Chapter 16 #3
Ethan put two slices of bread in the toaster and waited, staring at the heating elements without really seeing them. His mind was spinning, running through the fight on repeat. The things he’d said. The things she’d said. The look on her face when he’d grabbed his keys and left.
The toast popped up. He buttered it mechanically, took it to the table, forced himself to take a bite.
It tasted like ashes.
The house felt wrong without them. Too quiet and empty. Too much like it had been before they came. Before Lydia’s laugh filled the kitchen, before the kids’ footsteps thundered on the stairs, before his house had felt like a home instead of just a place where he slept between shifts.
Too much like the three years after Sarah died.
Ethan had worked doubles to avoid coming home to the empty house. He had eaten takeout standing over the sink because there was no point in setting the table for one. He had gone through an empty life just … existing, breathing in and out for no other reason than his body demanding it.
Lydia and the kids had changed that and reminded him what it felt like to care about something other than work. To have a reason to come home. To want to wake up in the morning instead of just having to.
And now they might be leaving, and it would be his own fault.
Sarah’s rule. How had he forgotten Sarah’s rule?
“Never let me leave for a shift with bad blood between us,” she’d said, early in their relationship when they were still learning each other’s edges and soft spots. “Never go to sleep angry. Always make it right because you never know which goodbye will be the last one.”
It had been an adjustment for him, that rule.
For someone like Ethan, someone who’d grown up alone in the foster system, someone who’d learned early that conflict meant you’d be moved to a new home soon, sitting down to talk through disagreements had felt dangerous.
Vulnerable. Like picking at a scab that was better left alone.
But Sarah had insisted they practice it and encouraged him to stay even when he wanted to run. She made him say and hear the hard things, so they could work through them until they were okay again.
He’d grown to like it. There was security in being accountable to someone.
He appreciated having someone who cared enough to fight for the relationship instead of just letting him walk away.
He missed the intimacy of those late-night conversations where they’d hash out their hurt feelings and misunderstandings and come out stronger on the other side.
The night Sarah died, they’d followed the rule.
She’d been annoyed with him about something.
He couldn’t even remember what now, something stupid about him forgetting to pick up groceries or not calling when he said he would.
But they’d talked it through before her shift at the hospital.
She had hugged him on the front porch, and both had said “I love you” before she drove away.
Thank God they had. Thank God their last words to each other hadn’t been angry.
Because later that night she was dead, and at least Ethan had that. At least he knew she’d died knowing he loved her. At least their last moments together had been good.
He’d broken Sarah’s rule with Lydia. He had walked out angry and had driven away with her tears still wet on her face and the hurt in her eyes still burning into his memory.
He had spent his entire shift thinking about it, regretting it, but not doing anything to fix it because he was too proud or too stubborn or too afraid.
And now she sounded like she was leaving.
Thank you for everything.
Ethan pushed the barely-touched toast away and buried his face in his hands. The exhaustion was catching up with him now, twelve hours of work on top of no sleep the night before, on top of the emotional toll of the fight and the fear and the regret.
He should shower and change into clean clothes. He should make himself presentable for when Lydia and the kids got back.
The thought of standing in the shower was too much.
Ethan made his way to the same couch where he and Lydia had sat, kissing under the Christmas lights, talking about Sarah and Tom and the possibility of something new.
It was the same couch where he’d felt like maybe his story wasn’t over, and there were more chapters left, ones that could include Lydia and the kids.
He was just going to sit for a minute. Just rest his eyes. He needed to stay awake until they got back. Needed to be alert and ready to apologize, to make things right, to beg Lydia not to leave if that’s what she was planning.
9 AM. They’d be back by 9 AM. He checked his phone. 8:47. Thirteen minutes. He could stay awake for thirteen minutes.
Ethan’s eyes drifted closed.
He tried to fight it, tried to force them back open, but the exhaustion pressed down on his entire body. The couch was soft. The house was quiet. His body was running on fumes after a double shift and no sleep.
Just for a minute, he told himself. He just needed a quick rest and then he’d get up. He would be standing in the kitchen when they walked in. He would have the right words ready, and he could fix this.
Just a minute …