Then her phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen, and the blood drained from her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Evelyn.”
Slowly, unwillingly, she turned the screen toward him.
You’re glowing, Eve. Pregnancy looks good on you.
No number. No signature.
His body went cold. “How long?”
“A few months,” she admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because if you knew, you’d turn the city upside down.”
He lowered his voice. “Has she threatened you directly?”
“No. That’s the point.” Her eyes shone with anger. “It’s always just enough to make me feel watched. Never enough to prove.”
He understood that kind of cruelty. It was not meant to injure the body. It was meant to colonize the mind.
That evening, after a bakery stop and another small, dangerous step toward each other, he kissed her. It was not reckless. It was careful, aching, built from months of absence and years of unfinished love. She kissed him back, then pulled away and admitted the truth neither of them had escaped.
“I don’t trust myself where you’re concerned.”
He answered, “I don’t want caution more than I want honesty.”
For the first time since the divorce, she let him hold her hand without pulling away.
Leave a Comment