61. Fiona
Fiona
Fiona lay flat on her back in bed, eyes wide open in the dark.
The apartment was still. Quiet in that particular, oppressive way that made every tiny sound feel magnified—water ticking in the pipes, the hum of the refrigerator, the whisper of wind against the windows. Normally, this stillness soothed her. Tonight, it pressed down on her chest like a weight.
The bed didn’t help. This bed. Their bed.
The one where they’d once tangled legs and whispered about the future. The one where he’d loved her, and made love to her, and slept next to her.
She turned over for what had to be the thirtieth time, twisting the blanket around her legs.
She closed her eyes. Tried to summon sleep. Instead, she heard Dean’s voice. Defending her, celebrating her.
The words replayed uninvited, softer in memory than they’d sounded in the bar. But they still made her chest throb like a bruise. It wasn’t relief she felt. It wasn’t pride.
It was confusion. Ache. And something deeper, thornier.
She’d heard him declaring things she hadn’t known he’d even noticed. Fighting back against the people he used to invite to laugh at her.
He’d stood there, bare and cracked open, calling her kind, important, brave.
She turned over again, kicking the blanket off completely.
That wasn’t the Dean who had smiled politely while his friends made snide remarks. That wasn’t the Dean who had turned her into a joke online.
It was someone else. Or maybe… he was finally brave enough to be the man she had thought he was all along.
Fiona pressed her hand over her chest, fingers splayed like she could hold her heart in place. The ache wasn’t clean. It was messy and tangled. Not because she didn’t believe him—but because some part of her did.
That part was the problem.
The part that still loved him. The part that wanted to believe love could be enough. The part that ached for the sound of his voice saying things he never said when it would’ve mattered most.
She didn’t want to be wrong again.
Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. Not tonight. She was too tired. Too raw.
The morning light softened the edges of the apartment. Fiona sat curled on the couch, legs tucked under her, a half-finished cup of tea balanced on her knee. Her laptop glowed on the coffee table, displaying Emma and Marcy’s familiar faces.
They were sharing one camera, side-by-side on the couch back in Sweetwater—Emma in a hoodie, Marcy wrapped in a quilt. Behind them, Fiona could see the blurry background of Emma’s kitchen: the ever-growing stack of unread mail, Marcy’s travel mug on the counter.
“Okay,” Emma said gently, breaking the silence. “You called this emergency meeting.”
“I did,” Fiona said.
Marcy shifted, pulling the blanket tighter. “Wanna tell us why?”
Fiona hesitated. Her fingers tightened around the mug. “I keep thinking about him. About Dean.”
That earned a moment of silence on the other end of the call.
“Part of me—” Her throat tightened. “Part of me wants to forgive him.”
Emma didn’t rush in. She just waited.
“He’s done all these things,” Fiona explained in a rush. “Anonymous donations. Marketing help for the district. Groceries that just show up.”
Marcy sat up straighter, her voice quiet. “Fi…”
“I just… I don’t know if I’m allowed to,” Fiona said. The words came out small. “After everything. After how hurt I was. After everything I said.”
Emma’s brow creased. “Fi.”
She hesitated. “Just because he’s nice about it—just because he’s generous and quiet and doesn’t fight me—doesn’t mean he respects me any more than he ever did.”
“You’re allowed to forgive him if you want to,” Marcy said softly. “You’re allowed to want that.”
Fiona blinked.
“You’re allowed to change your mind,” Emma added. “You’re allowed to miss him. You’re allowed to not miss him. You’re allowed to feel ten contradictory things at once and still not have a clear answer.”
Fiona swallowed. “But what if it makes me look weak?”
Emma’s voice was firm now. “It doesn’t.”
“It makes you human,” Marcy said. “You don’t owe anyone a performance of strength.”
Fiona stared at the screen. “What if I forgive him and it’s a mistake?”
“Then it’s a mistake you made on your own terms,” Emma said. “And you’ll get through it. With us. With people who love you.”
Marcy nodded. “But Fi, it might not be a mistake. It might be the bravest thing you ever do.”
That undid her a little. Fiona pressed her sleeve to her cheek and exhaled.
“I left. I walked away. I started a whole new life. And now I’m sitting here in the apartment he gave me, still trying to make sense of how much I want to believe him.”
She tried not to think about the ring sitting twenty feet away, silent and accusatory in the dim entryway.
“I just want to feel like myself again,” she whispered. “Like I’m not carrying this knot around all the time.”
“You don’t have to decide today,” Emma said gently. “You’re allowed to wait.”
“And if you do decide?” Marcy said, softer now. “We’re on your team, no matter what.”
Fiona looked around the apartment. The same walls, the same floor, the same chipped windowsill. But it didn’t feel like it used to. It felt… open. Like maybe something new could live here.
“Thanks,” she said, voice steadier now. “I just needed to hear someone say it out loud.”
Emma raised her mug. “Say it with me, then.”
Marcy smiled. “You’re allowed.”
And Fiona—chest tight but a little lighter—whispered it back.
“I’m allowed.”
Fiona was juggling her keys and a bag of groceries when she nearly collided with Harold in the lobby.
"Oh! Ms. Fiona!” Harold's face lit up like Christmas morning. The building manager was in his sixties, with the kind of eager energy that suggested he lived for moments like this. "Perfect timing. I was just thinking about you."
"Hi, Harold," Fiona said, shifting the bag to her other arm. "Everything okay?"
"More than okay! That husband of yours—" Harold caught himself, his expression flickering with uncertainty. "I mean, your... well, I wasn't sure what to call him now, with the... situation."
Fiona's stomach dropped. "What about Dean?"
"Oh, he's such a thoughtful man. Really. You don't see that kind of devotion anymore." Harold was warming to his subject now, hands gesturing animatedly. "Setting up that whole arrangement like he did. Very thorough. Very organized."
"What arrangement?"
Harold blinked, as if just realizing she didn't know. "Oh. Oh my." He glanced around the empty lobby, then leaned in conspiratorially. "He's been taking care of everything. The maintenance requests, the utility bills, even asked me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you're comfortable."
The grocery bag slipped in her grip. "He what?" Fiona felt dizzy.
"Right after you moved back in. He was very specific about it—any repairs you needed, any problems at all, I was to handle it immediately and send him the bill.
" Harold's expression grew more serious.
"He also asked me to call him if anything seemed wrong.
If you seemed upset or if anyone was bothering you. "
Fiona's head was spinning. Dean had been orchestrating her safety, her comfort, her entire living situation from the shadows.
"He loves you very much," Harold continued, oblivious to her distress. "I've been managing this building for fifteen years, and I've never seen a man so concerned about his wife's wellbeing. Even gave me his new address, just in case." Harold patted his shirt pocket. "Very responsible."
In the elevator, Fiona leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
Dean hadn't just given her the apartment. He'd wrapped an entire support system around her without her knowledge. He was still taking care of her, still protecting her, still being her husband in every way he still could.
But what did that mean? What was she supposed to do with that information?
Her chest felt tight with a cocktail of emotions she couldn't untangle—gratitude and fury and something more.
The elevator dinged at her floor, but she didn't move.
She was tired of not knowing. Tired of sitting in this apartment he'd given her, surrounded by care he'd arranged, wondering what any of it meant. Whether he was just guilty or whether this was something else. Something real.
She needed answers. Not from Emma or Marcy or her own spiraling thoughts.
From him.
Fiona stood on the porch of a house she'd never seen before, feeling foolish. The address Dean had left with the building manager was scrawled on a piece of paper in her hand, now damp from her sweaty palm.
She shouldn't be here. She should be home, processing her feelings like a rational adult. Instead, she was standing outside a stranger's house, furious and confused and desperate for something she couldn't even name.
The door opened before she could knock.
A woman with kind eyes and graying hair pulled back in a loose bun smiled at her, and Fiona felt a flicker of recognition.
"Fiona," the woman said warmly. "I'm June. Dean's told us so much about you."
Fiona recognized her then. The woman from the banquet. The woman who had been kind enough to show her the social media account when the rest of the room had been happy to just laugh at her.
“Dean’s in the kitchen." June stepped aside, gesturing her in. "Fair warning—he's baking something that smells like heaven but looks like a science experiment."
Fiona followed June through a cozy living room filled with family photos and well-worn furniture. The house smelled like cinnamon and butter and something else—something that made her stomach clench with memory.
She found Dean standing at the kitchen counter, flour dusting his forearms, a mixing bowl cradled against his chest. His hair was sticking up like he'd been running his hands through it, and there was a smudge of something on his cheek.
He looked up when she appeared in the doorway, and his face transformed—surprise melting into something softer, more vulnerable.
"Fi," he breathed, setting down the bowl. "What are you—how did you?—"
"You left your address with the building manager," she said, her voice coming out sharper than she'd intended. "In case of emergencies."
His eyes searched her face. "Is everything okay? What can I do? What do you need?”
The concern in his voice, the way he stepped toward her instinctively, made something crack open in her chest. She was furious with him for making her feel this way—for making her want to forgive him when she wasn't ready, for making her miss him when she was supposed to be moving on.
"No," she said, then immediately contradicted herself. "Yes. I don't know."
Dean's hands were covered in flour, but he held them out toward her anyway. "What do you need?"
The simple question nearly undid her. What did she need?
She needed to not be so confused. She needed to not love him. She needed him to stop being so goddamn thoughtful when she was trying to hate him.
"I need—" Her voice cracked. "You said you'd do anything."
"I meant it."
"Then I need you to hug me," she whispered, hating how small her voice sounded. "I need you to hug me and not say anything about what it means or doesn't mean. I just need?—"
She didn't get to finish the sentence because Dean was already there, flour-dusted arms wrapping around her, pulling her against his chest. He smelled like cinnamon and home and the particular scent that was just him, and she buried her face in his shoulder and tried not to cry.
"I've got you," he murmured into her hair, one hand cradling the back of her head. "I've got you, Fi."
She let herself melt into him, let herself remember what it felt like to be held by someone who knew all her soft places. Then she pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"What are you making?" she asked, nodding toward the chaos on the counter.
Dean's cheeks flushed. "Cinnamon rolls. Your grandmother's recipe. I found it in that old cookbook you left behind." He gestured helplessly at the mess. "I thought maybe—I know you said baked goods solve everything, and I made fun of that, but?—"
"You're making my grandmother's cinnamon rolls," Fiona said slowly.
"Badly," he admitted. "The dough looks wrong, and I think I used too much cinnamon, and June had to help me figure out the oven temperature because apparently I don't know how to?—"
"Dean." Her voice stopped his rambling. "You're making my grandmother's cinnamon rolls."