After breakfast, we both cleaned up in silence, comfortable silence. The kind you only share with someone who knows your rhythms. Once we were done, Andie grabbed my keys and said, "Let's go see Peter. I want to see how he's settling into this 'luxury hospital' your new husband set up."
I laughed softly. "You're never going to stop calling him my husband, are you?" I had told her earlier that I want to go see Peter today and I knew she would want us to go together.
"Not until you stop sounding weird when you say it," she shot back with a grin.
We went together, and the car felt even more surreal with her in the driver's seat, her adjusting every button, her playlist on the stereo. Somehow, she made the luxury feel like home. I did not even bother to argue with her when she said she wanted to drive my car, she always loved sleek cars.
When we got to the hospital, Peter was resting. The room was more like a private suite than a hospital room—soft lighting, leather couch, even a mini-fridge tucked in the corner. Andie whistled. "If this is what marrying rich looks like, I'm about to lower my standards."
Peter stirred and smiled weakly when he saw us. I leaned down to hug him gently. Seeing him made me want to cry, I just loved him too much, sue me.
"You're not crying," he whispered to me.
"Because you're okay," I replied, brushing back his hair. "And you're going to be more than okay. So how do you think I would be crying?"
Andie made jokes while we sat with him, trying to distract him from the looming surgery. He laughed more than I'd heard in days, and for a brief moment, it felt like life had paused just long enough for us to breathe.
He liked the new room better and that made me happy, my sacrifice is worth it if he's happy. He had questions in his eyes but he did not ask them, he knew whatever I was doing was for his own benefit and he might be feeling guilty and as such I have decided to always appear happy in his presence so as not to make him feel bad.
Later, we left the hospital and drove back to my old apartment.
"You sure you want to pack already?" Andie asked, stepping in and scanning the room.
"Yeah, just a few things. I need to see things that belong to me in my room, I want the room to have my things there, I don't know, just to settle in and start getting used to this new life."
Together, we packed up the essentials: clothes, skincare, a couple of books I'd refused to let go of. Andie insisted on helping me fold everything properly and made jokes about how I now needed to dress like a "penthouse wife."
When we zipped up the last bag, she looked at me. "You're not the same Carrie from last week. But you're still my best friend. No matter where you're staying."
"Thank you for today," I said sincerely. "For not making me feel stupid… for staying."
"You'd do the same for me."
I smiled, truly I would do the same for her. "One day, I would invite you over."
She only smiled in return.
As she walked me back to the car, she squeezed my hand. "Now go back to that skyscraper life. But text me the moment anything weird happens, okay? Even if it's just a strange look."
"I will." I replied laughingly. She's my best friend and she's allowed to worry about me.
I drove her to her place so she could do whatever she wanted to do before going to work. When I got to her place, she held my hand. "Remember I love you baby," I smiled at her as I told her I love her too and that I really appreciate her.
We hugged tightly, and as I drove off, I realized that while everything else in my life was shifting, this, her, our bond, was the one thing that kept me grounded.
************
It had already been a week since the quiet ceremony that tied me, in name only, to Ty Yates, and I hadn't seen my husband once since that night in the kitchen.
Not in the shared living space, not during the quiet dinners I had alone at the dining room and not even in passing through the penthouse. He was like a ghost, present in concept, absent in presence.
Sometimes I heard the soft hum of the elevator when I was curled up on the couch, or the distant closing of a door a floor above me. But there had been no conversations, no accidental encounters, not even a note.
Maybe he was avoiding me. Or maybe he was simply busy, too consumed by work and business to remember the woman he'd married out of convenience. Either way, I didn't let myself care.
At least, I told myself I didn't.
Still, a small part of me wanted to see him. Just once. Not to argue or remind him I existed, but to thank him.
Peter's surgery had gone smoothly. The doctors said it was a complicated procedure, but everything had been handled with expertise and care. The hospital staff treated him like royalty, and the room he stayed in was the kind of comfort I never would have imagined for him in our old life.
And it was all because of Ty.
Whether he did it out of obligation or indifference didn't matter. The fact remained: my brother was getting better, and I owed my husband a simple thank you.
I'd tried waiting up for him twice, hoping maybe he'd come down for a late dinner or a drink. But both times, I ended up falling asleep on the couch, wrapped in a throw blanket, waking up to silence and an empty room.
It felt strange to live under the same roof and still feel like we were living separate lives entirely. Then again, that was the agreement, wasn't it?
No intimacy. No expectations. No complications.
But still… a thank you wasn't too much to give.
I sighed, closing the lid of my tea cup as I stood in the kitchen alone again. The marble counters gleamed beneath the morning light, untouched by anyone but me and the quiet staff that came in once a week to keep the place pristine.
I was coming back from the kitchen, a glass of orange juice in hand, when I heard the familiar soft ding of the private elevator.
I knew that meant he had gotten back from work, in my mind I hoped he would come down here. I went to sit with my juice in hand while still hoping. Then I heard the ding of the elevator again.
For a moment, I froze mid-step.