Chapter 20
The house was too quiet after she left.
The soft click of the door felt final, like a closing chapter in a book he didn't want to finish reading.
Gray stood there for in a daze for a long moment, staring at the space where Cadi had been, at the suitcases she had dragged across the floor, at the last trace of her presence before she was gone.
Then, slowly, as if in a daze, he moved to clean up the broken glass.
The shattered remains of their framed photograph glittered cruelly against the wooden floor, mocking him. He crouched down, mechanically picking up the pieces, working slowly, methodically-like if he fixed this mess, it might somehow undo the other mess he had made.
A sharp sting.
A thin sliver of glass sliced into his finger.
Gray exhaled sharply, watching a single drop of blood bead up, then slide down his skin. Fitting, he thought bitterly.
He stood up and walked to the bathroom, flicking the tap on and letting cold water run over the cut. His hands were steady, but his mind was anything but.
Then, as he reached for a towel, his eyes caught on something in the laundry basket.
A soft, faded T-shirt, discarded casually among the other clothes.
Cadi's.
His breath hitched.
Without thinking, without hesitating, he picked it up and pressed it to his face.
Her scent was still there.
That familiar mix of wildflowers and something that was just... her.
A scent that had once meant home.
A sound escaped his throat-something broken, something he didn't recognize as his own.
His chest tightened painfully, and sudden tears burned his eyes.
He squeezed them shut, gripping the fabric tighter, his knuckles turning white.
This trainwreck he had started...
Why?
Why had he let it spiral like this?
Why hadn't he just asked her?
Why had he believed the worst of her-of the only person who had ever truly been his?
Something inside him lurched, deep and sickening.
He had gotten it wrong.
Somewhere, somehow, he had made a mistake.
And now, he was going to pay for it.
His phone lit up on the bathroom counter.
He barely glanced at the screen before his stomach twisted.
A couple of messages from Vanessa. A couple from his colleagues. One from Eila
He didn't open them.
Didn't even care.
There was nothing from Cadi.
His jaw tightened as something dark and helpless coiled in his chest.
He had expected her to cry and fight. And he would have forgiven her ,he still loved her so much.
But that was not how it went.
She hadn't messaged.
Hadn't even sent something angry, something scathing, something to let him know she still cared enough to hate him.
He wanted to rush to Callum's place.
He wanted to kick the damn door in, grab her, drag her back by her hair if he had to.
But then he remembered the way she had looked at him before leaving.
That cold, resigned certainty.
The DNA test was going to happen.
Nothing else mattered now.
He fell asleep with Cadi's T-shirt clenched in his fist, pressed against his chest like it could somehow hold him together.
His eyes burned. His head pounded. Sleep did not come for the longest time.
When it finally did, it was restless, fractured-filled with nightmares that weren't nightmares at all, just memories twisted into something worse.
Cadi laughing as she painted, the tip of her nose smudged with blue.
Cadi rolling her eyes at him, muttering about how orthopaedic surgeons were just overpaid jocks who slept through their internal medicine rotations.
Cadi on their wedding day, breath-taking in white lace, looking at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.
And then-
Her voice, cold, harder than he had ever heard it before.
"I only have Tomos now."
Gray's eyes snapped open.
His breathing was ragged, his body tense, a deep ache lodged somewhere in his chest that he couldn't shake off.
He stared at the ceiling for a long moment before sitting up abruptly.
He needed a drink.
Gray made his way downstairs, his steps slow, dragging, like his body was resisting every movement.
His hands went automatically to the back of his whiskey cupboard, pulling out a bottle of Teeling.
He didn't bother with a glass.
The first sip burned down his throat, but he didn't stop.
Neither did the second.
Or the third.
The house was silent, except for the occasional soft clink of the bottle against the counter as he drank.
At some point, he lost track of time.
Somewhere past the halfway point of the bottle, the realization finally hit him.
If he had gotten it wrong. But how?
If he had-
How was he supposed to live with himself?
A heavy shudder wracked through him, his hand gripping the neck of the bottle tighter.
The rage he had carried, the certainty that had fuelled him, had been the only thing keeping him from feeling this-
The deep, hollow guilt.
The possibility that he had just destroyed the best thing in his life over a lie.
And now, there was nothing left to do but watch the wreckage burn.