She was leaning against the bar, hair loose around her shoulders, laughing at something I didn’t catch. The sound rolled over me, sharp and familiar, like no time had passed at all. My chest tightened, my feet moving before my brain caught up, because seeing her like that, unguarded, alive… shook me in a way nothing else ever has.
She looked the same and different all at once, her hair longer, her laugh sharper, like life had already been chipping at her edges but hadn’t dulled her shine.
We ended up back at my place, the pull between us just as reckless as it had always been. I remember the way her hands shook when she touched me, like she knew it was wrong but couldn’t stop. Hell, I couldn’t stop either.
But the part I can’t shake isn’t the way she kissed me, or the way I felt like I’d finally come up for air after years of drowning. It’s the way she pulled back after, sitting on the edge of my bed with her shirt half-buttoned and her eyes too bright.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, more to herself than to me.
“Do what?” I asked, even though I knew.
“Be this. The other woman.” She shook her head, swallowing hard. “That’s not me, Jace. It’s never going to be me.”
And then she left. Just like that. No slammed doors, no fight. Just the quiet sound of her footsteps down the hall and the hollow ache that settled in after.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, shirt half-off, hands useless in my lap. I wanted to call her back, to tell her she was wrong, that she’d never be “the other woman” to me. But the words stuck in my throat, swallowed by the sound of the door clicking shut. The apartment felt bigger without her in it, every shadow stretching wider, every silence sharper.
I lay awake until morning, trying to convince myself it was for the best. That she was right. That maybe if I leaned harder into the life waiting for me—into Sierra—I’d learn how to stop wanting what I couldn’t have.
But I didn’t. Not really. Because even when I chose to move forward, part of me was still standing in that room with Sarah, wishing she’d stayed.
The memory fades when Sierra shifts beside me. I blink, pulling myself back to the present, to my wife lying inches away but feeling miles apart. She’s awake. I can tell by the tightness in her shoulders, the way her breaths aren’t as even as she wants me to think.
Her voice cuts through the dark, quiet but steady. “You ever wonder what life would’ve looked like if you’d chosen differently?”
The words hit like a strike to the ribs. She doesn’t say more, doesn’t have to. We both know what’s beneath them, even if her name isn’t spoken.
My stomach knots, because the truth is yes—every damn day. I’ve built a marriage, a home, a life with Sierra, but all it takes isone question to unravel it. I want to tell her I don’t think about it, that I don’t see Sarah in the back of my mind when the house is quiet, that I don’t wonder what it would’ve been like if she’d stayed that night. But I can’t. Because she’d hear the lie in my voice, just like I hear it in my head.
I roll onto my side, away from the weight of her question. “Thinking about ‘what ifs’ only makes it worse.”
It’s a lie, one we both hear forexactlywhat it is.
She goes quiet again, but the tension doesn’t fade. It just settles deeper into the mattress, into the air between us.
I close my eyes, but all I can see is Sarah walking away from me that night. And the truth I’ll never say out loud—that I’ve been chasing her shadow ever since.
…………
Sierra
He turns away, and the bed shifts with him. The space between us feels wider than it should, too much space, too much silence. I stare at the ceiling, tracing the shadows from the streetlight outside as they slide across the plaster, thinking how strange it is that you can share a bed with someone and still feel alone.
He said there’s no point wondering. But that’s all I ever do anymore. Wonder when the quiet stopped being comfortable. Wonder when his touch started to feel like a habit instead of want. Wonder if he ever looks at me and still sees the samegirl he promised forever to, or if he’s already somewhere else, chasing what he lost.
I tell myself it’s just the season, the schedule, the late nights and early mornings. That every marriage hits a slow patch. It’s only been a year, it shouldn’t be like this so soon. But deep down, I know that’s not what this is, it’s stalled. We’ve both been holding the same thread for so long we’ve forgotten what it was supposed to tie together.
He shifts again, and for a second I think he’s going to reach for me. My breath catches, waiting. But his hand falls still, and the sound of the clock fills the room instead. Tick, tick, tick, steady as the distance grows between us.
I roll onto my side, facing the wall, eyes open in the dark. I used to fall asleep to the sound of his breathing and feel safe. Now it just reminds me how much space there is left to lose.
I close my eyes and pretend I don’t already know we’re losing each other.
…………
Jace
The fight doesn’t start with Sarah. It never does. It starts with the little things.
