“A few days ago,” I state truthfully. “We argued about alimony and then he left.”
“Has he ever disappeared before?”
“Disappeared, no. Hedoestravel for work, but he usually lets someone know where he’s going.”
The officers exchange a look that—shockingly—doesn’t look to be suspicious or accusatory. It’s purely procedural. They go on to ask a few more questions, and I answered them evenly, carefully, the house behind me pristine and unbothered.
When they take their leave, I shut the door and lean against it, expelling a shuddering breath. This is the part where guilt is supposed to bloom, and yet…it doesn’t.
By the third day, the house starts to feel less like a crime scene and more like a reclamation. The quiet is different now. It doesn’t belong to a marriage. It belongs to me…and my thoughts. I move the furniture slightly, donate the white table runner my mother bought us. I open windows that haven’t been opened in years.
All things to keep myself busy.
To keep my mind busy.
And still, I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep waiting for my phone to light up, but it doesn’t, and that—more than the police—is what unsettles me because I don’t know what we were in that cabin. I don’t know if it was just the forced proximity or pressure of the situation, or the fact that he saw the worst thing I’ve ever done and didn’t flinch even a little bit.
But the lack of him stings…and I hate it.
I’ve told myself this is fine, though. After all, we said we’d go back to real life—and this is real life.
On the fourth night, I’m standing at the kitchen sink, staring out into the dark yard with a glass of wine in hand when what looks like headlights sweep across the window. My breath catches. It’s probably nothing, probably just the neighbors turning into their driveway.
An engine cuts, a car door closes, and then there’s a knock...onmydoor.
Heart climbing into my throat, I set the glass down and pad out of the kitchen into the foyer. I’m expecting the police again, inhaling a deep breath in preparation for whatever might come, but when I open the door, I find Crew on the porch instead.
My stomach somersaults like a swarm of butterflies. He looks the same but somehow not. Cleaner, and less rugged. For the longest moment, neither of us speaks. We simply stare at each other like one of us might disappear into thin air.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I lean up against the doorjamb. “You’re late,” I tell him, mostly because it’s easier than sayingI missed you.
A corner of his mouth hikes up in that now familiar smirk. “I had to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“That everything was done.”
I gasp internally, allowing the finality of that word to sink in as I search his face. “It is?”
He bobs his head just once. “There’s nothing left.”
Relief washes over me like a tidal wave, yet moves through me in a slow, quiet current, washing away the residual anxiety clinging to my bones.
“And the police?” I ask.
“No sight of them. I assume they already stopped here, though, yeah?”
“They did.”
He watches me carefully, in that quintessential Crew way. “Are you okay?”
“I’m better now that you’re here.”
A beat passes between us, charged with everything we didn’t say in the cabin, everything that’s lingered in the silence without one another since.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he admits. No preamble. No humor to soften it. The honesty of it hits harder than any joke ever could. “I tried to,” he continues. “Told myself it was situational, adrenaline, trauma bonding and forced proximity.”
My lips curve faintly. “And?”
