This is the last thing I’d like to do on a Friday night but I grab my jacket anyway. But I also can’t shake the whisper that follows me out the door.
Some wounds don’t heal with time.
They just learn how to hide.
Chapter Seven
The Cracks Beneath the Vows
Sierra
Before She Was Back
It’s one of those nights where the house feels too quiet, like it knows we’ve run out of things to say. Or like it knows something’s shifting between us. The dishwasher hums. A game murmurs on the TV in the living room with the sound turned low, all crowd roar without words. Somewhere upstairs, the heat kicks on and clicks through the vents like a tired heartbeat.
We move around each other the way we always do at this hour: in quiet lines that almost intersect but never quite touch. Jace drops his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. I hear the soft clink without looking up. I’m at the counter, breaking spaghetti in half over the pot because I can’t remember how to cook for two without making enough for six. He crosses behind me for a glass, and I shift an inch without thinking. He says “Scuse me,” warm and automatic, and I say “You’re fine,” because that’s automatic too.
Silence fits between us like furniture we stopped seeing. We’ve learned how to walk around it.
“Practice run long?” I ask, stirring the sauce that doesn’t need stirring.
“Bit,” he says, pouring water from the tap. A beat. “Field crew had to recalibrate the sleds.”
I nod like that means something. He drinks half the glass in three swallows, puts it in the sink, and turns the water on again to rinse it even though it was just water. Little courtesies no one taught him, or maybe someone did a long time ago and he never forgot. Jace is still careful and kind. Just… not really here with me.
We were good at pretending. Pretending we had time. Pretending the cracks didn’t show.
“Smells good,” he offers, and I try to recall the last time that sentence landed in my chest instead of skimming across the surface. I used to ask him to taste the sauce, press the spoon tohis lips and watch for the tiny nod that meant yes, this, right here. Now I set two bowls on the counter and tell myself an appetite will show up once I sit down.
He leans his hip against the island and rubs the back of his neck like the muscles there never unclench anymore. The overhead light catches the line between his brows that wasn’t there when we met. Or maybe it was and I just never noticed it. I count the seconds he stares at nothing: eight, nine, ten—there and gone like a wave that never breaks.
“How was your day?” he asks finally, and I can tell he’s reaching, the way people reach in a dark room, hands out, hoping for a wall.
“Busy.” I twist the dish towel in my fingers. “Client revisions, new swatches everywhere, and a render file that refused to export. Nothing thrilling.”
He smiles a little. “You’ll make it work. You always do.”
It’s such a simple thing to say, and for a heartbeat I’m angry at it for being soft and harmless when what I really want is something real. Something that feels alive. I want him to tease me. I want him to steal a noodle from the pot and burn his mouth and laugh about it. I want the sound of a life we almost built—the one I kept hoping would come together if I just tried hard enough. We had moments, glimpses of warmth between all the cracks, but they never lasted. We never figured out how to hold on to them.
“Eat in here or…?” I trail off, already carrying the bowls to the table we never use.
“Here’s good.” He follows, chair legs whispering against hardwood as he sits. He twirls pasta without looking up, like his hands remember what his mind misplaced. We chew. We don’t talk. The TV murmurs from the next room like a neighbor telling a story through the wall.
He asks about my brother because he always asks about my family when he runs out of questions. I tell him Griff texted a meme that made me snort in line at the pharmacy and I got dirty looks for it. He smiles at that, really smiles, mouth and eyes and then the smile fades, like a wave again, washed thin before it reaches shore.
“Cold front coming,” he says, glancing at the window. The blinds are half-closed, slats like ribs. “They’re saying rain by Friday.”
“Mm.” I sip water I don’t want. “I’ll dig out the thicker blankets.”
He nods. I nod.
I study him when he looks away. The square of his shoulder in the tee shirt he’s had since college. The quiet strength that drew me in long before either of us knew where we were going. He was a steady place to stand when the ground under my feet felt like it was falling away. Maybe that’s why I chose him. Maybe it’s why I stayed. Maybe it’s why it hurts now, because steadiness without closeness feels like standing on ice.
We were good at pretending. At first it was brave. Then it was habit. Now it’s muscle memory.
He reaches for the Parmesan. His fingers brush mine, a static snap that doesn’t belong to weather. We both pull back like polite strangers on the same subway pole. The tiny jolt echoes bigger than it should.
“Sorry,” he says.
