Lena’s throat closed. She’d bought him that watch last week. For their anniversary. The receipt was still in her purse.
Lena sat up in bed, the cold sheet beside her a dead weight. Mark’s side. Empty. Again. The digital clock on the nightstand bled red numbers: 3:17 AM. Through the thin apartment walls, she heard the muffled thud of the building’s stairwell door. Footsteps. Too light for Mark’s heavy tread.
Mark turned. His eyes were flat. Not angry. Worse: resigned. “I saw you,” he said. Not yelling. Just tired. The way a man sounds when he’s already packed his bags inside his head. “At the hotel on Lombard. You said you were working late.”
He held up the phone. The photo was timestamped. Date, time, GPS coordinates. All wrong. All damning. And in the image, a man’s arm draped over her shoulder. She couldn’t see his face. Just a watch on his wrist—a stainless steel diver, same as Mark’s.
Different wrist.
The dream shifted. Now she was in their bathroom, door locked. Through the wood, Mark’s voice came muffled, but the words were clear. “Just tell me his name. That’s all I need. Then I’ll go.”
And in the dream she was still having—the one she hadn’t woken from at all—a phone buzzed on the nightstand. Not Mark’s. Hers. A text from an unknown number. No words. Just a photo.
Lena’s throat closed. She’d bought him that watch last week. For their anniversary. The receipt was still in her purse.
Lena sat up in bed, the cold sheet beside her a dead weight. Mark’s side. Empty. Again. The digital clock on the nightstand bled red numbers: 3:17 AM. Through the thin apartment walls, she heard the muffled thud of the building’s stairwell door. Footsteps. Too light for Mark’s heavy tread.
Mark turned. His eyes were flat. Not angry. Worse: resigned. “I saw you,” he said. Not yelling. Just tired. The way a man sounds when he’s already packed his bags inside his head. “At the hotel on Lombard. You said you were working late.”
He held up the phone. The photo was timestamped. Date, time, GPS coordinates. All wrong. All damning. And in the image, a man’s arm draped over her shoulder. She couldn’t see his face. Just a watch on his wrist—a stainless steel diver, same as Mark’s.
Different wrist.
The dream shifted. Now she was in their bathroom, door locked. Through the wood, Mark’s voice came muffled, but the words were clear. “Just tell me his name. That’s all I need. Then I’ll go.”
And in the dream she was still having—the one she hadn’t woken from at all—a phone buzzed on the nightstand. Not Mark’s. Hers. A text from an unknown number. No words. Just a photo.