Chapter 3 #2
I froze. In that sentence there was so much dirty tenderness and mockery at once that my head spun.
He took a step, plucked the letter from my hand.
I didn't hold on. Or couldn't. His fingers brushed mine, and my body—treacherous, hungry-for-him body—shuddered as if it hadn't heard a single word he'd said.
Damien unfolded the paper, read it, then folded it and put it in his pocket.
"I'll handle it."
"Handle her?"
"The situation."
"And me?"
He looked at me tiredly.
"What's there to handle with you? You're my wife."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the foundation. Answers are built on foundations."
"I'm not a thing, Damien."
"I know."
"No, you don't. You say 'my wife' the way you'd say 'my lock on the door.'"
He came close. He smelled of cologne, warmth, the remnants of the evening, and that terrible authority before which I still weakened, even hating myself for it.
His palm settled on the side of my neck.
Didn't squeeze. Just rested there. His thumb touched the skin beneath my ear, where my pulse was hammering.
"Would you rather I said 'not mine'?" he asked, low. "That I let go? That I step aside and watch you finish yourself off with fantasies?"
"I want you to tell the truth."
"The truth is that you're exhausted, you've lost confidence in yourself, and right now you're looking for a woman to blame for what's happening to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. To you. You stopped liking yourself and decided that I'm obligated to hate myself for it along with you."
Tears sprang instantly. I couldn't even stop them.
"You're cruel."
"I'm honest."
"No. Honesty heals. You cut and call it medicine."
His fingers on my neck trembled. For a second I thought he was about to hold me. Really hold me. Break this cursed night, press me to his chest, say: "You idiot, I'm here." And I, of course, would have forgiven him. Not because he was right. Because I still loved him far too much.
Damien leaned down and touched his lips to my forehead.
The kiss was short. Dry. Almost paternal. It burned something inside me to ash.
"Sleep," he said. "In the morning you'll feel ashamed."
That was all.
Not "I'm sorry." Not "I'm not cheating." Not "I need you." Only shame. Mine, of course.
In the morning I'd feel ashamed for finding a stranger's note in his pocket. For crying. For wanting the truth. For the fact that my body hadn't returned to its former shape and my soul hadn't learned to stay quiet.
He left the bedroom, taking the letter with him.
I didn't lie down. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the closed door for a long time.
Something was shifting inside me. Not beautifully, not proudly, not like in novels where a woman becomes strong overnight.
No. I was being broken up finely and painfully, like a bone that had healed wrong and now had to be re-broken.
I was terrified. I was so afraid of losing him that my vision blurred.
But for the first time in eight years, alongside the fear, anger rose. Small, thin, trembling. Mine.
The phone on the nightstand vibrated.
I flinched, grabbed it, nearly dropped it. The message was from Lara.
"Are you okay? Can't sleep? I'm worried. You were completely white tonight. Just please don't spiral because of Damien. Men like him are always a little distant, even when they love you."
I stared at the screen and felt myself start to shake again. It looked like concern. It looked like a sister. It looked like nothing. But the words "even when they love you" caught in my throat like a hook.
I typed: "Do you know something?"
Deleted it.
Typed again: "Lara, is he seeing someone?"
Deleted it.
My fingers were trembling so badly that I hit the wrong button, opening not my chat with Lara but the family group chat: me, Damien, Mom, Lara. The last message there was from yesterday, from me: "Don't forget, party at 6:00 PM." There was no "I'll be early" from Lara.
I stared at the emptiness after my message, and the cold rose from the floor, crept under my robe, into my spine, into the back of my skull.
Damien had lied. A small thing. Just a small thing.
But chasms are held together by exactly such small things, until you realize you're already standing over the edge.
Downstairs, a door slammed.
I ran to the window. Headlights flared on the driveway.
Damien walked out of the house in a dark jacket, quickly, purposefully, without a single wasted movement.
For a second he raised his head, as if he'd felt my gaze.
I recoiled into the shadow, my heart pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it through the glass.
The car pulled away.
***
I don't know how long I sat there. Maybe five minutes.
Maybe an hour. The house was quiet—only the faint hum of the refrigerator somewhere below and water running through pipes, as if the house itself were trying to wash this evening off.
Then I suddenly remembered his phrase. "The house has cameras.
" He'd said it casually. Or not casually.
With Damien, nothing was ever casual—even his lies always stood in the right place, like a car in a garage: straight, expensive, without a single scratch.
I got up and left the bedroom barefoot. The floor was cold, the robe fell open at the chest, but I no longer fixed it.
For the first time in a long while, I didn't care how I looked.
I wasn't shaking from shame. From anger.
From fear. From the need to finally see something real.
Damien's study smelled of leather, tobacco, paper, and him.
I never entered without permission. Never.
Even when I brought coffee, I knocked, like a stranger.
On the desk lay a tablet, connected to the house's system.
The screen came alive at my touch, as if it had been waiting.
I almost laughed from the horror: the access was open.
Either Damien was so certain I'd never dare that he hadn't even locked it.
On the screen hung small camera squares: the foyer, the living room, the staircase, the kitchen, the backyard. I tapped the living room recording, then rewound to the time when I was still upstairs zipping my dress and begging myself not to look pathetic.
The image jerked, began playing without sound. Empty living room. White flowers. Silver balloons.
And then I saw them.
And then I recognized her.
Lara by the fireplace in a red dress. Damien enters the frame.
I held my breath so sharply my ribs ached.
They stood close, but weren't touching yet.
No. Just a conversation. Just a sister who'd arrived early.
Just a husband checking that everything was ready.
It could still be explained. It could still save me from the truth.
Lara said something and smiled. Damien didn't smile back—only looked at her the way he could look when he didn't want anyone to read him too soon. Then he turned his head toward the doors. Quickly. Checked the living room, the foyer, the staircase. No one. No caterers. No children. No me.
Something inside me snapped before he even took the next step.
Damien took Lara by the elbow and drew her toward him.
Not roughly. Not accidentally. Confidently—the way you take something that is already used to answering the call.
She wasn't even surprised. She just lifted her face, and he kissed her.
Quickly. Hard. Without tenderness, but with such terrible familiarity that it made me sicker than if he'd been caressing her.
Because this was not a first kiss. A first kiss looks different.
A first kiss trembles, searches, frightens itself.
This one was short, precise, stolen between the guests and the staircase—like a thing they had already taken without asking many times before.
I gripped the edge of the desk with my fingers to keep from falling.
Lara pulled away first. Not frightened. Pleased.
She fixed her lipstick with her pinky, then reached out and lifted a light hair from Damien's shoulder.
She didn't flick it away. Didn't brush it off.
She lifted it with two fingers, almost tenderly—the way you remove not debris but a trace of yourself.
Damien caught her wrist. Held it for a second against his chest. Then said something. Lara smiled wider.
The recording continued, but I could barely see faces anymore. I was staring at her hand. At the thin bracelet glinting under the chandelier light. A gold chain with a small garnet stone.
I had given Lara that bracelet for her last birthday.
And that was when I was finally ripped from the last saving grace of "it can't be."