Chapter 2 #2
He came down a few steps and sat beside me. Not too close. Between us remained the distance of a single breath, but I felt him with my whole body. Damien could fill space even in silence.
"The message was work-related," he said.
I raised my eyes to his.
"Work-related?"
"Yes."
"'She almost figured it out'—that's work-related?"
"I have people under my protection. There are women who need to be hidden from husbands, from partners, from men who think they have the right to beat or buy them. Sometimes they write strange things. Sometimes they blur the line between personal and professional."
He spoke calmly, confidently, without a single unnecessary pause.
Too believably. So believably that shame washed over me.
Of course. His security firm. Classified clients.
Women under protection. I knew what he did for a living.
Knew it—and still had nearly held a funeral for my marriage over a single text.
"Then why did you say it was none of my business?"
"Because it isn't."
"But if it's about me—"
"It isn't about you."
"I read it."
"You saw words and invented a meaning. Those are different things."
I lowered my head. My chest still stung, but his explanation was already spreading across my panic like warm cotton.
I wanted to believe him. So badly that I almost hated myself for it.
Believing was easier than knowing. You could believe inside this house, with the children, with his voice behind the wall. Knowing would have to be done alone.
"I'm sorry," I said.
Damien was silent.
"I shouldn't have looked."
"No, you shouldn't have."
He didn't even soften the blow. Simply accepted my apology as his due, like surrendered weapons.
"I got scared."
"Of what?"
The question was quiet, almost tender, and it made my throat tighten again.
"Of losing you."
Damien looked at me for a long time. Then he raised his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers touched my temple, my cheek, lingered at my chin. I froze, like a starving woman who'd been offered bread but not yet allowed to take it.
"You do this to yourself, Niki."
"Do what?"
"The fear. The tears. These scenes."
"This isn't a scene."
"Then what is it?"
I wanted to say: it's me. Alive. Awkward. Frightened. Yours. But I said something else:
"I just want to understand what's happening with us."
He smirked with one corner of his mouth.
"What's happening with us is life. Kids, work, age, exhaustion. And you want me to prove every day that you're still the girl from the wedding album."
Something inside me tightened like straps.
"I don't want to be a girl."
"Then stop demanding to be treated like one."
"All I'm asking is for you not to hurt me."
"Pain isn't always the fault of the one who told the truth."
I turned away. Tears stood in my eyes again, but now I wouldn't let them fall.
He was close. Warm, strong, smelling of home and someone else's anxiety.
I could have laid my head on his shoulder.
Could have said: "Hold me, please." And maybe he would have.
Maybe he'd even have kissed the top of my head, like he did Marta's.
But I was more afraid of hearing a refusal than I wanted the touch.
"Go to bed," he said.
"What about you?"
"I have a few calls."
"Now?"
"Niki."
That was all. One name. A wall.
I got up first. In the bedroom, I took off the dress and stood in front of the mirror in my underwear for a long time without turning on the overhead light.
Red lines from the shapewear were imprinted on my skin.
They crossed my stomach, my sides, my ribs, like a map of defeat.
I ran my finger along one line and suddenly thought: it wasn't the shapewear that had squeezed me.
It was the marriage. The shapewear had just been more honest—at least it left marks.
In the bathroom, I washed my face with cold water, removed my mascara, applied my night cream.
Mechanically. Like a woman who tends to her body because she no longer knows what to do with her soul.
Then I returned to the bedroom, opened Damien's closet to hang up his jacket—he'd tossed it on the armchair, as always, and I, as always, picked it up.
Wife. Mother. Housekeeper. The quiet function of a big house.
A small, folded slip of paper fell from the inside pocket.
I froze.
It wasn't a receipt. Wasn't a business card. White, heavy-stock paper, folded in quarters. It smelled of women's perfume. Not sharp. Barely noticeable. That same sweet scent I'd already caught in his car and immediately talked myself into forgetting.
I should have put the note back.
Should not have looked.
Should have been wise, calm, should not have fantasized, should not have made scenes, should not have confused my insecurities with motherhood.
I unfolded the paper.
Inside were just a few lines.
"I know you don't like being taught mercy, Commander, but she looked like she was about to break. Don't break her in front of the children. Save that for when we're alone.
And then come over.
I'll be wearing the red one—the one you undressed me with your eyes before she even came downstairs."
And beneath them—a lipstick print. Red. Perfect. At once foreign and familiar.