~DANIEL~
I'd been out of town for three days, a last-minute trip to clear my head after another fight with Cassandra.
I just couldn't take it anymore.
Lately, she'd been colder than usual, snapping at me for no reason and locking herself in her room. She blamed it on grief over the miscarriage. At first, I fell for it all, her tears, her dramatic story about the crash stealing our baby, and her performance in front of the police and lawyers.
But the preliminary hearing was yesterday, and I couldn't bring myself to go.
Something about her felt wrong, and I needed space to think. So I'd driven upstate, told her it was for work, and ignored her increasingly frantic calls.
The house was eerily quiet when I walked in, a silence that felt less like peace and more like a carefully constructed scene.
Cassandra always had to have everything just so. Too perfect, even. The scent of her perfume still lingered in the air.
