Nora
The motel room smells like mildew, pee, and stale cigarette smoke. The carpet is a pattern that might have been green once, or yellow, but is now multiple shades of gray and brown. The comforter has a beige stain I’ve been trying not to look at.
I stand near the door with my garbage bag at my feet. I didn’t unpack. Unpacking would mean staying, and I don’t know how long I’m staying, and that uncertainty is the only honest thing in this room.
I keep looking at my left hand.
The pale line where my ring was is barely visible, but I feel it. The absence of weight. Something that belonged there, taken off by my own hand and left on his desk like an apology that wasn’t big enough.
I’ve been standing here crying ever since I arrived. Not the loud kind—I’ve never cried loudly in my life. The quiet kind, where tears fall and fall, and you don’t bother wiping them because more are already coming.
Every time I close my eyes, I see his face when he kissedme goodbye this morning. The way he held on a beat longer than usual.
He knew something was wrong. He knew.
Maybe I should go back to him.
The thought surfaces for the hundredth time, but I push it down the same way I’ve pushed it down every other time. Go back to what? Go back so I can watch another deal collapse because of me? So I can sit at another dinner table and feel Kathleen’s judgmental eyes measuring everything I’m not? So I can read another document that proves, in black and white, exactly what my presence costs the man I love?
I love him. That’s the problem. I love him so much it’s an ache that doesn’t stop, and love means wanting what’s best for someone, and I am not what’s best for Cillian O’Rourke.
Suddenly, there are three sharp knocks on the door.
I take a step away from it and my body goes rigid. My first instinct is what it’s always been—run, hide, make yourself small. I’m not going to answer. It’s probably one of the junkies outside planning to beg me for money for their next fix.
Then I hear the lock turn.
Cold fear spikes through my veins. I’m not safe. I should have known I wouldn’t be safe in a place like?—
The door flies open, and Cillian fills the doorway.
His shirt is wrinkled, his hair is out of place like he’s been running his fingers through it, and his expression is frantic. The knuckles on his right hand are split and crusted with dried blood.
His eyes find me, and he goes completely still.
He looks devastated. Wrecked in a way I’ve never seen.
A wave of relief seems to sweep over him like a man finding water after days in the desert.
Neither of us speaks.
He steps inside and closes the door.
“How did you find me?” My voice is too small and quivery.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
Yes. Yes, I did. I didn’t think he’d look.
He takes in the room—the peeling wallpaper, the stained bedspread, the sticky carpet under my feet. His jaw hardens.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say with more bravado than I feel.
“You’re my wife.”
He moves toward me, and I shrink.
“Why did you leave me?” His voice breaks—just once, just slightly, and it’s the most devastating sound I’ve ever heard from him.
