before it finally breaks.
Chapter 27
TOM
I sit in my car, engine off, but the dash lights still glowing faintly, a tiny galaxy of red and green that feels absurdly calm compared to the noise inside my head. My hands are locked on the steering wheel, knuckles white. I’m not even sure when I stopped breathing properly.
Pete’s door is still closed ahead of me. Shut like a coffin lid.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Long enough for my chest to ache, long enough for my eyes to sting but not enough for tears to come. My throat is tight. Every time I replay the look on his face—the bruises, the fear, the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes—I want to kick the dashboard until the airbag bursts.
I want to help him. God, I want to drag him out of that house and never let him go back. But how? How do you save someone who won’t—or can’t—leave?
It’s Daniel all over again.
I press my forehead to the steering wheel. The smell of leather and cheap car freshener fills my nose. Memories spool out in a fast-forward blur. Daniel’s hand on my arm, tightening. Daniel’s voice when it got dark and low. Me, shrinking. Craig, steady and relentless, holding up a mirror to my life until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.Craig, driving me to his and Phil’s place that night. Craig, telling me I wasn’t crazy, that what was happening was not love.
He helped me escape. Helped me see the light. Helped me build something like a life again.
And now here I am, watching someone else drown and not knowing how to throw a rope without getting dragged under myself.
I stare at the front of Pete’s house. The blinds are drawn. The windows are dark. That house feels like a fortress, a trap. It’s eating him alive.
I think about calling Craig. I think about barging back up the drive. I think about sitting here all night until Pete comes out. All the options feel like failures.
And then my mind slides, unbidden, to Guy.
God, Guy.
It’s been a year and still his name lands like a fist to the chest.
I always hated the word “affair.” Affair sounds like something trivial, like a fling you can sweep off a table when company arrives. What Guy and I had wasn’t cheap or sordid. It was close, intimate, carved out of the loneliness I’d been drowning in.
He was married, yes. I know what that makes me in the eyes of the world. But he was also kind. Funny. Smart in the quiet way that sneaks up on you. We used to sit in his car at night, hands tangled on the gear stick, talking about books, music, anything but the lives we were sneaking away from.
For the first time, I felt like someone actually saw me, not just the version of me I tried to sell on apps or at bars.
It was wrong.
And it was everything I needed.
The guilt was a constant hum, but some nights I thought — this is worth it. This is worth all the risk, all the shame. Because connection like this doesn’t happen twice.
And then, just like that, he was gone.
