Chapter Twenty-Eight
Disappear
Ariana
Present
I stared at my hands — the weathered, textured skin of them and how my knuckles were white from gripping so tightly. I had them folded in my lap, and I looked at them as if it were the first time, as if they were something to discover, as if they held all the answers.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Those hands were once young, once smooth and pale and devoid of the fine lines that marked them now.
They once held fast to a boy who loved me and made me feel safe.
They once cared for my younger brother, holding him and bathing him and teaching him how to ride a bike.
They once worked for me, writing grant applications and college essays.
They once helped the community I cared about so much.
Now, they were cold and brittle. They trembled from fear. They ached with loss. They longed for a past so far out of reach I couldn’t even see it anymore.
Nathan came home the Sunday after Thanksgiving looking like a complete stranger. His eyes were red and underlined with a deep purple, like he hadn’t slept all week. He kissed me absentmindedly upon his arrival, immediately showering and then passing out until he had to work the next morning.
When he finally asked me what I did for Thanksgiving after not checking in even once on his trip, I told him the truth.
And it had been a mistake.
At first, I didn’t think he cared. “You were gone and they invited me,” I’d explained, and he’d acted like it was no big deal. But after a long, quiet dinner, he’d started in on the questions.
“Where was it?”
“How long did you stay?”
“Who was there?”
Every question was careful and calculated, but it was enough for me to know he was building a story in his mind. Somehow, by the end of the conversation, I was backpedaling and trying to justify why I went. I felt guilty.
Me.
The one who was left behind while he went to Vegas for the holiday, who would have spent that holiday alone had it not been for Shane’s invitation.
But Nathan didn’t care.
He’d have rather me been alone, if his tone was any indication.
And I should have felt guilty — not for spending Thanksgiving with friends, but for what I did after.
Except I didn’t.
I didn’t feel a single ounce of anything other than longing when it came to what happened with Shane. I wished for a world where I could have stayed right there in his arms, where I could have let him kiss me senseless, where I could have believed him and the notion that it could all be so easy.
“I’d take your hand and run. Tonight. Right now. Without looking back.”
A chain twisted around my heart and pulled tight at the memory of those words, at how desperately I wished for them to be true.
But for the first time since the day Shane McCabe walked away from me, I understood why he did it.
It was the same reason I couldn’t stay, the same reason I couldn’t entertain his offer.
I loved him. Even still, maybe always, I loved him.
And I loved him enough to not let him lose everything that mattered to him just for me.
If I would have let him take me home, if we would have crossed even further over that line between us, everything would have imploded. Nathan would have lost his mind — he already was just with the knowledge that I was in the same household with Shane for Thanksgiving.
“I told you to stay away from him,” he’d seethed.
“He was one of like fifteen people, Nathan,” I’d explained, exasperated. “I was invited and so was he. What was I supposed to do? Walk out because he was there and just spend Thanksgiving by myself?”
“I’m not angry because you went,” he’d said slowly, like he was meticulously picking each word to make sure they hit their mark.
“I’m angry because you knew exactly how much it would hurt me — and you decided my feelings mattered less than your discomfort.
” He’d tilted his head, looking at me as if he didn’t know me.
“That tells me everything I need to know.”
If I were the woman I was even a week ago, he would have achieved his goal. I would have died from guilt and apologized and beat myself up for days, wondering what the hell I was doing.
As it stood now, I only felt suspicious and numb.
But his reaction did solidify the truth in my mind: Nathan would have come after Shane if I were to leave. He would fire him, at the very least, and kill him, at the very worst.
And he wouldn’t just let me go.
There wouldn’t be an easy divorce where we just sign a few pages and go our separate ways. He would make it drag. He would make it hurt.
He’d take everything — including Georgie’s tuition money.
I had nothing without him. I hated that fact, but it was true. My degree was old and unused. Every nonprofit I’d been involved with since we married had been under Nathan’s thumb, which meant he held the key to all my references of the last ten years.
I didn’t have a dime to my name because he managed all our money.
He promised to take care of me.
And I stupidly trusted him.
Worse than anything that might happen to me was what would happen to Shane.
He would have his job ripped from him, his only tie to hockey gone in a flash. And Nathan would make sure he never had another job in the league.
It would be over for him.
And I knew hockey was everything in his heart.
It didn’t make any of it hurt less, and I’d felt like a ghost going through the motions since the night I drove out of Will’s driveway. I wanted to talk to Shane, to explain my coldness, to make sure he knew that I didn’t regret that kiss, that I wished it could be more.
But I stayed away.
Nathan was watching me like a hawk, questioning everything — and now, it was bleeding into Sweet Dreams.
He’d been different since his return from Vegas, moving through our house with a quiet, methodical purpose, like he was taking inventory of a life he suddenly suspected wasn’t his anymore.
He combed through the mail the moment he walked in, asked offhand questions about packages I’d already opened.
He checked the bank app over breakfast, eyes flicking to me as if he expected me to flinch.
He lingered in doorways when I got ready for work, watching me the way a scientist might watch something that had slipped out of its enclosure.
His suspicion was a creeping, living thing.
When he asked what kept me out of the house until nearly midnight when I was preparing for the Sweet Dreams Gala, his jaw clenched at my reply. “You were working on Sweet Dreams that long?” He’d shaken his head. “Maven didn’t mention staying that late.”
The day after that, he wanted paperwork — invoices, schedules, timelines.
“Something feels off,” he’d murmured, scrolling through his phone when I’d given him everything he’d asked for. “It’s probably nothing. I just like things to be clean.”
Then came the digs, soft as tissue paper, but sharp all the same.
“You’re always tired lately. Maybe Sweet Dreams is too much responsibility for you.”
“We should review our budget. Georgie’s tuition review is next month—don’t forget.”
“You looked flustered at the rink today. You should be careful. Optics matter.”
Each comment was mild, reasonable, even helpful if I looked at them sideways. But every one carved out a little more space inside me and replaced it with him.
And now, I was sitting alone in our bedroom with my hands folded tightly in my lap, trying to recover from the blow that finally took me down.
“I talked to PR,” he’d said to me tonight, loosening his tie as he sat down at the table I’d set for dinner. “Given your… emotional connection to the families, it’s better if you step back from Sweet Dreams. Let Maven and Grace take point on the gala. You can help from behind the scenes.”
Panic had slithered in and choked me like a snake.
“Nathan…” I wished I could say my voice was even and calm, but it was impossible for his name not to be a shocked plea.
“It’s better this way. You’ll have more time to devote to the house. And we have your big birthday party coming up — your focus should be there.”
“Nathan,” I’d begged again, shaking my head as my eyes flooded with tears. “Please don’t—”
“Don’t what?” He’d tilted his head, as if he were innocent, as if he didn’t know he was ripping my heart from my chest. “I’m protecting you, Ari.
And the organization. You’ve been spreading yourself too thin lately.
Besides, you don’t want sponsors thinking you’re too close to the beneficiaries.
That wouldn’t be good for anyone. Especially not Georgie. ”
And that was it — the veiled threat not so hidden any longer. He’d locked his eyes on me with the mention of my brother’s name, as if he were daring me to try him.
We’d eaten the rest of dinner in silence, and then Nathan had excused himself to meet an “important business colleague” downtown for drinks.
Which was how I ended up here, perched on the edge of our bed, staring at my hands like they belonged to someone else. Like they might listen if I silently willed them to fight, to run, to save me.
But they only trembled.
I stood, walking slowly to our closet where I dug through my clothes on hangers to a hidden shelf behind them. Wrapped in an old reusable bag and covered with spare fabric from when I’d tried my hand at sewing was Shane’s old Boston College Hockey hoodie.
I slipped it over my head and let the pain sear me, my eyes welling with tears as I fell into a heap on the closet floor.
I curled into the hoodie, tucking my legs under it, pulling the sleeves over my shaking hands and inhaling deep as if the scent would still be there.
It had faded long ago, but my memory of what it was to be loved by Shane McCabe never would.
I thought of my mother — of all the years I’d watched her shrink inside herself, bite down on her tongue, apologize for things that weren’t her fault. I used to wonder why she didn’t leave. How she didn’t scream. Why she didn’t run.
Now, I understood in a way that made my stomach lock up like a malfunctioning machine.
It broke my heart when she died. But lately… lately I’d caught myself wondering if it wasn’t mercy in the end. I wondered if she didn’t long for the quiet of it, if slipping away hadn’t felt like opening a door that had been locked for years.
Because sometimes, even when I was ashamed to admit it to myself, the idea of not existing at all felt easier than living in a hell no one else could see.
My fingers curled, ice cold and shaking, nails digging into my palms.
I wasn’t my mother.
But for the first time, I finally understood how someone like her — someone like me — could disappear without ever leaving.