“I’ll be back.”
She grabbed her keys from the counter and walked out. The front door closed behind her, and I stood alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the dinner I’d made and the wine I’d poured. Itried to understand how the best news of my career had turned into the worst night of my marriage.
The stir-fry went cold on the stove. The candles I’d lit burned down to stubs. I sat at the table and waited, checking my phone every few minutes, wondering where she’d gone, if she was okay, and if she was coming back.
She didn’t come home until after midnight.
I was lying in bed by then, staring at the ceiling, the rage burned down to exhaustion. I heard her key in the lock, heard her footsteps in the hallway, and heard her pause outside the bedroom door.
Then she came in, moving quietly in the darkness, and slipped under the covers on her side of the bed. The space between us felt vast. An ocean already, before she’d even left.
“I’m taking the fellowship,” she said into the darkness.
I closed my eyes. “Okay.”
“That’s it? Just okay?”
“What do you want me to say?” I turned my head to look at her, but I could only make out the shape of her in the shadows. “That I’m thrilled about you leaving for two years? That I think this is going to work out great for us?”
“I want you to fight for this. For us.”
“I am fighting. I spent all night fighting. But you’ve already decided, haven’t you? You decided a week ago when you got that email and didn’t tell me about it.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.”
“I love you, Cassian. That hasn’t changed.”
I breathed heavily. “But it’s not enough, is it? Loving me isn’t enough to make you stay.”
“And loving me isn’t enough to make you understand why I have to go.”
We lay there in the darkness, realizing forever was more complicated than either of us had imagined. The space between us on the mattress felt like miles. Like continents. Like the eight thousand miles she was about to put between us.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I reached across the distance and found her hand. Her fingers were cold, trembling slightly in a way she’d never admit to. I held on anyway, because I didn’t know what else to do.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered.
“I don’t want to be lost.”
It wasn’t a resolution. Not even a promise.
But it was all we had. I drifted in and out of consciousness, waking every hour to find her still beside me, still breathing, still there. Each time, I held her hand a little tighter.
By morning, the argument remained unresolved. It just settled into exhausted resignation and a wound too fresh to treat yet too deep to ignore.
We didn’t talk about Europe or Obsidian.
We didn’t talk about anything that mattered at all.
CHAPTER TEN
CALLA
