“I was asleep, Austin. I was just about to drift off again,” she murmured into the phone.
Austin clenched his jaw as he stood at the bedroom door and saw the bed was completely untouched. The pillows were perfect and Brianna’s side of the bed was as cold as stone.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” he said with a calm he did not feel. “I am going to sleep now and I will be back on Sunday.”
“Oh, okay. I love you,” Brianna replied before he hung up the phone without answering her.
He stood there in the middle of the empty room holding his phone as if it weighed a ton. The lie had not been clumsy because it was clean, natural, and almost elegant in its execution.
That was what hurt the most, not just that she was gone, but how easily she could lie to his face. He sat on the edge of the stairs and ran a hand over his face while the pieces started to fall into place.
He thought about the late work dinners and the showers she took as soon as she got home while avoiding his eyes. He remembered the laughs at messages that disappeared when he walked in and the sudden distance between them.