Chapter 11 #2
A lie followed by a dismissal, that was new. Usually he gave details, or at least the illusion of them. This felt like he’d memorized the shape of an excuse but not the substance.
I studied his face, the tightness around his mouth, the way his eyes kept flicking toward the phone even though it wasn’t vibrating.
He felt watched.
He felt caught.
“Okay,” I murmured. “Scheduling.”
Sure. I believe you. Sure. As if your wife won’t find out eventually.
He nodded once, but it wasn’t relief, it was impatience.
I took a breath and kept digging. “You sounded… upset. When I came in.”
“Just work stress,” he said again, sharper this time.
My gaze drifted toward the phone. I didn’t want to push too hard, not when my chest still felt warm and fragile, but if I didn’t ask now, the questions were going to sit in my throat tonight like stones.
“What was her name?” I asked softly, watching his reaction instead of the phone.
He froze. Only a half-second, but I felt it. He hadn’t expected that part.
“What name?” he asked too quickly.
“You said someone’s name.” My voice stayed calm, almost conversational. “When I walked in.”
His jaw worked. “I don’t think I did.”
“You did,” I said. Not accusing, just stating. “You said Ashley.”
His breath caught the faintest bit.
The room shifted.
He looked away, then back again, like he was reshuffling the lie in his head, searching for the version that would sound least suspicious.
“It’s, I mean - yeah, Ashley,” he said finally, each word shaped with careful neutrality. “A coworker.”
A coworker.
The lie didn’t even bother disguising itself. It just sat there between us, thin and awkward and obvious.
I kept my voice quiet. “Your ex’s name is Ashley.”
His head snapped up like I’d pulled a thread too hard. “It’s not her.”
“You hesitated.”
“I didn’t.” He swallowed, then forced a steadier tone. “Ginny, seriously. It’s not her. It’s a totally different person.”
I didn’t believe him. Not for a second. But questioning him harder would only push him deeper into rehearsed answers, into the defensive mode I’d already seen creeping in.
“It just caught me off guard,” I said gently, not giving him a target, not giving him a reason to shut down further. “Hearing her name.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to launch into an explanation, then shut it again. That tiny second of indecision said more than anything he might have said aloud.
“It’s not her,” he repeated, smaller this time, almost whispered, like he hoped that saying it softer might make it truer.
I nodded like I accepted it even though my stomach had gone hollow.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “If you say so.”
The tension in the room loosened for him, just a fraction, because I wasn’t pushing anymore. But for me, something pulled tighter. I felt it behind my ribs, right where the earlier flutter had been. A different kind of arrhythmia. A different kind of precarity.
He glanced at me, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “You believe me, right?”
I gave him a small, tired smile. “I’m tired, Cal.”
It wasn’t an answer, and he knew it.
He stepped toward me like he wasn’t sure whether to touch me or give me space. His hand lifted half an inch before dropping again.
“Do you… want to talk about anything?” he asked, but the question didn’t sound like an invitation. It sounded like someone reciting a polite script.
“No,” I murmured. “Not right now.”
He nodded quickly, too quickly, and looked relieved, which hurt in a quiet, surprising way.
“Well… I’m going to shower,” he said, and the way he said it made it clear the conversation was over for him.
He went down the hallway, already pulling his shirt over his head, already distancing himself again, already sliding back into secrecy.
I stayed in the living room for a long moment, breathing steadily, trying to ease the faint pressure clinging to my chest.
If he was telling the truth, I would’ve felt it.
And if he was lying…
If.
It was obvious. I just didn’t think that Callum thought his own wife was an idiot.
I picked up my bag, walked toward the bedroom, and paused halfway down the hall. Water ran in the bathroom, loud, constant, a perfect cover for someone checking their phone again.
I stared at the closed door.
A coworker, he’d said.
I whispered into the quiet, just for myself, “I don’t believe you.”
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
Two years ago
The campsite had been quiet except for the rush of the river beyond the trees, steady enough that it felt like the whole forest was breathing with us.
We had spent most of the afternoon hiking off a poorly marked trail, long enough that my legs were aching by the time we stopped.
I dropped onto a fallen log, peeling off my boots, letting the last of the sun warm my face.
Callum came back from the river with handfuls of water dripping between his fingers, acting like he’d caught something magical.
He let the water fall in front of me in an exaggerated cascade, and I laughed because he always did things like that just to make me smile.
His hair was sticking to his forehead, and a streak of dirt ran across his jaw where he must have scratched himself.
“You look tired,” he said, even though he looked worse.
“You dragged us off-trail,” I shot back, nudging him with my knee when he sat beside me.
He grinned and bumped my shoulder, close enough that our arms brushed.
The sky behind him was sliding from gold to that soft rose color that comes before twilight, everything warm and quiet and strangely perfect.
We didn’t talk for a minute. We just sat there, listening to the river and the birds settling in.
Then he shifted like something had just clicked inside him.
“Hey,” he murmured, still looking at our feet instead of me. “I’ve been thinking.”
That got my attention. Callum “thinking” usually meant a new hobby he wanted to drag me into or some weird impulse he expected me to follow without question. But he wasn’t smiling now. His expression softened, serious in a way he didn’t show often.
He took my hand. His palm was cool from the river water, and his fingers slid through mine with this careful, deliberate pressure, like he was trying to hold onto the right words.
“I know I screw up sometimes,” he said. “Not big things. Just… being in my own head. Getting distracted.”
I watched him turn my hand over, his thumb brushing along my knuckles like he was memorizing them. Early marriage had been full of tiny gestures like that, so much touching, so much curiosity, as if we were both constantly making sure the other was really there.
He breathed in. “I want to tell you something.”
The air shifted. I could feel the weight of whatever it was.
“You’ll never question your place in my life.”
He didn’t say it dramatically. He didn’t look up at the sky or pause for effect. He said it like a truth he’d been sitting with for a long time. Quiet. Solid. Something he’d carved inside himself before bringing it to me.
I stared at him, surprised by the seriousness in his voice. “Where’s that coming from?”
He shrugged, almost shy. “I just want you to know it. I want you to know, no matter what happens, no matter how stupid I act or how busy things get, you’re the center of everything for me.”
He lifted our joined hands, brushing his lips against my fingers. The gesture was soft, almost reverent. It made something warm spread through my chest, a heat that settled deep and steady.
“You don’t ever have to worry about your place with me,” he said. “Not today, not ten years from now. You’re it, Gin.”
The river kept rushing behind us, catching the last streaks of light. I leaned my head against his shoulder, feeling the slow rise and fall of his breathing. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer, and rested his chin lightly on top of my head.
“Even when things go wrong?” I asked quietly.
He tightened his hold. “Especially then.”
The sky darkened above us, stars beginning to show one at a time.
We didn’t move for a long while. His hand rested on my thigh, warm and sure, thumb tracing lazy circles through the fabric.
I felt peaceful, the kind of peace that sinks into you so deeply you don’t realize you’re memorizing it until years later, when the memory resurfaces like a bruise.
He kissed the side of my head, slow and deliberate.
“You never have to question it,” he whispered into my hair.
And I believed him. Completely. Without hesitation. Without fear.
Every word settled inside me like a promise I thought would last forever.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·