Page 41 of Iridescent
I twist the faucet off. The sudden silence is deafening, louder than the pounding water ever was. My heart hammers in my ears as I step out of the shower and grab a towel, dragging it roughly over my skin.
I should cry. That would be the normal thing to do. Crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, let the hurt wash through me and burn itself out.
Instead, my hands are already moving.
I drop the towel, cross the bedroom, and yank open the dresser drawer. Ishove past silk camisoles and lace lingerie until I find the pieces of myself I promised him I’d buried: a black sports bra, old boxing shorts, a roll of hand wraps. The fabric brushes my fingers, soft and familiar enough to wake something mean and restless inside me. I grimace, but the determination surging through my veins pushes back the slow drip of fear.
Cool air prickles over my damp skin as I pull the clothes on. My heartbeat settles into a measured rhythm.
I wrap my hands methodically, winding the cloth around my knuckles and wrists. Muscle memory thrums through places I thought had gone dead.
Left. Pull. Tuck.
By the time I secure the final strip with my teeth, my fingers have stopped trembling.
A strange calm settles over me. It’s the feeling I used to get right before a fight, when the world shrank to just me, my opponent, and the certainty that I would win. I haven’t felt it in years. I never thought I would again.
I draw in a slow breath and step out of the room. The house is dark and silent as I head downstairs, lit only by moonlight spilling through the windows. I turned off the motion-sensor lights when I came in—I couldn’t stand to see this mausoleum of a home glowing as if everything were normal.
But even the dark doesn’t hide enough.
I pause at the threshold of the living room, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Every version of us still hangs on these walls.
Wedding photos everywhere. Us laughing. Spinning through this room in the middle of the night. Burning dinner because we couldn’t stop touching each other. Collapsing onto the sofa, breathless from stupid jokes, convinced it would always be us against the world.
Everything looks untouched. Frozen in time. As if someone pressed pause on our happiness and never bothered to hit play again.
Just a month ago, I sat on that same sofa with Xavier, leaning into his warmth as we planned a trip to the Seychelles to recreate our honeymoon—our fourth anniversary celebration. A fresh start.
We canceled at the last minute because of his “busy schedule.” Meetings. Deals. Urgent proposals. Everything seemed to matter more than us. Morethan me.
Except her.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimes midnight, its bell tolling through the silence. Xavier still isn’t home. The realization slices through me, deepening the ache I’ve been trying to numb. He didn’t follow me when I walked out of that dinner.
He didn’t call. He didn’t even send a text to ask if I was okay. The only thing my husband did was instruct one of the chauffeurs to take me home.
That tells me everything. Everything about where I stand in his life.
Thirty minutes. That’s how long I sat in that back seat, the city lights smearing across the windows as we sped along the coast. Thirty minutes of silence, tasting tears I refused to shed and the Bordeaux curdling to acid in my stomach. With every mile that passed, I felt a fissure open between me and the man I married, widening by the second. I stared at the dark ocean and realized I was utterly alone in that car, in my marriage, in this fight.
A shiver of anger and pain runs through me. I start to pace. The silence of the house presses in, broken only by the tick… tick… tick of the clocks. Each second slips by with agonizing slowness, each tick another reminder that he still hasn’t come after me. That he’s still with her.
I clench my teeth so hard it hurts. How long is he going to leave me here, stewing in my own rage and humiliation?
Just as that thought sears through me, a sweep of headlights floods the living room, cutting across the walls and furniture.
My heart thuds once.
He’s here.
I halt mid-stride, every nerve snapping to attention.
Through the window, I watch the beams glide over the manicured lawn before disappearing as the car turns down toward the garage beneath the house.
A moment later, the low purr of the engine drifts up through the night—then dies.
I slip back into the shadows of the foyer, just out of sight of the front door. Fury coils in my veins, held in check by a thin veneer of calm.
