Chapter 14
Zoe
"So, what do you want to do?" Maya asks, her eyes searching my face as she rests her mug on the counter.
"Well, I want to go to him, you see..."
I cut myself off, keeping the rest of the thought locked away. Speaking too much feels like a betrayal of the vulnerability he showed me in the hallway last night, and I am not ready to expose his rawest parts to my family.
"So, remember when you said it feels as though he is carrying some kind of hidden guilt?" I continue, shifting the angle.
Maya huffs, nodding her head in immediate acknowledgment. "Yeah, I do remember saying that."
"I overheard him talking with Sarai on the terrace last night.
Your suspicion was accurate. He has been carrying a burden over Julian's death all this time.
Sarai was fully aware of it, but Chris had no idea she knew.
She kept using that unsaid weight to reel him in whenever she called, and he just kept running to her. "
Maya’s jaw drops, her hand flying over her lips. "Oh. That is twisted. Are we certain she is entirely stable?"
"Oh well," I mutter, turning toward the sink.
"That is wild," Dana’s voice crackles from the speaker of my phone, resting on the kitchen island. I had temporarily forgotten she was patched into the call.
I reach into the cabinet for a glass to pour some cold water from the pitcher. Before the glass is even half full, the sudden chime of the doorbell echoes through the parlor.
"I'll get it," Maya calls out, her slippers padding across the hardwood floor.
I take a slow sip of the water, listening to the muffled sounds of a delivery at the front entrance.
"Ooh, that is a substantial bouquet of flowers you’ve got there," Maya announces from the foyer.
After a few more rustling noises, I pour a second glass from the jug, preparing to carry it out, when a low, familiar voice breaks the domestic quiet.
"Where is my wife?"
My fingers freeze around the glass handle. I poke my head out from the kitchen threshold, stepping into the parlor just as my sister pivots toward me with a smirk.
"Oh, here she is," Maya says.
I squint, trying to find my husband's face behind a literal shrubbery of assorted blooms. Repeating my sister's observation, a laugh threatens to escape my throat. "Ooh, that is a whole lot of flowers, Chris."
He finally bends his knees, lowering the massive arrangement to the floor tiles. The moment his head clears the petals, I notice multiple small blossoms and leaves stuck directly in the messy strands of his hair.
"I didn't know what to get you," Chris says, rubbing the back of his neck as his cheeks flush. "Because I know you keep different varieties of flowers around the house depending on your moods."
"Aww," Dana coos from the kitchen island speaker.
I shake my head, a smile breaking across my face despite my best efforts to keep my guards up. "Thank you, I guess, for this amount of flowers."
Chris bites his lower lip, his gaze locking onto mine with an unblinking focus. "What do you say we go out for dinner tonight, before we have to leave the day after tomorrow?"
My smile expands, the warmth reaching my eyes. He knows exactly what he is doing right now. I always preferred it when he dropped the overly cautious behavior and operated with a direct, slightly cocky certainty.
I look him up and down, leaning against the doorframe. "What if I have absolutely nothing to wear to a fancy dinner, Chris?"
He nods, a matching smile appearing on his lips. We stand there simply reading each other's expressions, navigating the unsaid spaces between us through the shift in our posture.
"Hmm," he murmurs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'll handle the dress and the shoes, Zoe."
"If you can get them to my room before six o'clock, then I will go on that date with you."
Chris cuts his eyes to the wall clock, calculating the remaining hours, and nods firmly. "Can I hug you?"
The wide smile remains plastered on his face. I let out a genuine laugh, nodding my consent. "Yes."
He steps forward, wrapping his broad arms around my shoulders and pulling me tight against his chest for a brief, solid second. The moment he releases me, he turns on his heel and exits the house to execute his mission.
I turn back into the room, letting out a series of quiet giggles I can't suppress. Maya crosses her arms, shaking her head. "You guys were openly flirting right in front of me."
I laugh again, pressing my palms to my warm cheeks. It has been a very long time since I felt this giddy.
***
The garment bag arrives at the hotel room precisely at six o'clock, delivered by a quiet member of the concierge staff.
There is no card attached to the zipper—none is needed.
I slide the silk dress out of the lining, recognizing the deep forest green immediately.
It is the exact shade of the gown I wore the night we celebrated our engagement; a color he once whispered made my eyes look like a forest worth getting lost in.
I stand before the vanity mirror for a long time, holding the silk against my frame before I let myself put it on. I track the reflection, telling myself this compromise doesn't mean anything yet. I tell myself I still hold the right to say no at the threshold if his execution fails.
I don't say no.
He is waiting in the hotel lobby at seven o'clock sharp.
A tight sensation hits my stomach at the sight of him standing by the glass partition in a crisp, dark suit.
His hands are buried deep in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the elevator doors like a man who isn't entirely sure I am actually going to step out.
The moment the metal doors slide apart and I step into the light; his entire face alters. It isn't the practiced, smooth warmth he uses to charm business associates or strangers; it is something rawer, loose with uncertainty.
"You look..." He cuts the sentence short, shaking his head slightly as he paths toward me. "I am not going to say something cliché that you will roll your eyes at."
"Wise choice," I reply, and the corner of his mouth lifts, just barely.
The restaurant he selected is small and tucked away down a quiet alley, the tables spaced far enough apart to ensure no other diners can catch our conversation.
He slides my chair out for me before the host can even reach for the mahogany frame.
I can't tell if the gesture is a lingering habit or a conscious effort, so I keep the question to myself.
We place our orders with the waiter. We manage to navigate the appetizers by relying on safe, neutral topics—Elizabeth's upcoming plans, Nate's schoolwork, anything that avoids the elephant sitting between us—until he sets his fork down deliberately against the porcelain, his shoulders squaring as if he has been building up his resolve the entire evening.
"I want to tell you everything, Zoe," he says, his voice dropping into a low register. "Not the modified version I fed to Sarai when I was desperately trying to make the guilt stop. The whole truth, exactly as it happened, even the parts that make me look terrible."
I fold my hands neatly in my lap beneath the linen cloth and wait.
"Two days after we found out you were pregnant with Nate, I was sitting in the office with Julian," he begins, his jaw tightening as he stares at the space between us.
"We were joking around, the way we always did.
I said something stupid—a careless, dark joke about a car hitting his vehicle on his way out of the lot.
He just laughed it off. He told me if that ever happened, I had to promise to take care of Sarai, because she was pregnant too. "
I go perfectly still, my fingers tightening in my lap.
"That evening, the accident happened. Almost exactly the way I had described it in that room.
" His voice thins out, the vocal cords barely catching the air.
"I have spent eight years believing I somehow spoke that tragedy into existence.
That it was my fault, not just because of the words, but because I was the last person to make him laugh before he died.
It felt like the universe was punishing me for taking his life lightly. "
"Chris—"
"Let me finish, please." He drops his gaze to his open palms. "That is why I could never say no to her, Zoe.
Not once, for eight years. Every single time she called, every time she demanded something, I heard myself agreeing before my brain could even process the request. Some damaged part of me believed I owed her my entire life in exchange for his.
I never questioned the dynamic. I never once stopped to calculate what it was costing you, because I had convinced myself I didn't hold the right to think about my own happiness at all anymore. "
He finally lifts his chin, his eyes wet and entirely unguarded in a way I haven't seen since long before Julian’s funeral.
"I found out on the terrace last night that she has been aware of that conversation the whole time.
She has been letting me carry that crushing guilt, using it to keep me anchored to her side.
I don't know which realization makes me feel like a bigger fool—the fact that I let it happen for five years of our marriage, or that it took losing you to finally open my eyes. "
I keep my mouth shut for a long, heavy moment. The small candle flickering between our plates gutters slightly in a draft from the entrance.
"You should have told me," I say finally, my voice a quiet whisper in the alcove. "Not her. Me. Eight years ago, or five, or even eight months ago when I packed my boxes. You had so many opportunities, Chris."
"I know."
"I am not asking you to explain that choice again tonight. I need you to just... sit in it. The way I had to sit in the isolation you left me in."
He nods slowly, offering no defense, making no move to fill the silence the way the old Chris always did to smooth over an argument. He simply sits there across the white cloth, letting the space be uncomfortable, letting it cost him something to remain quiet and accept the weight of his actions.
When he finally extends his hand across the table, he doesn't grab for my fingers or force a physical connection. He merely rests his palm open on the white linen, offering a choice rather than demanding a response.
"I am not asking you to forgive eight years over a single dinner, Zoe," he says softly. "I just needed you to know the entire truth. Whatever you decide to do with that information is yours to keep."
I look down at his open palm for a long time, tracking the steady line of his fingers against the cloth, before I finally, slowly, slide my hand into his.
***
We do not talk about where the night goes. It just goes there. His hand stays loosely around mine as we walk out of the restaurant. A quiet agreement passes between us without either of us saying a word out loud. His hotel room is two floors above mine.
I will not pretend it is not tender and careful.
It is slower than we used to be with each other.
There is an apology in the way he touches me.
There is forgiveness in the way I let him, even if I have not said the word out loud yet.
Afterward, I fall asleep with my head on his chest. I listen to his heartbeat settle into a steady rhythm.
For the first time in eight months, I do not lie awake waiting for something bad to happen.
I wake to the sound of his phone buzzing against the nightstand.
The room is still dark. It is well past midnight. I go still as my eyes adjust to the glow of the screen beside him. I do not mean to read it, but it is right there. An old, tired part of me braces for what it will say before I even see the name.
Sarai.
Chris moves beside me. His arm tightens around my waist. I feel the moment he wakes up enough to hear the sound. He reaches over without lifting his head from the pillow. He looks at the screen for a very short second, then turns the phone face-down against the wood.
The buzzing continues, muffled now, then it stops.
I lie there for a moment, watching the side of his face in the dark. I wait to see if he will reach for it again. He does not.
"You're not going to take the call?" I ask quietly. I am testing him, even if I do not mean to sound like I am testing him.
"I haven't slept properly in months," he says, his voice rough from sleep.
His hand finds my hip under the sheet. "Because you weren't beside me.
You want me to miss out on this—on you—because of what?
" He pauses, his thumb tracing a slow line against my skin.
"Even if it is the kids calling, they will have to wait tonight. "
He leans down, pressing his lips to the curve of my bare shoulder. He is unhurried, like there is nowhere else either of us needs to be.
"I love you, darling," he whispers against my skin.
I close my eyes. I let the words settle in a place I have kept closed for a long time.
"I missed you too," I say.
The phone stays face-down on the nightstand, silent until morning.