POV: James
4:30 PM — The Whiskey Bottle Is Still Half Full
People think heartbreak explodes.
It doesn't.
It seeps. Slow. Quiet. Like whiskey through the cracks in your soul.
I haven't finished the bottle I opened the night Elena left.
Not because I'm saving it.
But because I'm afraid of what I'll say if I finish it.
4:42 PM — My Wife Slept with My Son
There. I said it.
Out loud. Alone.
It sounds worse when you say it that way, doesn't it?
Like a tabloid headline. Like a bad punchline.
Like something that happens to other men.
Not to me.
But it did.
And now, the woman I married is gone.
The boy I raised is missing.
And the one person still talking to me is Milo — the one I ignored the longest.
5:15 PM — The Box in the Closet
I opened the box I swore I'd never look at again.
It held wedding photos, cards, old plane tickets from a trip Elena and I took to Arizona when the boys were younger.
In the back corner: a note from her. One of those early, casual ones.
