9. Audrey
— ? —
Audrey
Living with someone you’re furious at is its own kind of torture.
It’s been two weeks in this cramped rental, and I’ve perfected the art of existing in the same space as Rowan without actually acknowledging his presence. We orbit each other like satellites - close enough to feel the gravitational pull, too far away to touch.
He makes coffee in the morning before I wake up. Two sugars, splash of cream, exactly the way I like it. He leaves it on the counter with a paper towel underneath so it doesn’t leave a ring.
He helps Lily with homework in the evenings, patient and gentle, explaining fractions with the same care he used to explain them to me when I was struggling through my accounting courses.
He washes dishes without being asked. Takes out the trash. Fixes the rattling window with duct tape and cardboard.
He’s trying so hard it makes my teeth ache.
“You don’t have to do all this,” I tell him one evening, gesturing at the pristine kitchen he’s just finished cleaning. “I’m not keeping score.”
“I know.” He hangs up the dish towel, careful not to look at me. “I just want to help.”
“You’re not going to earn your way back into my good graces with clean counters.”
“I know that too.” He finally meets my eyes, and the exhaustion in his face hits me like a physical blow. “I’m not trying to earn anything. I just - I need to do something. I can’t just sit here.”
Because sitting here means thinking about what you did. Means facing the wreckage you created.
“Fine,” I say. “Do what you want.”
I walk past him to check on Lily, and I don’t let myself feel guilty about the way his shoulders slump.
Friday night, Lily asks if we can watch a movie.
“All three of us,” she specifies, looking between me and Rowan with those too-knowing green eyes. “Like we used to.”
I want to say no. I want to retreat to my room with a book and let Rowan handle bedtime alone.
But Lily’s been through so much - the fire, the move, the unspoken tension that fills every room - and I can’t deny her this small thing.
“Sure, baby. What do you want to watch?”
“Tangled!”
“Again?”
“It’s the best one.” She’s already pulling up the streaming menu, bouncing on the couch with excitement. “Daddy, come sit!”
Rowan looks at me, uncertain. I give the smallest nod.
He sits on the far end of the couch. Lily wedges herself between us, Mr. Buttons clutched to her chest. I can feel the warmth of her small body against my side, and beyond her, the careful distance Rowan is maintaining.
This is what family looks like now. Three people in a room, pretending everything is normal.
The movie starts. Lily mouths along to every song, delighted and innocent, and I let myself sink into the familiar story of a girl trapped in a tower, waiting for someone to set her free.
Halfway through, Lily falls asleep.
Her head lolls against my shoulder, her breathing slow and even. I should carry her to bed. I should end this moment before it becomes something more.
But I don’t move. And neither does Rowan.
“She’s exhausted,” he says quietly.
“We all are.”
“Audrey-”
“Don’t.” I keep my eyes on the screen. “Not while she’s right here.”
He’s silent for a long moment. Then: “Can I ask you something?”
“Depends.”
“Do you hate me?”
The question hangs in the air. On screen, Flynn Rider is making a sarcastic comment, but I can’t focus on the words.
Do I hate him?
“I want to,” I say finally. “It would be easier if I did.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m still angry. It means I don’t trust you. It means every time you walk past me, I think about those messages and I want to scream.” I take a breath. “But I don’t hate you. I don’t know how to hate you.”
“Because of Lily?”
“Because of us.” I finally look at him, and his face is so open, so vulnerable, that it hurts to see. “Because we have fifteen years of history, Rowan. Because you were my best friend before you were anything else. Because hating you would mean hating half of who I am.”
He swallows hard. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I don’t either.”
“But you’re still here.”
“I’m still here.”
It’s not forgiveness. It’s not a promise. But it’s something.
On screen, the lanterns float into the sky, and Lily murmurs something in her sleep, and for one fragile moment, we’re almost a family again.
The 2 AM kitchen visits become a pattern.
I can’t sleep - haven’t been able to sleep properly since I found those messages - and he can’t sleep either. So we end up here, in this tiny kitchen, drinking water and not talking about the elephant in the room.
Tonight, I find him at the table with his head in his hands again. But this time, something’s different.
He’s unwrapped the bandages.
I can see his hands in the dim light - the angry red scars, the rippled skin, the damage that’s still healing weeks after the fire. He’s flexing his fingers slowly, wincing at the pull.
“You should keep those covered,” I say from the doorway.
He startles, tries to hide his hands under the table. “It’s fine. They need air.”
“Rowan.” I move closer, and he goes still. “Let me see.”
“You don’t have to-”
“Let me see.”
He hesitates, then slowly extends his hands across the table.
The burns are worse than I realized. The scars cover his palms entirely, crawling up his forearms in twisted patterns. Some areas are still raw, still healing. Others have scarred over into shiny, puckered tissue that will never look normal again.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“The doctor said skin grafts might help. Eventually.” He won’t meet my eyes. “I’ve been going to follow-ups. Mom drives me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had enough to deal with.”
“That’s not-” I stop, frustrated. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
“I wasn’t trying to decide anything. I just-” He pulls his hands back, curls them into fists. “I didn’t deserve your sympathy.”
“That’s not your choice either.”
We stare at each other across the table. The clock on the wall ticks. Somewhere outside, a car drives past.
“You ran into a burning building,” I say slowly. “For a stuffed rabbit. For our daughter.”
“She asked.”
“She asked you to risk your life?”
“She asked me to save Mr. Buttons.” He shrugs, like it’s obvious. “So I did.”
He didn’t even think about it. She asked and he answered.
“You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You could have-” My voice cracks. “I watched you run in there, Rowan. I watched the roof start to collapse, and I thought-”
I can’t finish the sentence.
He reaches across the table, and his scarred fingers brush against mine. I flinch but don’t pull away.
“I wasn’t going to let her lose anything else,” he says quietly. “She’d already lost so much.”
“That’s not your job. Being a hero isn’t your job.”
“Being her father is my job. And right now, that’s the only thing I’m doing right.” He meets my eyes, and the raw honesty in his face makes my chest ache. “I know I failed you. I know I broke something that might never heal. But I will never fail her. Not ever.”
He means it. Every word.
I look at his hands - the hands that typed messages to another woman, that held mine at our wedding, that now bear the permanent marks of his choice to run into fire.
“You’re an idiot,” I say.
“I know.”
“A reckless, self-destructive idiot who could have gotten himself killed.”
“I know.”
“I would have-” I stop. Swallow. “If you hadn’t come out, I would have-”
“I know.”
I pull my hand back. Stand up from the table. My heart is pounding and I don’t know what I’m feeling - anger, gratitude, something terrifying and undefined.
“These hands,” I say, gesturing at his scars. “Every time you look at them, you’ll remember.”
“That’s the point.”
“The fire?”
“All of it.” He flexes his fingers, studying the damage. “The fire. The choices I made. What I almost lost.” He looks up at me. “What I’m fighting to keep.”
I don’t have words.
So I just nod, once, and walk back to my room.
But at the door, I pause.
“Tomorrow night,” I say without turning around. “Lily wants to make cookies. You should help her.”
“Yeah?”
“She likes it when you help.” I open the door. “Goodnight, Rowan.”
“Goodnight, Audrey.”
I close the door and lean against it, pressing my hand to my chest where something small and fragile is starting to grow.
He ran into the fire. He burned his hands. He’s sleeping on a pullout couch three feet from the kitchen, trying to earn his way back to a family he almost destroyed.
It’s not forgiveness. I’m not there yet.
But maybe - maybe - I can see the path that might get me there.