The drive home was silent except for the hum of the tires on asphalt and the faint rattle of the loose change Mike kept in the cup holder. When we finally pulled into the driveway, the porch light flickered on automatically, casting the house in a pale glow. It should have felt like sanctuary, returning to a place that was ours, but lately the house felt more like a pause—a waiting room for something I couldn't name.
Mike cut the engine, leaned back in his seat with a sigh, then climbed out without a word. He didn't take my hand. He didn't wait for me. He walked ahead, his shoulders slumped, his steps heavy. By the time I locked the front door behind us, he was already climbing the stairs.
"I'm going straight to bed," he called over his shoulder.
I set my bag down in the entryway. "Okay."
The floor creaked as he disappeared down the hall. A door shut. That was it.
For a long moment, I stood in the quiet living room, the faint tick of the clock on the mantle filling the stillness. The house smelled faintly of lavender from the candle I'd blown out before we left, but it had gone stale in the hours we were gone.
I headed upstairs slowly, each step heavy with exhaustion that wasn't entirely physical. In our bedroom, Mike was already half undressed, his shirt tossed across the chair in the corner, his jeans pooled near the bed. He didn't bother with small talk, didn't glance at me as he crawled under the covers. His back turned toward me, shoulders hunched. Within minutes, his breathing deepened into the rhythm of sleep.
I lingered in the doorway, staring at him. My husband. The man I had promised forever to. He looked younger in sleep, softer somehow, as if the sharpness that had crept into his features over the past months melted away when his eyes closed. A pang of guilt settled in my chest.
Quietly, I slipped into the bathroom. The shower steamed quickly, fogging the mirror. Hot water poured over me, a relief and a burden all at once. I tilted my face up, letting it soak through my hair, trail down my neck, across my shoulders. It should have washed the night away, should have cleansed me of the guilt clinging to my skin.
But the more I tried to empty my mind, the more it filled with him.
Ray.
The way his eyes had locked onto mine across Hannah's kitchen. The burn of his gaze. The raw hunger he hadn't even tried to hide.
I pressed my palms against the cool tile, water pounding down my back. I hated myself for it—how the thought of him stirred something in me that Mike hadn't in months. How wrong it was, how dangerous. And yet, the images wouldn't stop. His hands, his mouth, the way he moved with Hannah as if claiming her belonged to him and him alone.
By the time I stepped out, wrapped in a towel, I felt no cleaner than when I'd stepped in.
I dressed in an old T-shirt and pajama shorts, the kind of clothes Mike barely noticed anymore. Then I padded downstairs, drawn to the small pool of light from the lamp beside the couch.
Books had always been my refuge. Ever since I was a little girl, when the walls of my childhood home echoed with silence instead of laughter, I'd hidden in stories. Pages filled with other people's lives had been a balm, a way to escape into worlds where love was certain and families were whole. Even after marrying Mike, reading had remained my private joy, the one place no one could reach me.
But lately, not even that worked.
I curled into the corner of the couch with a novel open on my lap, its spine already creased from the times I had tried and failed to lose myself in its chapters. Tonight was no different. I stared at the words, reread the same sentence three times, and still absorbed nothing. Every time my eyes drifted across the page, Ray slipped between the lines.
I imagined his voice instead of the character's. His eyes instead of the hero's. His hands instead of the carefully written descriptions of touch.
I snapped the book shut, frustration surging hot in my chest. My head tipped back against the cushion, eyes closing.
The house was silent except for the steady tick of the clock. Upstairs, Mike slept. Down here, I sat alone with thoughts I couldn't speak, with desires I couldn't confess, with guilt that pressed heavier by the day.
I wanted to love my husband the way a wife should. I wanted to be satisfied with the safe, steady life we were building. But my heart, my body, my restless mind refused to listen.
Ray haunted me.
And no matter how hard I tried to shut him out, he kept slipping through the cracks.
I rubbed at my temples, wishing I could scrape him from my thoughts, but even the silence seemed to whisper his name.
The lamp cast a warm glow, the kind of light that should have comforted me. Instead, it only made the shadows deeper.
Alone in that room, I realized something that chilled me even more than my forbidden longing:
It wasn't just that I couldn't stop thinking about Ray.
It was that I didn't want to.