The lock clicking into place was the period at the end of their sentence. The frantic, muffled apologies, the desperate pounding on the door—it was all just noise from a world that no longer had any meaning to her.
Mina didn't look at the mirror again. She didn't need to. The phantom burn on her cheek was a brand, seared deeper than skin. She ran the cold water, soaking a hand towel, and held it to her face. The shock of the cold was a feeling, the only one she could tolerate. It was clean, simple, devoid of betrayal.
She could hear him crumple against the door, his sobs raw and ugly. "Mina... God, what have I done... Please... I'm so sorry... I didn't mean... I just... Please."
Each word was a hollow echo. Didn't mean it. The worst lie men told. He had meant it in that exact, fractured second. He had meant to cause pain, to silence her, to assert a control he had lost everywhere else in his life. That was the unforgivable truth.
The noise eventually subsided into a choked silence. She heard him slide down to the floor, his back against the door. A jailer imprisoning himself outside her cell.
Mina didn't move. She stood there until the towel grew warm, then ran the water cold again. She was a statue of trauma, processing the cataclysm not with emotion, but with a terrifying, procedural calm.
Hours later, long after the house had fallen into a watchful, complicit silence, she finally unlocked the door. She didn't open it with drama. She simply turned the knob and stepped back.
Adams, who had been slumped on the floor, scrambled to his feet. His eyes were swollen, red-rimmed, desperate. He looked like a ghost of himself.
"Mina," he breathed, his voice ragged. He reached a trembling hand toward her face, toward the faint, pink mark that was now all that was visible. "Let me see. Please. Let me—"
She didn't flinch. She didn't move away. She just looked at his approaching hand with a blank, dispassionate stare, as if it were an interesting insect.
He froze, his fingers inches from her skin. Her absolute stillness was a more powerful rejection than any slap back could ever have been.
"I will never forgive myself," he whispered, his hand falling to his side. "I am so... so sorry. It will never happen again. I swear to you on my life, it will never—"
"Where is Trisha?" she asked. Her voice was flat. Empty. It wasn't a question laden with fear or anger. It was a logistical inquiry.
The change in subject, the utter lack of acknowledgment of his apology, disoriented him. "She's... she's with Binta. She's asleep. Mina, we need to talk about this. We need to—"
"I'm tired," she stated, cutting him off. She walked past him into the bedroom and went directly to her side of the closet. She pulled out a spare blanket and a pillow.
"What are you doing?" he asked, a new kind of fear dawning in his eyes.
Without answering, she walked back into the ensuite bathroom, placed the pillow and blanket on the cold tiled floor, and closed the door. The lock clicked once more.
This time, there were no pleas. Just a stunned, devastated silence from the other side.
The next morning, she emerged at dawn. She moved through the routine with a robotic efficiency. Shower. Dress. She applied a light layer of foundation, expertly concealing the last faint trace of the blow. When she was done, her face was a perfect, placid mask.
She found Trisha in the high chair, being fed by Binta. Hajiya Zainab was there, sipping her tea, her eyes sharp and missing nothing. She had undoubtedly heard the commotion. Her expression was one of pious concern, but her eyes gleamed with a vicious satisfaction. Her son's final, brutal failure had proven her right about everything.
"Good morning, Mina," she said, her tone carefully neutral. "Did you sleep well?"
Mina didn't look at her. She walked straight to Trisha, kissed the top of her head, and then turned to leave.
"Mina?" Adams's voice came from the doorway. He looked wrecked, having clearly not slept at all. "Please. Can we... can we talk?"
She stopped. She finally turned and looked at him. But she didn't see her husband. She saw a man she cohabitated with. A dangerous, unstable variable in her environment.
"There's nothing to talk about," she said. Her voice was calm, clear, and utterly devoid of emotion. It was the voice of a customer service representative ending a call. "The matter is closed."
She walked out, leaving him standing there, shattered by her composure. Her forgiveness would have been a balm. Her anger, a fire he could try to quench. But this... this nothingness? It was a void he didn't know how to fill.
This became the new normal. Mina shared the same space with him, but she was gone. She answered direct questions with minimal words. "Yes." "No." "I don't know." She slept on the bathroom floor every night. She never looked him in the eye.
He tried everything. He bought her flowers; she left them to wilt in their vase. He suggested a drive; she declined without reason. He begged, he wept, he promised therapy, promised to confront his mother, promised to move them out.
Her response was always the same. A slight, almost imperceptible nod. A blank stare. "If you think that's best."
She had built a glass wall around herself, and he could see her on the other side, but he could no longer reach her. Her trust wasn't shattered; it had been vaporized. The slap hadn't just been a blow to her face; it had been the wrecking ball that finally demolished the foundation of their marriage. All that was left was to negotiate the terms of the demolition.