I didn't read any further.
I picked up the phone and muttered, "Going to the restroom," then pushed the door open and all but fled.
At the far end of the hallway I leaned against the wall, and it took a long time before my breathing settled.
It was only in the car that I realized I'd grabbed the wrong phone. It was Christian's.
The instant I unlocked it, his text messages popped open.
The newest thread had no contact name saved, just a blank where a name should be.
The last message was from two days ago.
【Chris, I'm coming back.】
A long while passed before he replied: 【It's been raining lately. Bring an umbrella.】
【How did you know?】
【My hand hurts.】
I stared at that line, and slowly my eyes began to sting.
Every time it rained, Christian's right hand ached.
An old injury, left behind by the accident.
That rainy night after graduation, Christian had driven out to chase down Stephanie, who was about to leave the country, and crashed the car.
Nerve damage. He could never paint again.
There was a time he'd sketched Stephanie once a day, filling whole books with her.
Afterward those sketchbooks were sealed away along with the injury, and he never mentioned painting again.
I was the one who saw him through rehab.
Through every night of nerve pain, through every surgery and follow-up.
And in time he got better.
Later, in the hospital garden, with the setting sun stretching our shadows long across the ground, he said,
"Miranda, let's give it a try."
I thought he was trying to love me.
Only now do I understand. Maybe he was only trying to let himself off the hook, to let go of a love so fierce it could never quite be put out.
The cab driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Where to, miss?"
I opened my mouth and found I couldn't say the home I shared with Christian.
Was that home still mine?
It was eleven at night before Christian came back.
He carried a faint smell of liquor and perfume, the white-tea scent Stephanie always wore.
"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"
He flicked on the entryway light just as I was curled up on the couch.
There was ibuprofen on the coffee table. My cramps had started in the afternoon and hadn't let up since.
"Not feeling well?"
He came over and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.
I said nothing, and turned my head away from his hand.
"Miranda, let me take you to the hospital."
He crouched down and looked up at me.
"You've been drinking," I said.
Just stating a fact.
He rarely drank, except at work functions.
"Stephanie's really getting married—"
"Christian, I'm tired."
I cut him off and pushed away the hand he'd laid on my shoulder.
At two in the morning, the pain woke me.
The reunion group chat was lively in the dead of night.
【Did you guys hear? Stephanie's coming back for a marriage alliance this time. Her family's company hit a cash-flow crisis, and the guy she's marrying is fifteen years older than her…】
【No wonder she said at dinner tonight that there was "no chance with Christian anymore." It was so sad to hear!! Is the couple I shipped really gonna end like this?!】
【After things broke up tonight I saw Christian and Stephanie talking at the end of the hallway. No idea what they said, but both their eyes were red.】
【Wait, did anyone notice Christian had what looked like a ring mark on his ring finger? The kind you only get from wearing a wedding ring for years.】
【!! Seriously?? Who'd he marry??】
【No idea. It was never made public.】
【It wouldn't be… Miranda, would it? She seemed kind of off.】
The tears slid silently into the pillow, and I got up and walked out of the room.
The living room was pitch dark, except for that study door, sealed shut for years, now standing ajar.
I pushed it open, and when the light came on, I froze where I stood.
The whole room was full of paintings.
