1
IN SPITE OF THE WARMTH of the Arizona spring, Ahri Meisner held her cold hands to her chest, fear battling frustration, as her husband frantically threw his clothes into a suitcase.
“What’s going on, Zed?” She kept her voice level. When he was like this, it never helped if she showed her emotions. “Where are you going this time?”
“It’s business.” He refused to look at her, which wasn’t a good sign and shot her anxiety even higher.
Ahri had never seen him so agitated before, and that was saying a lot, considering how Zed had been acting lately. What had he gotten himself into? She wished for the time when he’d have trusted her with it, when they’d first married. They’d told each other everything back then. The way he’d started pulling back from her had been gradual, subtle. She hadn’t recognized it until he’d taken the new job last year.
“Why won’t you tell me anything?” She stepped closer.
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
Better if she didn’t know? She watched him grab his socks from his dresser and toss them into the suitcase. It was like shewas staring at a stranger; she didn’t feel like she knew him at all anymore.
Last year, when he’d started working late or attending meetings out of town, she’d thought it was just the new job. She’d tried to get him to talk about what he was working on, but he would always turn secretive. Why? He was a certified public accountant. It wasn’t like she was asking for client information.
That had been when she’d first considered that there might be someone else. The thought had paralyzed her for a while. Was this what her mother had gone through, seeing the signs and watching her husband pull away from her, unable to do anything to stop it?
Finally, in desperation, Ahri’d asked Zed straight out if he was seeing someone else. He’d told her to stop being stupid. His response had been so indignant, sohonest, that she’d believed him. The confrontation hadn’t stopped his secretiveness though or kept him from moving into the spare bedroom.
They’d stopped going out, both as a couple and individually with friends. It was like they existed in two bubbles within a bubble, excluded from anyone who’d once mattered to them and separated from each other.
With Zed out late at business meetings or away on business trips, she’d sat home alone as a distraction from her pathetic life and played the game her brother had helped create. The few friends she’d had left hadn’t been able to talk her into going out with them.
She’d floated in a kind of limbo, unable to fix her marriage but refusing to move out, not after what her father’s leaving had done to her mother. Once upon a time, Ahri and Zed had been friends, and friends didn’t run out on each other.
“Have you done something illegal?” she asked.
Zed zipped up the suitcase and faced her. Her throat went dry at the anguish in his expression.
“Please tell me,” she whispered.
“We’re done.” He picked up the bag, seeming to steel himself,determination closing him off from her with a finality so firm it was like he’d turned a key in a lock. “I’m leaving, and it’s not safe for you to stay here either.”
A cold chill went down Ahri’s spine. It seemed like she was standing on the edge of a cliff that had started crumbling underneath her, and she was about to plunge into the chasm below.
“Why doIneed to go somewhere?”
“Will you stop asking stupid questions?” Zed shouted. “I told you it’s not safe. Can your mother take you?”
Takeher, not stay with her. Ahri felt stupid, like her brain couldn’t make sense of his words. He wasn’t just going on a business trip;hewas leavingher. How ironic since she’d been debating leaving him for six months.
“I can’t go to her,” she said, raising her voice for the first time. “Don’t you ever listen anymore? She moved back to Korea last month.”
“Call your brother then.” Zed didn’t spare the sneer he always used whenever he mentioned Kayn. “He’s got plenty of money to keep you safe.”
There was that word again. Safe.
“Zed, please. Are you okay?” She reached out to touch his arm, but he jerked away.
“Don’t you get it?” he hissed, the veins in his neck bulging and his expression crazed. “It’s over.We’reover.”
Ahri dropped her hand and stepped away. She bit back a bitter laugh. It’d been over from the moment he’d taken that new job.
“It’s been fun, but . . .” His words dropped off and he stared at her for a few seconds, his expression a myriad of emotions—sadness, regret, and something Ahri’d never seen there before. Fear. That was when she realized his hands were shaking as he walked away. Out of her life.
She didn’t know how long she stared at the quilt on his bed, rumpled from his frantic packing. Still numb, she walked into hisbathroom. He’d been in such a hurry he hadn’t even taken his toothbrush.
