7. Tessa
TESSA
Priya's apartment smelled like cardamom and something burnt.
I stood in the doorway with Sophie's overnight bag in one hand and Owen's dinosaur backpack in the other, feeling like I'd walked into the wrong life.
The apartment was small, maybe half the square footage of the Reid house, but it felt lived in.
A pair of running shoes sat by the door, laces still tied, the rubber worn down at the heels.
There were books stacked on the coffee table, paperback spines cracked from being read more than once, titles I didn't recognize.
A throw blanket sat bunched up on one end of the couch, the fabric worn thin.
The kitchen table had a mug on it with tea gone cold, and beside it a plate with toast crumbs and a smear of raspberry jam.
Plants lined the windowsill, green and healthy.
Ugh. I was already comparing. Already measuring myself against someone else and coming up short.
"Come in," Priya said. She took the bags from me. "Sophie, Owen, there's a bedroom down the hall. Second door on the left. It's small, but the bed's made up and there are extra blankets in the closet if you need them."
Sophie nodded. She looked pale, her braid coming loose at the bottom where I hadn't tied it tight enough this morning. God, was it really still the same day? It felt like a week had passed since I'd walked out of the Reid house.
"Can I bring my blocks?" Owen asked. His voice was small, uncertain.
"You can bring whatever you want," Priya said warmly.
They went down the hall, Sophie carrying Owen's backpack and her own bag, her shoulders hunched forward.
I heard the door close, and then Owen's voice, muffled, asking Sophie something.
The sound of it settled something in my chest, knowing they were safe and out of earshot.
I didn't want them to hear what I was about to say.
They'd already been through enough today.
Priya gestured to the couch. "Sit."
I sat. The couch was old, the cushions worn soft in the middle, and it gave under my weight in a way that felt like being caught. Priya sat beside me, not across from me, and folded her hands in her lap. She didn't say anything. She just waited, patient and steady.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My throat felt tight, my chest heavy.
"I left," I said.
The words came out flat. I'd been holding them in my throat for hours and now they were just there, hanging between us like laundry on a line, damp and heavy.
Priya nodded slowly. "I know."
"I left my wedding ring on his pillow and I took the kids and I left."
"Okay."
"I didn't leave a note. I didn't explain. I just—" My hand moved without meaning to, fingers brushing the bare place where the ring had been. The skin there felt wrong, too smooth, too light, like something essential had been stripped away. "I left."
"What happened?" Priya asked.
I laughed, and it came out sharp and bitter. "What happened? Nothing happened. That's the problem, Priya. Nothing's happened for eleven years."
She watched me. She had this way of looking at you like she could see straight through to the bones, and she wasn't impressed by what was covering them up. It was the same look she gave patients at the clinic when they lied about taking their medication or said they were fine when they weren't.
"He didn't look at me," I said. My voice cracked. God, I sounded ridiculous. "For eleven years, Callum didn't look at me. Not once. Not when I asked him to. Not when I begged."
"Tessa—"
"No, listen." I leaned forward, pressing my hands flat against my knees to keep them from shaking.
"I asked for his time. I asked for his attention.
I asked him to be present, to give me the hours he gives his work, to look up when I walked into a room.
That's all I wanted, Priya. That's all I've ever wanted. "
My throat went tight. I rubbed my fingers over the bare place on my hand again, and this time I caught myself doing it. I folded my hands together and pressed them hard into my lap, like I could make the feeling go away if I just held still long enough.
"Ingrid has all of it," I said quietly.
Priya's jaw tightened. "Ingrid."
"The hours. The attention. Everything I asked for, she has." My voice was shaking now, my hands trembling in my lap despite how hard I was pressing them together. I couldn't make them stop. "He looks at her. He listens to her. He brings her into our house and he doesn't even see me standing there."
The words were coming faster now, tumbling out like I'd been holding them behind a dam and the dam had finally cracked wide open. I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to stop them.
"She stood in my living room and told me it must be exhausting, keeping up with the house and the children and the cooking and the constant messes.
She said I was really holding down the fort while Callum does the important work.
And he was right there, Priya. He was in the same room, moving toward the hallway with his phone, and he didn't say a word.
He didn't defend me. When I went to the study later to tell him she'd belittled me, he didn't even look up from the scans he was reviewing. "
"Jesus," Priya muttered.
"I told him what she said." My voice was rising, heat creeping up my neck. "I told him it hurt. I told him she was belittling me, and he said she didn't mean anything by it. He said I was reading too much into it."
Priya shook her head slowly, her expression dark. "He said that."
"He said that."
The room felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in.
I stood up and walked to the window, needing space, needing air.
The city stretched out below, lights scattered across the dark like somebody had thrown a handful of stars and they'd landed crooked.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I just needed to move.
"I went to the hospital today," I said. "After my shift at the clinic.
I went to Bellhaven General and I found him.
He was with her. They were working together, standing so close their shoulders were almost touching, and he was talking to her the way he used to talk to me.
Like she mattered. Like what she had to say was the most important thing in the world. "
I pressed my palm flat against the glass. It was cool under my hand, grounding.
"I stood there and I watched him, and I realized he's been giving her everything I've been asking for. Not because he can't. Because he won't. Not for me."
Priya came to stand beside me. She didn't touch me. She just stood there, solid and steady.
"What do you want, Tessa?"
The question landed like a stone in still water, heavy and final.
I stared out at the city. I didn't have an answer. Or maybe I had too many answers, all of them tangled up together.
"I want his time," I said finally. My voice was quieter now, steadier. "I want his attention. I want him to be present. I want him to give me the hours he gives his work. I want him to look up when I come into a room."
I turned to face her. "I want the marriage to work."
Priya blinked. "You what?"
"I want the marriage to work," I said again, and this time the words came out stronger, more certain. "I'm not finished with him. I'm just finished with being unseen."
She stared at me for a long moment, and I couldn't read her expression. Her mouth was a tight line, her eyes narrowed like she was trying to figure out if I meant it. Finally, she nodded.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay," she said. "So what are you going to do about it?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My hand drifted to the bare place on my finger again before I realized what I was doing and jerked it away, shoving both hands into my pockets.
"I don't know," I said.
And that was the truth. I didn't know. I'd left.
I'd walked out. I'd taken off the ring I'd worn for eleven years and I'd put it on his pillow, right in the center where he couldn't miss it, and I'd walked away with our children and I'd driven here, to Priya's apartment, because I didn't have anywhere else to go.
And now I was standing in her living room with the lights of Bellhaven spread out below me, and I had no idea what came next.
"I just know I couldn't stay," I said. "Not like that. Not invisible."
Priya crossed her arms. "You're not invisible, Tessa.
You never have been. You've been carrying that clinic on your back for two years and every patient there knows it.
You've been raising those kids practically on your own and they're good kids, smart kids, because of you.
You've been holding up your end of the marriage and his end too, and you've been doing it so well that he didn't even notice when you started to break. "
Her words hit me like a fist to the chest. My eyes stung. I blinked hard, trying to hold the tears back, but it was no use. They spilled over anyway, hot and fast and angry.
"He should have noticed," I said. My voice came out small and broken and I hated the sound of it. "He should have seen."
"Yeah," Priya said. "He should have."
She put a hand on my shoulder, and the weight of it was the only thing keeping me upright. Without it, I thought I might collapse right there on her living room floor.
"You did the right thing," she said. "Leaving. You did the right thing."
I nodded, swiping at my eyes with the back of my hand.
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe I hadn't just blown my marriage apart for nothing.
I wanted to believe there was still a way back from this, that Callum would find the ring and he'd understand and he'd come for me and he'd finally, finally see me.
But I didn't know if that was true. I didn't know if he'd even notice I was gone.
"What if he doesn't care?" I asked. The question came out in a whisper.
Priya's hand tightened on my shoulder. "Then you'll know."
The words settled over me, cold and final. She was right. I'd know. One way or another, I'd know.
I looked out the window again, at the city stretched out below, at the lights that looked like stars but weren't. Somewhere out there, Callum was standing in our bedroom, holding the ring I'd left behind.
Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was still at the hospital, still with Ingrid, still giving her the hours and the attention and the presence I'd begged him for.
Maybe he hadn't even come home yet.
My fingers found the bare place on my hand one more time. I didn't mean to do it. The skin felt strange and new. I wondered if he'd put the ring in his pocket. I wondered if he'd throw it away. I wondered if he'd even pick it up.
"I love him," I said quietly.
Priya sighed. "I know."
"I still love him. After everything. After eleven years of being unseen. I still do."
"That's not the problem, Tessa. The problem is whether he loves you back."
I turned to look at her. Her expression was sad and soft and certain, and I knew she was right.
That was the problem. That had always been the problem.
I'd loved Callum from the moment I met him, loved him through medical school and residency and the endless seventy-hour weeks and the nights he came home too tired to do more than kiss the kids goodnight.
I'd loved him through all of it. But love wasn't enough if it only went one way.
Behind us, down the hall, I heard Owen laugh at something Sophie had said. The sound was bright and clear and normal, and it made my chest ache. They didn't understand what was happening. They didn't know that everything had changed.
I turned back to Priya. Her expression was patient, waiting.
I'd left. I'd walked out. I'd taken off my ring and put it on his pillow and driven away with our children, and now I was standing in Priya's apartment with no plan and no answers.
I didn't know what came next. I didn't know how to make him see me, how to make him understand what I'd been asking for all these years.
I didn't know if it was already too late.
I didn't know if Callum would find the ring and understand, or if he'd come home too late to notice. I didn't know if he'd come for me or if he'd let me go.
"What should I do?" I asked.