“Bye, Mommy!”
“Bye, sweetheart,” I said, forcing a smile that felt distant even to me.
Then I got back into the car and drove to work.
At the office, I did what I always did. I logged in, opened my reports, reviewed numbers, and corrected entries. My body showed up while my mind followed instructions. Everything functioned the way it was supposed to, but it felt like I was watching myself from far away.
Harley stopped by my desk mid-morning.
“Morning,” he said. “Did you see the updated report I sent?”
“Yes,” I replied, eyes still on my screen. “I’m looking at it now.”
He lingered. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Harley.”
The words came out automatically.
He nodded slowly, studying me a second longer than necessary before walking away.
Throughout the day, he spoke to me a few more times. Each time, my answers stayed brief. Efficient. Emotionless.
I could tell he noticed.
I didn’t care.
Today, I didn’t have the energy to feel anything, and I wasn’t ready to ask where Adrian had gone, or what it meant that he’d left without a word.
For now, I was still standing, still functioning, still moving forward. And somehow, that felt heavier than breaking down ever had.
—?—
Adrian
I left the house early that morning, before Elena woke up. It wasn’t only to give her space—to let her breathe without my presence around her—but because I needed it too. That small distance felt necessary, for both of us.
Before going downstairs, I paused outside Haille’s room. I opened the door just enough to look inside. Elena was curled up on the couch beside the crib, her eyes closed, her body folded inward, while Haille slept peacefully inside it, unaware of the quiet fracture happening around her. I stood there for a long moment, letting the image sink into me, before finally closing the door and walking away.
NowI was sitting in my car, the engine still running, unmoving in my seat, parked in front of the building. The lights in the upper floors of the office building were still on, glowing high above and reflecting faintly against the windshield like scattered points of light, too bright for a night that should have been quiet. My hands were still gripping the steering wheel.
I had come back here after my therapy session, circling back to the office instead of going home. I’d left work early for the appointment, told myself I’d head straight back afterward, but when it was over, my body had driven me here on autopilot.
I still hadn’t gone home, not because I had somewhere else to be, but because something inside me refused to return. As if my emotions hadn’t fully settled. As if there was a truth I wasn’t ready to face yet.
The therapist’s voice came back to me. Not all of it. Just one question that refused to leave. “When was the last time you asked yourself whether she was happy, Adrian, not just whether she was still there?”
I exhaled slowly, my head dipping forward.
For years, I had measured everything by one thing alone. Whether Elena was still here. Whether she came home. Whether she slept in the same bed. Whether she hadn’t left.
I thought that was enough. I thought staying meant happiness.
My mind drifted to the moments I had once brushed aside, the way Elena no longer laughed without restraint, the way her words had become measured and safe, and how she stopped asking anything of me, as if wanting, hoping, or fighting no longer felt worth the cost.
I had told myself that was forgiveness. Now I understood it was resignation.
I closed my eyes.
