Chương 4
My eyes moved across numbers and signatures, but my mind kept returning to a single moment.
The way Garrick looked at me after he hit me.
Not shocked.
Not ashamed.
Certain.
That was the part I could not let go of.
People made mistakes.
People lost control.
People said things they regretted.
But there was something different about believing, even for one second, that another person deserved to be hurt.
At five thirty, I closed my laptop.
Thomas was still in the office across the hall, reviewing files with his assistant.
“You’re leaving?” he asked when he saw me standing near his doorway.
“I think so.”
“That sounded like a question.”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.”
Thomas removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
It was a small gesture, but I noticed it.
Thomas rarely looked tired.
Not because he wasn’t.
Because he had spent his entire life making sure other people did not see it.
“You could go to your sister’s.”
“I haven’t been there in years.”
“That doesn’t mean the door is locked.”
I picked up my coat from the chair.
“Do you think she hates me?”
Thomas gave me a confused look.
“Elise?”
“She thinks I pushed everyone away.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
“She thinks you disappeared into a life where nobody could reach you.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He looked at me carefully.
“But it might feel the same to someone who misses you.”
I hated that he made reasonable points.
It was one of his most irritating qualities.
When I was younger, I used to argue with him just to prove I could.
Now I found myself wishing he would tell me I was completely right.
I wanted someone to make everything simple.
Garrick was wrong.
Miriam was cruel.
I was innocent.
The end.
But life had never worked that way.
I had ignored warning signs because I wanted my marriage to succeed.
I had hidden my own struggles because admitting them felt like failure.
I had allowed people to believe a false version of me because correcting them required conflict.
That did not excuse what happened.
But it was still part of the truth.
The drive to my mother’s house took forty minutes.
I almost turned around twice.
The first time was when I passed the exit toward my apartment.
The second time was when I saw the familiar neighborhood streets.
Nothing had changed.
The same small houses.
The same trees.
The same mailbox at the corner that always leaned slightly to one side.
I parked in front of the house where I had grown up and sat there until the engine turned off automatically.
For a few seconds, I just listened.
A dog barking somewhere nearby.
A child laughing across the street.
A lawn mower starting in the distance.
Normal sounds.
The kind of sounds I had forgotten existed.
The front door opened before I reached it.
Elise stood there wearing an old sweatshirt and holding a mug in both hands.
She looked almost exactly like she had the last time I saw her.
Except her expression was different.
Less angry.
More afraid.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she stepped forward and hugged me.
I froze.
Not because I did not want it.
Because I did.
And I had not realized how badly until that moment.
Her arms tightened around me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
My throat tightened.
“For what?”
“For making you feel like you had to handle everything alone.”
I closed my eyes.
“I did that myself.”
“Maybe.”
She pulled back.
“But I helped.”
That honesty hurt because it was true.
We went inside.
The house smelled like cinnamon and old books.
My mother had always burned candles that smelled too sweet.
She claimed they made the place feel warm.
I never told her they made me sneeze.
Small memories appeared everywhere.
A scratch on the hallway wall from when we moved furniture.
A framed photograph from a beach trip where Elise was thirteen and I was sixteen.
A ceramic bowl near the entrance that my father made in a community class.
I touched the edge of it.
The paint was uneven.
My father had been terrible at crafts.
He used to say the point was not perfection.
It was proof that a person had tried.
I suddenly wondered when I stopped believing that applied to me.
“Mom would have lost her mind if she knew,” Elise said from the kitchen.
I looked over.
“About what?”
“The marriage.”
I swallowed.
“She always liked Garrick.”
“She liked what he represented.”
Elise poured tea into two cups.
“She liked that you finally had someone taking care of you.”
I almost laughed.
The sound never came.
“She was wrong.”
“Were we all wrong?”
The question was quiet.
Not accusing.
That made it harder.
I sat down at the kitchen table.
“I thought I knew him.”
Elise placed the tea in front of me.
“Did you?”
I stared at the steam rising from the cup.
“I knew the person he wanted me to see.”
“And the rest?”
“I ignored it.”
The admission felt heavier than I expected.
Elise sat across from me.
“Why?”
I looked at her.
Because she was my sister, I could have lied.
I could have said I was busy.
I could have said relationships were complicated.
I could have blamed Garrick for everything.
Instead, I said the thing I had never admitted aloud.
“Because I was afraid.”
Her expression softened.
“Of him?”
I shook my head.
“Of being wrong.”
The room went quiet.
“I spent so much time building everything,” I continued.
“The company.
The reputation.
The house.
The marriage.”
My fingers moved around the cup.
“If the marriage failed, it meant I had made another terrible decision.”
Elise looked down.
“You thought admitting the truth meant admitting you failed.”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“That sounds exactly like you.”
May you like
I gave her a tired look.
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
