Lena is still asleep, turned toward me, hair a tangle over the pillow, my shirt riding up her thigh.
She looks younger like this.
I can't be the man who takes advantage of that.
Careful not to wake her, I slide out of bed.
It takes effort to peel my gaze away from the way she's curled around my pillow.
I pull on sweats and a T-shirt, then head downstairs.
On the counter, I set up coffee. I place the mug on a small tray, add one of the leftover brownies, and find a pen and notepad.
The words don't come easily, but I force them anyway.
Lena,
Didn't want to wake you. I needed to step out for a bit and clear my head. Coffee's how you like it. Take your time this morning. No rush to leave. We can talk when I'm back.
G.
I carry the tray upstairs and set it on the nightstand where she'll see it first thing. I look at her one last time.
Part of me wants to crawl back into bed and forget everything outside this room exists.
Instead I back away quietly and slip out. I spend the next hour driving without direction, windows cracked, mind running through every version of the conversation I need to have with her.
The one where I tell her I can't promise her stability.
The one where I admit I crossed a line I shouldn't have.
The one where I try to be decent without scorching what we shared.
By the time I walk back into the house, I've rehearsed a dozen angles and liked none of them.
The bedroom is empty.
The sheets are pulled up. The coffee and the brownie are both intact, but the note is gone.
A small, tight ache blooms in my chest.
I stand there in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the neat bed where there should be a messy woman in my shirt, and I know exactly what's happened.
She took the hint I didn't have the courage to put into words.
And she's gone.
6
LENA
Five years later
The sun on my face is the first thing I feel. The second is thirty pounds of child dropping onto my stomach and knocking the air out of me. "Mama, you are asleep forever," Jace declares and sprawls across me, arms wide.
I wheeze and wrap an arm around him. "I am very alive and very crushed."
He presses his palms into my belly and grins. "You are a soft mountain. I climb you."
