Chapter 15 #2
She did not look at me like that anymore. That was my fault. And still, some part of me wanted to drag us both backward through time until we were there again.
Before babies. Before the pay cut. Before Jasmine. Before Elsie’s face went flat whenever I entered a room.
“I’ll end it,” I said suddenly.
Elsie just blinked at me.
“All of it,” I continued, stepping closer before I could think better of it. “Whatever you want. I’ll change numbers. Delete everything. Therapy. Counselling. I’ll speak to Clara, your lawyer, or whoever. I’ll do anything.”
Her expression changed at that. Not surprise. I had expected surprise.
Or maybe hope. But there was just… disgust. That made me feel smaller than I had in years.
“Daniel,” she said softly. I hated the softness more than anger. Because softness sounded like goodbye.
“No,” I said, too quickly. “No, don’t do that. Don’t say my name like that.”
Her face crumpled for half a second. Then she pulled it back together, and somehow that hurt more than if she had sobbed.
“I am sad,” she said.
The words were so simple.
“I am so sad I don’t know what to do with it sometimes. I look at you and I remember who I thought you were, and then I remember what you did, and it feels like someone is kicking me.”
My throat tightened.
“But that doesn’t mean I want this back.”
This. Their marriage. Their kitchen. Their life. Me.
I gripped the edge of the bench behind me because if I didn’t hold onto something, I thought I might actually step toward her. Might reach for her like I still had the right.
“You don’t mean that.”
Elsie looked at me then. Really looked. For the first time in days. And the worst part was that there was love in her face. Not the kind I could use. Not the kind that could save me. But something older and exhausted.
“I do.”
The room went quiet except for the refrigerator hum and Milo’s soft breathing.
I nodded once, though I don’t remember deciding to move.
I wanted to say something dignified. Something adult. Something that proved I was not the selfish, weak, humiliating man everyone now thought I was.
Instead, I said, “I’m still not leaving.” Elsie’s expression didn’t change, still full of weariness.
“I’m not,” I repeated, sounding more like a stubborn toddler than a grown man. “This is my home too.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Els. I’m not moving out because everyone thinks I should. I’m not walking away from my children. I’m not giving up on us.”
“There isn’t an us anymore.”
The words sliced through me harshly. I almost hated her then.
For one hot, horrible second, I hated her for being able to say it.
For standing there in the kitchen we had chosen together, beside the babies we had made together, and saying there was no us like she had any right to make that decision alone.
Then the truth rose behind it. I had made the decision. Over and over. In hotel rooms. In messages. In the lies. In the quiet spaces where Elsie trusted me and I used that trust as cover. I turned away before she could see whatever was happening on my face.
“I’m still not going,” I said.
“Okay.”
Just that. Okay. No fight. No plea. No crack in her voice.
I hated my stubbornness and wish that I would just go to my parents. But I couldn’t bear their judgment right now. So, I went to what is now ‘my’ room.
It smelled faintly of dust and clean linen, and the lavender sachets mum had once insisted all proper guest rooms needed, as if people could not be trusted to sleep without potpourri judging them from a drawer.
I shut the door and stood in the middle of the room. For a while, I did nothing.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. My mother again. I ignored it. Then Jack. Ignored. Olivia. Ignored. Sophie. I looked at her name for several seconds before the screen went dark. Everyone knew. My whole family knew. The thought crawled under my skin.
They knew about it all. What a piece of shit I am, even when my kids were struggling.
God. The NICU. I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my palms into my eyes until bright spots burst behind them.
That was the detail that had changed the room at the gathering.
I had watched it happen. I had watched my father’s face close down.
Had watched Jack step back from me like I had become contagious.
Had watched Emma move slightly toward Elsie.
Had watched mum try to contain the moment as if public exposure was the emergency, not the fact I had left my wife beside incubators and sought out another woman.
I remembered that night. I wished I didn’t. The promises that were made. Then the follow up only the day after. My children still in the hospital.
Lexi’s apartment had smelled like vanilla candles and expensive shampoo. She had put her hand on my chest and told me I looked tired in a voice that made tired sound attractive instead of pathetic.
I had told myself I was only staying for an hour. Then I had told myself Elsie was asleep at the hospital anyway. Then I had told myself that I deserved one thing that felt simple. Then I had stopped telling myself anything because the lies had become easier once they stacked high enough.
I bent forward, elbows on knees, and breathed through the nausea. I wanted to blame the stress. The pay cut. The twins. Elsie’s exhaustion. The lack of sex. The way my life had gone from late dinners and weekend trips to nappies and whispered arguments over whose turn it was to sterilise bottles.
I wanted a reason easy enough to hold onto. There wasn’t one. There was only me. Wanting to feel wanted. Taking it. Then coming home. Again and again and again. Downstairs, Elsie laughed. I froze. It was quiet. Brief. Barely more than an exhale. But I heard it.
I stood and opened the door before I could stop myself. From the top of the stairs, I could see part of the living room. Elsie stood near the couch, phone in one hand, the other pressed lightly over her mouth like she was trying not to wake the twins. Her shoulders shook once.
A real laugh. Not the brittle one she used with me now.
Not polite. Not careful. Real. Something ugly and aching opened in my chest. I knew without asking it was Luca.
Or Liv. Or one of the women in that group chat that had become her lifeline while I was still pretending I had any claim to that role.
She looked softer in that half-second than she had looked with me in months.
And the worst part was not the jealousy.
It was the awareness. She still existed.
The woman I missed was still there. Just not for me.
I stepped back before she could look up and see me watching.
I closed the spare room door quietly. Then I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and finally understood the thing I had been fighting since the gathering.
Elsie had not left the house. She had not packed bags or taken the twins or walked out dramatically into some clean new beginning.
She was still downstairs. Still in the same rooms. Still saying necessary words to me in a calm voice.
But she was gone. Emotionally. Completely.
And I had no idea how to reach someone whose absence was sitting right in front of me.