Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
He answers with his body, and for a little while the edges blur. I let the waves of it rush up and over me, not thinking, not measuring, letting the need to be chosen, to be wanted, eclipse anything that’s jagged and sharp.
And then, at the moment the scene becomes its most private, I let it go—to black. I let the details fade out like lights deliberately dimmed, the warmth and rhythm flattening to the shape of a memory I don’t have to replay. What matters isn’t the mechanics; it’s the ache afterward. It’s the way he is done and I lay over him, listening to his heartbeat wishing it beat for me only once again.
He rolls away first. He always does now.
“Shower,” he says, already on his feet, already scooping his phone off the nightstand without thinking and then putting it back down—oddly, carefully—like he remembered something and then decided against it. He twists the bathroom knob and steam starts to echo as the water thunders on, a rush that swallows the room.
I lie there, the sheet cooling against my skin, the ceiling fan spinning in tranquil, indifferent circles. The ocean keeps talking beyond the glass, relentless as the tide moves in and loud like truth crashing to the shore.
It’s small things that add up to wrong.
Before he didn’t leave the bed without taking me by the hand to shower with him. He used to pull me under the spray with him, laughing when I squealed about cold tile and hot water. He used to kiss me after, water beading on his lashes, his hair stuck in little dark peaks. He used to leave his phone anywhere—kitchen counter, the pocket of a jacket slung on a chair, the arm of the couch—like it was just an object, not an attachment. Now it follows him like a shadow he babysits. And when we were together, the phone was second to me, not the other way around.
Nerves prickle like static under my skin. I turn my head toward the nightstand. The phone is a black rectangle of silence. Face-down. No case, because he hates them. Bare glass, bare secrets. Four minutes pass. I count them on the clock across the room, the second hand stuttering and leaping like it does, always catching up a fraction late.
The water slides hotter, I hear the click of the fancy faucet dial he had to have. He increases the temperature when he’s thinking. I know this because I know him. The intrusive thought is stubborn. It doesn’t let me go.
I shouldn’t do it. That runs through my head alongside the reminder that I have to. They chase each other in circles until my body moves without my permission. I sit up. My heart is too loud. The room is too quiet. The white noise from the shower fills every gap as I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand.
My feet hit the rug. The rug is an absurd thing—handwoven, Brian said, like that’s supposed to mean I should be afraid to step on it. I cross it anyway and stop at the nightstand, looking down at the phone like it might bite.
If I touch it, I’m the one crossing a line. That’s what he’ll say. He’ll make it about my hands, not his transgressions. But lines in the sand don’t appear without reason. They’re drawn until a truce is made.
I breathe in, slow. Out, slower. I press my fingers to the edge of the phone and slide it into my palm. It’s lighter than I expect. It’s also heavier. I flip it over.
The lock screen is a picture of water. He took it from the local pier at sunset, the kind of photo that looks expensive even though it cost nothing. That is the thing about living here in Indian Beach full time. Yes, he has a home in Charlotte and another in California. He only goes to Charlotte for work, California for family, and this little spot in coastal North Carolina he considers our hideaway.
The insecurity finds me again, am I his hideaway? This home is the cheapest of them all even though I’m sure he spent at least two to three million on it. I never thought about how this home serves no purpose for him except to escape work, that’s what he used to say. Now, I question everything.
Two notifications flash up before dimming: Calendar alert for something vague—“Lunch”—and a Messages banner that only gives me a name: Q.
No preview. He changed his settings. He never used to hide previews.
I chew the inside of my cheek. The bathroom fan hums. A muted clunk of shampoo bottle against tile. He’s whistling, off-key.
I know the passcode. I didn’t go looking for it. He gave it to me two years ago, on a drive back from Charlotte, when he needed me to pull up directions and he was going eighty-five.