I need to erase her. Her scent, her touch, the poison of her words.
The scent is still in my nostrils. Floral, sugary sweet. A smell that reminds me of hotel rooms and late nights and the taste of my own failure. I cup my hands under the faucet and bring water to my face, splashing it over my cheeks, my chin, my closed eyes. The water drips down my neck, soaking my collar.
I grip the cold, pitted edges of the porcelain basin. The shame is coursing through me like a pink, hot, fever. My body buckles with a dry heave, a violent tightening that tears through my chest and leaves my ribs feeling like they’ve been kicked. I try to vomit it out of me.
The retch tears through my chest, empty and violent. Nothing comes up. As hard as I try.
The shame must not be in my stomach after all. It must be in my bones. It must be in my blood. It must be in the space behind my eyes, pressing outward, threatening to crack my skull.
“Never again,” I vow into the silence, my voice ragged. “Never.”
The word echoes off the tile. It sounds like a lie. I have saidnever againbefore. I have said it in this very bathroom, in this very mirror, looking at this very face. And then I went back. Again and again. Because Briana knew how to find me. BecauseI let her. Because some part of me—some small, rotten part—wanted to be found.
The guilt is a living thing in my chest, coiling and biting. But beneath it is another feeling. Desperate and bright.
Nora is still here.
The thought arrives like sunrise over a landfill. Sudden. Warm. Illuminating the wreckage of my shame and casting it in a different light. I have not lost everything. I have not lost her.
She saw the worst of me and didn’t walk away. That has to mean something. It has to mean there’s a chance. She wouldn’t stay for nothing. She wouldn’t endure this silence if there wasn’t something left to save. It’s almost touching, her endurance. It makes me feel like someone worthy, despite the fact that I am currently scrubbing my own skin raw in a public stall.
Maybe it’s because, against all odds, some part of her still loves me.
We need to escape. To get away from the wreckage I’d made and the constant shadow of my betrayal. To be somewhere Briana’s spectre couldn’t reach us. Somewhere the memory of her hands and her mouth and her whispered promises could not follow.
The idea takes root while I stand there, still white-knuckling the porcelain sink. My reflection stares back at me with sallow eyes.
A new place. A new beginning. Somewhere far from here, where the memories cannot follow.
I still have the Bali tickets.
I bought them weeks ago, in a fit of desperate optimism, hoping that a change of scenery would change everything.
We were supposed to pick a new place, but…
Forget it.
We’re going.
The decision crystallizes in my mind, solid and certain. I don’t need her permission. I don’t need her input. I know what is best for us. I know what she needs.
There’s no need for a new destination.
Bali is perfect. Nora claims she doesn’t like the ocean, but she’s never seenthisocean. She’s never stood on a beach at golden hour with the waves lapping thirstily at her feet and the wind sweeping her hair away from her heart-shaped face. I love it, and I know she will too—once I show her. Once she sees it through my eyes. I’ll be so attentive, so charming, that she’ll forget she ever said no.
I’ll make her smile again.
She’ll remember why she fell in love with me. It will all come back, slowly, over time. The trust. The warmth. The quiet, comfortable intimacy of a marriage that was not broken but merely bent.
Hope flares in my chest for the first time in months.
I can fix this. I can make everything right again.
I splash even more cold water on my face, run a hand through my hair, straighten my collar, and walk out of the office, the fantasy already settling into a plan.
On the way home, I stop at a florist. I pick lilies. They’re her favourite. They look like waxy, pale tongues, soft and delicate little things. Just like her. I drive the rest of the way with the stems clenched in my fist. By the time I pull into the driveway, my pulse is racing.
The house looks the same. The windows are dark. The curtains are drawn. The door is closed. Everything is as it should be.
