I am cheating on my wife. I touched another woman. Someone I should never have touched.

Briana is talking about work. I should be looking at the screen. I should be measuring my words, acting like a man with a wife waiting at home.

But my eyes are on her mouth.

When her mouth finds mine, there is no guilt.

There is no memory of my wife's name. There are no five years of marriage, no promises, no recollection of her telling me she'd wait for me at dinner tonight.

I should stop. I know I should.

But her ki.ss is an eraser. It smudges the lines, blots out the promises, and makes me forget it all.

Something hard clatters onto the floor behind me.

I turn.

And the world stops.

My wife, Nora is framed in the doorway. Her knuckles are bone-white where she grips the doorframe. She is perfectly, terrifyingly still.

Nora's gaze drifts slowly down to the ruined food on the floor. Her face is a terrifying blank page.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice thin and far away. "Someone will have to clean that."

Why isn't she screaming? Throwing something? Cursing my name?

Slowly, she lifts her head. Her eyes meet mine.

And for the first time in all the years I've known her, there is nothing there.

No fire of anger. No well of hurt. No shadow of betrayal.

Just a vast, terrifying emptiness. A void where my wife used to be.

_______________

Julian

Briana is already in my office when I return from the client call.

Of course she is.

She's seated in my chair, legs crossed, reviewing the project deck on my laptop as if it were her own. A pen is clenched between her teeth; her hair is tied up messily, shirt sleeves rolled to her elbows. She looks like someone who breathes deadlines, who runs on ambition and caffeine. Someone who should know better.

Someone I should never have touched.

Briana's eyes meet mine the moment the door closes. A slow, knowing smile touches her lips.

"You're late." she says, making no move to leave my chair.

"The call ran long." My voice is rough. The air in the room feels thick, charged. "You could have waited outside."

"And risk someone seeing me loitering by your door?" She rolls her eyes, a practiced, effortless motion. "Relax, Julian. Half the building is at lunch."

The right thing would be to pull her from my seat.

The professional thing would be to take my laptop back.

The safe thing would be to put the desk between us.

But my feet carry me forward, drawn by a gravity I stopped resisting months ago. As I stop before her, she turns, the fine wool of her trousers whispering against mine. The brief, electric contact is a spark to tinder. The familiar guilt ignites, then just as quickly burns away, leaving only the heat.

Three months.

Three months of this.

Three months of her touch erasing the memory of the gold band on my finger.

"I updated the timelines," she says, turning the laptop toward me. Her voice is all business. "We need to cut two tasks or we'll miss the deadline. Your call."

She's talking about work.

I should be looking at the screen. I should be measuring my words, acting like a man with a wife waiting at home.

But my eyes are on her mouth. My hand is already on the back of the chair, my body leaning over hers, caging her in before my conscience can catch up.

"Julian." Her voice is a low warning, though she never really means it. She never has. "Door's not locked."

"F.ck it," I murmur.

She doesn't look away. She holds my gaze for a suspended breath. A silent, familiar dare. What I see in her eyes isn't softness, or anything as gentle as affection.

It's raw hunger. It's the same cutthroat ambition she applies to every deal.

It's possession.

It's the part of her that recognizes the worst part of me, and calls it home.

When her mouth finds mine, there is no guilt. There is no memory of my wife's name. There are no five years of marriage, no promises, no recollection of her telling me she'd wait for me at dinner tonight.

There is only this: the give of Briana's lips, the sharp tug of her fingers in my shirt as I push her back into the leather. The world narrows to breath and heat and the terrifying rightness of a terrible choice.

I should stop. The thought is a distant bell, ringing from a shore I can no longer reach.

I know I should.

But the second her lips part, every shred of guilt ignites and vanishes into ash, as if it never existed at all.

"Julian," her breath is hot against my neck, "we have fifteen minutes."

"Ten is all we need," I counter, my hands already finding the skin beneath her shirt, my mind a willing blank slate.

I don't think about my wife.

I don't think about the trust in her eyes.

I don't think about the "crisis" I invented to explain my late nights.

I don't think about the text messages, piling up on my phone, each one praising me for my dedication.

I don't think of her at all.

Briana's ki.ss is an eraser. It smudges the lines, blots out the promises, and makes me forget it all.

Something hard clatters onto the floor behind me. The sound is a gunshot in the quiet room.

Briana flinches back, her hands shoving against my chest, a sharp gasp cutting the air.

I turn.

And the world stops.

Nora is framed in the doorway. Her knuckles are bone-white where she grips the doorframe. She is perfectly, terrifyingly still. Her eyes are wide, vacant-as if the very soul has been ripped out of them.

At her feet, the shattered lunchbox. The lid has spun away, and a rich, red sauce bleeds into the carpet. A violent stain against the beige.

My lunch.

The lunch she must've brought for me.

My mouth turns to dust. A cold, sick dread floods my veins, yanking me from that feverish high so violently I gasp for air.

"Nor-"

The name chokes off. I shove myself away from Briana, stumbling forward as if I could physically cross the distance back into the man I was a minute ago.

Nora's gaze drifts slowly down to the ruined food on the floor. Her face is a terrifying blank page.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice thin and far away. "Someone will have to clean that."

I stare at her.

The words don't... make sense.

"Nora- it's not- it's not what it looks like." The lie is clumsy, falling from my lips as I step closer, my hand outstretched.

She doesn't flinch. She doesn't move at all. Her focus remains locked on the floor as if I've already vanished.

"It looks like the sauce is going to stain," she says, her tone hollow, devoid of any emotion. "Someone will have to clean it."

Why is she talking about the carpet?

Why isn't she screaming? Throwing something? Cursing my name?

Why won't she even look at me?

She's in shock, I tell myself, desperate for an anchor.

That's it. No one is this calm when their life shatters.

"Nora, please," I try again, my voice breaking. "Just let me explain."

Slowly, she lifts her head. Her eyes meet mine.

And for the first time in all the years I've known her, there is nothing there.

No fire of anger.

No well of hurt.

No shadow of betrayal.

Just a vast, terrifying emptiness. A void where my wife used to be.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," she says, her voice frighteningly level. "You forgot your lunch. I thought I'd bring it to you. I did knock. But no one answered, so I let myself in. I should have knocked harder."

"Don't-" The word strangles in my throat. "Don't you dare apologize. Nora, please-"

But she is already turning away.

It's not a flight. It's a quiet, seamless withdrawal, as if she's leaving an empty room, not the wreckage of our life. Her shoulders are set, unnervingly still. Her breathing is eerily even. She doesn't spare a single glance for Briana.

It's the most unnatural thing I have ever witnessed.

It's wrong.

This isn't my wife. This is a ghost wearing her skin, and its calm is the most terrifying sound I have ever heard.

For a long, suspended second, I cannot move.

I am paralyzed, my mind refusing to process the scene. The finality in her posture is a physical blow. This isn't the reaction I braced for, and its absence leaves me staggering in empty space.

There is no storm in her, only a sudden, profound stillness.

It's the look of someone who has already left. Who saw everything she needed to see and simply... closed the book.

Then, a primal instinct shatters the paralysis. I lunge after her.

The elevator lobby is empty, the stainless steel doors sealed shut.

I take the stairs two at a time, my footsteps echoing in the concrete wall. I burst into the parking lot just in time to see her taillights flare at the exit.

By the time I fumble my keys into the ignition, my heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. Her car is already merging into traffic, a steady, deliberate pace that feels like a verdict.

And all I can do is follow, clinging to a desperate, foolish hope that she's just going home. That she isn't already gone. That I haven't just taken the best thing I ever had and shattered it on the office floor.

Julian

The drive home is a blur of near-misses and adrenaline. I don't remember streets or turns, only the stark red of lights I ran, the violent hammering in my chest, the acid churn in my gut. Every second stretched into an agony.

And the thoughts, louder than the engine:

What if she's already gone?

What if she's packing her life into a suitcase?

What if I've shattered us beyond any repair?

By the time my tires screech against the driveway gravel, my hands are trembling so badly I can barely kill the engine.

I don't walk-I burst through the front door. The knob wrenching from my grip, the wood slamming against the wall with a crack that echoes through the silent house.

"Nora?"

The name fractures in the dead air.

Silence answers.

My throat is a locked vault as I take the stairs two at a time, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I skid to a halt in our bedroom doorway.

She must be here.

She has to be packing.

She has to be-

The thought dies.

The room is perfectly, terrifyingly normal. The bed is made. Her perfume bottles stand in a neat line on the dresser. No suitcase gapes open on the duvet. Nothing is disturbed.

It feels emptier because of its order. I was braced for a storm, for the evidence of her leaving. Instead, there is only this serene, unbearable stillness.

I yank open the closet door. Her clothes hang there, a silent, ordered spectrum from light to dark, meticulously arranged, exactly as she left them. My hand grips the doorframe, the wood biting into my palm, the ache a sharp anchor in a world that has lost all its meaning.

"Nora?" My voice is louder now, fraying at the edges. "Please. Just say something."

The silence presses in, heavy and suffocating.

I shove open the bathroom door. The air is dry and still. No steam on the mirror, no damp towel on the rack.

The balcony is a void. The guest room, a still life.

Each empty room is a brick laid on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. The questions spiral, a frantic, deafening chorus in my skull.

Where is she? Why would she leave without a single thing?

What is she-

Then I hear it.

A faint, rhythmic sound from downstairs.

A soft, steady tap... tap... tap...

The sound of a knife meeting a cutting board.

My heart stalls in my chest.

I move toward the kitchen, my feet like lead with every step.

And I stop in the doorway.

Nora is there. Standing at the counter. Slicing a bell pepper with methodical precision, as if the last hour never happened. As if she hadn't witnessed her world collapse and simply walked away from the wreckage.

Her hair is neatly tied back. Her sleeves are rolled to her elbows. A soft, tuneless hum drifts from her.

She glances up, and a faint, polite surprise touches her features.

"Oh," she says, her voice light and even. "You're home early."

Everything inside me seizes.

Every thought, every frantic fear, simply short-circuits. All my rehearsed pleas, my frantic explanations, vanished, leaving only a hollow, buzzing panic in their place.

This... this domestic peace, this utter normalcy... it's a weapon. And it cuts deeper than any scream, any tear, any thrown object ever could.

"Nora..." I manage, but my voice is barely there.

She blinks, her expression one of mild, polite inquiry. The kind you'd offer a distant colleague who showed up at your door.

"Is everything all right?" she asks, and the concern in her voice sounds genuine. "You look pale."

My eyes drag from her face to the cutting board. To the impossibly neat, uniform slices of pepper. To the pot of water simmering gently on the stove.

She's making dinner.

The realization doesn't just dawn; it crashes over me, cold and suffocating. She walked in on me with another woman, and now she's making dinner.

The foundation of reality cracks. I don't know how to stand in a world where this is possible. I don't know how to draw a single breath that doesn't feel like shattering glass.

"Nora..." Her name is a plea, stripped of everything but desperation. "Please. Can we talk?"

Her knife stills, poised above the cutting board.

"Talk about what?" she asks, her voice soft and utterly devoid of subtext.

That question-so simple, so innocently delivered-hits me with the force of a physical blow.

It's then I understand. This isn't suppression. This isn't a calm before the storm. The storm is over. The woman I knew, the one who would have been shattered by this, is gone.

Not from the room, but from behind her own eyes. She has retreated to a place where I simply do not exist.

The body is here, performing a task. But the soul, the memory, the love-everything that made her Nora-has already left the room.

And I am standing here, speaking to a ghost. The silence between us is no longer empty; it is a wall, and she is on the other side, out of reach.

Nora sets the knife down with a quiet click. She wipes her hands on a towel, a methodical motion, before turning back to the vegetables. I have been dismissed from her awareness entirely.

I take a step closer, the air feeling thin and useless in my lungs. "Nora... please. We need to talk about what happened."

She tilts her head, but not at me-at the carrot she's sizing up, as if its dimensions are the most pressing concern in the world.

"Why?" she asks, the word soft, unburdened, and utterly devastating.

"Because you saw me!" The confession tears out of me, raw and ragged. "You saw what happened. I need to explain. I'm so sorry. I'll end it, it's over. Briana means nothing. It's only you. It has always been you. Nora, please-"

She finally lifts her gaze to meet mine.

Her eyes empty.

"Okay," she says.

Just that.

My jaw goes slack. No sound emerges.

She turns back to the cutting board and picks up the knife. The conversation, for her, is already over.

"I'm not lying, Nora. I will never do anything like that again. I love you. I'm sorry."

"Okay." The same, placid tone.

"Nora," I choke out, desperation clawing up my throat. "I'm telling you the truth."

She looks at me, and her gaze is utterly transparent. "I believe you."

The air rushes from my lungs.

"I believe you're sorry," she continues, her voice as even as the rhythm of her knife. "And I believe you're saying you won't do it again. So... that's it. Nothing else to discuss." She turns back to the vegetables.

I can only stare, speechless. She's discussing the destruction of our marriage with the same detached interest as the weather.

"I just..." The words are gravel in my throat. "I thought you might want to talk about... what happens now. If you're leaving. Or how angry you are, or-"

"Why would I leave you?" she asks, not pausing in her work.

The question is so calm, so brutally rational, it doesn't just silence me-it dismantles me. There is no anger to fight, no pain to soothe. There is only a void where our life used to be.

The knife continues its steady rhythm.

"Where would I even go, Julian?"

My chest goes cold and hollow.

"I don't have a job," she states, sweeping the chopped vegetables into a bowl. "I have no real skills. My parents had me married to you the moment I turned eighteen. I've never lived anywhere else. You manage everything." She meets my eyes, her gaze clear and empty. "So, where would I go?"

There is no bitterness in her tone. No sarcasm. No plea for pity.

Just a flat, devastating truth.

"And anyway," she adds, turning back to the counter, her voice barely a whisper, "it's not like you hit me."

The words land not like a slap, but like a surgeon's blade. Precise, cold, and severing something vital inside me.

"It was just cheating," she says, and her shrug is almost gentle. "You lied. You ki.ssed someone else. People do worse things all the time."

A sickening wave rolls through me.

She turns back to the stove, the soft hum returning to her lips as she stirs the pot, treating the conversation with the same weight as a comment on the soup.

"Nora... stop," I beg. "Please, just stop talking like that. You're scaring me."

She glances over her shoulder, offering a small, polite smile that doesn't touch her eyes.

"I don't mean to." Then, as if offering reassurance, she adds, "I'm not angry with you, Julian."

The statement feels like a nail being driven into the coffin of our marriage.

"Dinner will be ready soon," she continues, her tone softening into something that mimics warmth. "You should go rest. You look tired."

And with that, she turns away-back to the simmering food, back to her quiet humming, back to a calm so absolute it feels like a form of death.

And a terrible, silent understanding cracks me open.

She isn't staying because she forgives me. She is staying because she believes she has no other choice.

She isn't enduring this for the sake of our love. She is enduring it because she doesn't believe her own pain is a valid reason to go.

Something fundamental in her shattered today in my office.

And the most horrifying part?

She didn't even flinch when it broke.