44. Dean
Dean
Dean stood in the middle of their bedroom— her bedroom now—surrounded by boxes and the careful archaeology of a life being dismantled.
He'd started with his clothes. That was easy. The expensive suits, the designer shirts. Jeans, t-shirts, the concert shirt that still smelled faintly like her perfume.
The coffee maker stayed. The good one, the one that made her coffee exactly how she liked it. He'd packed his instant coffee instead, even though it tasted like disappointment.
The throw blanket she loved—the soft gray one she'd curl up in while grading papers—stayed draped over the couch exactly where she'd left it.
Her books were still on the shelves, mixed in with his. He'd thought about separating them, but some of them they'd read together, discussed over dinner, and he couldn't tell anymore what was hers and what was his and what belonged to the version of them that used to exist.
So he left them all.
In the kitchen, he left everything. The fancy cookware, the comfortable, well-seasoned cast iron pan she'd inherited from her grandmother.
Left the good knives, the stand mixer she'd used to make those cookies that had solved everything except the one thing that actually mattered to him now. Fiona’s heart.
The bathroom was harder. His shaving products went into a box, but he left the good towels, the lotions.
Dean opened the medicine cabinet and stared at her things still there—the face wash she'd used every night, the lip balm that tasted like strawberries, the hair ties scattered on every surface. He closed it without touching anything.
In the closet, her side was still mostly empty from when she'd packed that first time. But there were things she'd left behind—a few dresses, the cardigan with the small hole near the elbow that she'd never thrown away, shoes she'd probably forgotten about.
He left it all exactly where it was.
And on the entry table by the front door, next to the ceramic bowl that still held a tangle of spare keys and old receipts—her wedding ring. Quiet and final. Small enough to miss if you weren’t looking, heavy enough to knock the air out of his lungs when he was.
Dean stood frozen for a moment, staring at it.
Then, slowly, he reached out and turned off the hallway light. The apartment darkened around him, warm with silence, thick with memory.
And without fully deciding to, he drifted back toward the bedroom.
Dean couldn't bring himself to leave the bedroom.
He'd packed up, loaded box after box into his car. The living room was stripped of his presence, the kitchen cleared of his brand of coffee. But here, in this room where they'd built the most intimate parts of their life together, he found himself frozen.
He sat on the edge of the bed—their bed—perfectly made with the sheets she'd chosen. Soft cotton that felt like a cloud against bare skin. He could still smell her on the pillows, that faint floral scent from her shampoo mixed with something essentially Fiona.
God, he missed touching her.
Dean fell back against the mattress, closing his eyes, letting the memories wash over him.
Sunday mornings when she'd wake up with her hair a disaster and her face soft with sleep, reaching for him before she was even fully awake.
The way she'd curl into his side during thunderstorms, her breath warm against his neck.
How she'd laugh when he'd kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear, the way her body would arch toward his touch like she couldn't help herself.
He could picture her so clearly—the way she'd looked at him, shy and trusting and so beautiful it had stopped his heart. The way she'd whispered his name in the dark, her hands in his hair, her body moving beneath his like they were made to fit together.
The way she'd loved him with everything she had.
Dean pressed his face into her pillow, breathing her in, his chest tight with longing. His body responded to the memories, to her scent, to the phantom touch of her hands. He was already half-hard just from thinking about her, from lying in the bed where they'd made love countless times.
He shouldn't. This was pathetic, getting aroused by memories in the bed she'd be sleeping in without him. But God, he missed her so much it was killing him.
His hand moved without conscious thought, slipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. He closed his eyes tighter, remembering the way she used to touch him, the way she'd look at him with such trust, such want. The soft sounds she'd make when he?—
The front door clicked open.
Dean's eyes snapped open, his hand freezing. Footsteps in the hallway, getting closer.
Shit. Shit.
He scrambled to sit up, to look normal, but he was still hard, still obvious, and there was no time to?—
"Dean?"
Fiona appeared in the doorway, keys in one hand, work bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes went wide as she took in the scene—Dean on their bed, flushed, guilty, his hand still halfway to decent.
They stared at each other in mortified silence.