That evening, the house was almost completely dark when I heard his car pull into the driveway. I was standing in the kitchen with both hands braced against the counter, staring at the clock above the stove as if the minute hand could explain where my husband had been. When the front door opened, I felt my pulse jump so hard it made me unsteady.
Ryan walked in like a man returning to a hotel room, not a home. He loosened his tie, tossed his keys onto the marble countertop, and didn’t even look at me at first. The smell reached me before his words did—that same expensive perfume, soft and unmistakable, clinging to him like a secret that had stopped trying to hide.
“Don’t start,” he muttered, already sounding annoyed.
His voice was flat, practiced, almost bored. It was the tone of someone who had rehearsed his indifference on the drive home. I stared at him and thought, with sudden clarity, that he no longer feared hurting me.
“I’m not starting anything,” I said quietly. “I’m just tired, Ryan.”