# CONTEXT

Lars has Retinitis Pigmentosa. His peripheral vision is narrowing. The world is blurring at the edges. He notices the wrong things too acutely because what he can't see clearly, he has to feel.

And he felt it. The shift. The numbness. The absence where warmth used to be. He knew because love, like vision, doesn't disappear all at once. It fades and shifts then leaves an outline.

When he discovered his wife's affair with his best friend, he didn't rage. He didn't leave, he went out.

Not for pleasure.
Not for revenge.
For balance.

So that when the truth came out, they would both be guilty. Forgiveness would be possible so that she wouldn't have to stand by herself in the wreckage.

This is a story about a man who loves so deeply that he will contaminate himself to save the woman who destroyed him.

Sometimes, not seeing well means seeing too much, and loving too much means destroying yourself to keep the person you love from standing alone.

#THE AFTERMATH:

Why do lines blur? Could it be said that love is a disease that has no cure? Lars had known her too well to miss it. Maybe something had always been there, something that never chose between him and his best friend. Their best friend.

Retinitis Pigmentosa.

He woke at 5:47 AM. He noticed the wrong things too acutely. He tossed and turned until his gaze settled on the ceiling. Was she careless or just resigned to his condition? The pads of his fingers smoothed her side of the bed searching for warmth, for the residual shape of her absence.

There was a pianist's rhythm to the way his fingers traced her silhouette from memory. She was almost there. Sunlight streaked the skin on his hand where it parted the blinds. Warm just like her, tender like the whispers of her palm on his chest– the alarm went off. 6:00 AM. He silenced it before the second beep and sat up like he was late for something that did not exist anymore.

The same eyes that had always stared back looked different in the bathroom mirror. While he brushed his teeth, brown irises glossed over old imperfections. He still had the same stubble pattern that followed the line of his square jaw.

Nothing changed.
Everything changed.

He leaned closer. There was a faint red mark under his left mandible, a new one since yesterday. He touched it with two fingers. It wasn't from shaving, it held the wrong shape and color, a careless sign that he wiped away with a shaky thumb.

Evidence of sin or stain of devotion? Even he didn't argue with the meaning.

He opened the closet and pulled out the blue button-down she'd bought him last Christmas. You look good in this one, she'd said, smoothing the collar with both hands. He held it up. Put it back. Grabbed the gray one instead then paused. -And so handsome. He put the gray one back and took the other one after all.

The coffee maker beeped and snapped his attention to the kitchen. From the cabinet he pulled a couple of mugs gifted as a wedding present from John. Hers had a chipped handle and his was plain white.

The fresh brew felt routine, habitual and normal in a way that embodied a life postured, not lived. Coffee poured into both cups. His breath hitched when he grabbed hers. Lars stared at the inky liquid, counting every loud tick of the clock for exactly thirteen heartbeats.

When he spilled it down the sink in a slow, steady stream, his hand trembled, then let go. It swirled down the drain and the mug was left where it lay. He thought about placing it where she always left it, but, what was the point in that?

He drank his standing. The chair at the table was still pushed out from the previous morning. She always forgot to push it in. He walked over and slid it back into place with both hands and looked at the rest of the kitchen. A broken vase, a crooked painting and torn window curtains. He left everything where it was.

The cellphone on the counter pinged a new notification. There were three total. One from her, one from work and a final from a number he didn't recognize.

He opened the thread with the unknown contact. Four messages, all from last week, the week she was at her mother's. He deleted it without reading on instinct.

His thumb hovered.
Went to Recently Deleted.
Hated what it meant.
Restored the conversation.
Marked it unread.

He locked the screen and shoved it in his pocket. A minute later the front door shut. The apartment hallway echoed the sound harshly, he had yanked it harder than necessary. Despite hearing the deadbolt catch he still pulled the handle to check. Lately too many keys could get in and that's what stung the most.

The drive to work took twenty-two minutes. The radio came on automatically, some morning show host laughing at his own joke. Lars tried to listen, but reached over when the noise interrupted his thoughts. It was stupid how much the scenes replayed in his head, how much he tried to understand.

Just... focus.

At a red light, he noticed a couple in the car next to him. The woman was crying. The man had his hand on her knee. She wiped her face and said something. The man smiled and she smiled back. Then the light turned green and the couple drove off first.

At work, he answered emails before anyone else arrived and cleared his inbox by 8:34. When his coworker Rachel leaned into his cubicle and asked, "Hey, how's Lorna doing? Haven't seen her around lately," Lars didn't hesitate. "She's good. Visiting her mother upstate." Rachel smiled. "Oh nice. Tell her I said hi." He cleaned his glasses, the pair with the permanent smudge around the edges.

"Will do."

When she left he realized that he'd lied for his wife again. He flipped a small framed photo of her so that he could work in peace for a few hours.
Lunch was a tuna sandwich from a vending machine in the cafeteria. The same table next to the water-stained window with the smeared bird shit on the sill outside. Across the room a couple sat close together. Spoons-to-plates clinked around him as he chewed without tasting.

The brunette seemed upset with her arms crossed tight. Her husband leaned in, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and whispered with a smile. She uncrossed her arms when he said something else, she laughed, shook her head and laid her forehead on his shoulder.

Their joy was a sweet relief but to him it sounded like poison. Lars looked down at his sandwich and took another bite before tossing it into the bin.

At 1:29 PM. He found himself on the stairs to the third-floor supply room. No one used it this time of day. But alone was the one thing he couldn't afford to be because it led to loud arguments inside his mind. His hand jerked his hair suddenly and held his grip there, then pulled out his phone.

The restored thread from earlier had a blurred thumbnail. The timestamp was from three days ago. A nineteen-second clip of two people in bunny and hound masks.

He pressed play.

There was bad lighting, bad angles and someone's bedroom, not theirs, not their marital bed. The camera must've been propped on a dresser. He heard her voice first. Not words, just the sound of her mischievous giggling. The kind she used to give him when she felt reckless but safe. He heard John next. Muffled, calling her beautiful and sexy, his little whore.

Lars closed the video at eleven seconds and set his phone face-down on the step. Curled fingers dug into his thigh and wished he could draw blood through the slacks.

At 1:33 PM, he opened the video again and muted the sound as fast as he could then skipped ahead, scanned her face and not the body behind her. Paused at fourteen seconds. His intestines churned like a broken washing machine. He stopped breathing.

"God..."

Lorna's eyes were half-lidded, her mouth open, knuckles tight around the sheets.

Laurentius had seen that look many times painted on her features. New Year's Eve before the countdown on their third date. The night she quit her job without telling him first and moved in by surprise. And the night she'd suggested they drive to the coast at 2 AM just because.

She could never wait for the right timing. Her expression in the clip was the same one she always had before doing something reckless. Something she'd always apologize for later. He locked the screen and observed his reflection then put the phone away, his desk waited.

At 3:30 PM, he left work early. Told his manager he had a dentist appointment. He drove and parked outside a strip joint and walked up to the ATM close to the entrance.

The Velvet Narwhal

Neon letters glowed with a smug indifference, each curve edged in a halo of electric fuzz. Above the name a towering neon silhouette of a woman materialized curved and languid, with hair tumbling in glowing strands down her back. Her hips swayed in a slow, looping animation.

On her forehead, a slim, luminous horn pulsed in time with the bass, a strip of light that flared, dimmed, flared again, as though it were breathing.

Beside her, shimmering into existence like a summoned familiar, a glowing narwhal drifted through imaginary water. Its body was plump and cheerful, its long tusk extending forward in a slow, looping arc.

Every few seconds, the animations synced across Lars's face. He withdrew four hundred dollars, took the cash and folded it into his wallet behind the credit card Lorna had given him for emergencies.

She texted at 6:02 PM.

["Where are you? can we talk"]

["?"]

Typed: ["Grabbed a drink after work."]

Deleted it.

Typed again: ["For what?"]

Deleted that too.

In the end there was no reply, he just left the message on seen.

That's when he decided right there and then, standing outside by the ATM: when she would finally ask him how long? That he wouldn't tell her the truth. He'd make this sound older, long before hers ever started.

Inside there was a brick interior, dim lights and the corner speakers played something he didn't recognize. He sat at the bar and ordered whiskey, slammed it down and tapped the counter for another. His coworkers once said that the girls here often took jobs on the side and tonight felt like the right time to see if it was true.

A blonde dancer two seats across smiled at him. Mid-thirties, full figure with tired eyes. Lars didn't look back yet she moved one seat next to him.

"Rough day?" Her body angled close and she rested her cheek on her palm.

"Something like that." He chugged another glass.

"Me too."

She ordered a drink but they didn't talk much after that. Just sat there and let the alcohol speak for them and at some point, her hand touched his arm. A numb sweat crawled over his flesh when the warmth of her palm made contact.

Didn't move it away.
Didn't ask for her name.

The Honeymoon Haven was four blocks away, they walked there, and he paid in cash. Bleach and fake lavender hit his senses when they stepped inside room number thirteen. The mattress had stains around the edges where the sheets didn't hang over and the TV was on mute, showing some home renovation show.

She leaned to kiss him. He refused, and unbuttoned his shirt, his wife's favorite.

The awkwardness of a void left by romance consumed him. She fumbled his belt and he slid her underwear carelessly. The sex was rough and full of scorn. He put her into many obscene positions on top of the covers and halfway through practiced moans, he tried something he'd never asked Lorna for. The type of thing he'd thought was missing from their marriage, the kind of adventure she sought with John.

The woman didn't hesitate. Light was absent from her irises because money made her submissive at the cost of dignity. He thrust without mercy, their bodies twisted and moved like animals, but his mind only wanted a rehearsal of the acts he needed to make sense of.

Was this what you wanted?

Did you beg him?

Is this how you want to be fucked?

Is this what you break my heart for?

Guilt squeezed his ribs before he came. It dug like thorny barbs, sharp, deep.

And then -relief.

He exhaled like something had finally leveled.

Now I'm marked too.

Now we're the same.

Now I can forgive you.

Whispered bills scraped too loud as the prostitute counted the money at the end of the bed still naked. Lars closed the door behind him but she didn't look up. A receipt from the front desk was tossed to the street and the wind caught it. Once inside, he sat in the car with the engine turned off.

An incessant beeping of the seat belt warning cut the silence when he turned the key halfway. For nine minutes he listened to the sound non-stop, he climbed out, slammed the door and got another girl.

At 11:45 PM, he checked his phone. Four missed calls and twelve plus messages. He opened the thread, didn't read any of it and replied;

["OMW."]

At home, everything smelled the same. Coffee from this morning. Her lotion, a shattered perfume bottle and the faint smell of laundry detergent. He showered for twenty minutes and stood under the water until it ran cold.

Fuck it all.

He got dressed and made his way to the kitchen. The vase was cleaned up, the painting laid upright on the wall and the small window let the street lights pour inside without curtains.

Lars made his way into the living room only leaving the blinking bulb on. The one he promised to get around to months ago. On the shelf across from the couch, there was a framed photo. About four years old, taken before they were married. Before the engagement. Before the conversations about forever after.

It was a silly frame of just the two of them sitting too close on a beach in Acapulco, smiling like idiots. Best friends first, then lovers. Their first kiss felt like nomads finding home and their last felt like an imitation.

I won't let you face this alone.

When he sat the reclined sofa felt soft when his body sunk into it. I love you Lorna. The table lamp clicked off and the only sound came from a rattling screw inside the air-conditioned unit. Everything flooded in pitch darkness except a dim glow bleeding from the hallway.

His gaze fixed on the ceiling fan as he began to rehearse curated lies.

When the time came and she would ask how long? He wouldn't say one night, he'd say half a year, before yours.

He'd make it sound uglier, dirtier. Because if he was guilty too, if he was more guilty, she wouldn't be the only one standing in the wreckage. She wouldn't be the real monster. They could move on, forgive each other and finally bury the shame together.

Keys into the door split the silence, the lock turned and the door opened.

It was barely 4am and Lorna lay rigid in their marital bed, something like rigor mortis clutching at her bones. The sagging mattress groaned beneath her as she shifted, turning on her side to face her husband sleeping peacefully beside her. Worn bed springs squeaking in protest, she tried to readjust her form but these limbs felt awkward and foreign. Her body a stranger, Lorna looked down at her naked flesh beneath the duvet and a shaky breath whistled through her nostrils. Since she’d let someone else ravish this body, nothing felt like hers anymore. What was once entirely her own, shared seldom with Lars, now had the fingerprints of someone else cattle-branded into her marshmallow skin. If a forensic team were to dust this body for evidence, there’d be the unique prints of John Carter littered across her hips. Thermo imagery would betray her, too, instantly revealing the hot kisses of John’s breathy lips scattered down her spine. Suddenly the duvet that weighed down on them both felt like the wrought iron of a cell door and Lorna gently peeled the sheets back, the cool air of the bedroom lapping at her, cotton-fresh laundry detergent filling her nose.

Lorna’s bare feet padded across the floorboards, she bent at the hips to snatch at her running attire, left crumpled by the foot of the bed. Moving as quietly as she could, Lorna pulled her leggings and sports bra on. The sky outside their window was awash with dusky watercolours, the clouds creeping across the moon and sun as they fought for centre stage. She tied the laces of her running shoes, fingers trembling and fumbling with the material. The wedding band and diamond beneath it stared back at her, wide-eyed. They used to sit so proudly wrapped around her slender digits, a proud proclamation of the love she shared. Now? They sneered at her. She could barely make eye contact with them, wincing at their adamance. Her somber brown gaze slid away, landing on Lars’ sleeping body still tucked in their martial bed. Rising to her feet, Lorna left the bedroom and jogged down the stairs. The house smelt like last night’s dinner and old incense with a hint of fresh laundry drying in their utility room across the hallway. Clicking the locks of the front door behind her, she flew down the front steps and sprung into a steady jog beneath the early morning sunrise. Trainers thudding against the pavement, fists clenched tight as she jogged the first few minutes of the usual route, Lorna let the wind run its fingers through her hair. Her chest heaved with each inhale, lips pursed with the exhale.

‘A run will clear my head…’ she thought to herself as the streets rolled past her in a blur.

She hoped with each stride, her head would empty. The rhythm of her run beat like a drum in her chest, matching the steady pulsing of her heart. Yet still the chatter of guilt crackled in the back of her mind, reminding her that there was no running away from consequence.

___________________________________

Lars would be at work. She pictured him bravely smiling at his colleagues, pretending like their home wasn’t flooded with the unearthing of secrets. He’d be sat bolt upright at his desk, no doubt. Brow knitted together like he did when he concentrated. He’d be staring back at the photo of her he kept beside his screen. Did it make him sad? To see her so nonchalantly poised at his desk, smiling back at him with the ghosts of happiness on her lips?

She’d spent the morning running, traversing almost the circumference of their hometown. Unwavering. Stopping at nothing. Weaving in and out of tutting commuters. Halting honking traffic. Causing cyclists to swerve. The danger of not looking when she crossed the busy roads, daring a bonnet to kiss her thighs, it made her feel alive. Lorna ran until her joints filled with acid, until her muscles burnt white-hot. When she was sure her husband was long gone, she began the route home. Returning to a house empty of life but full of regret felt like plunging underwater and she swam to the top of the stairs to shower and get dressed.

“I just need to be around someone, Han” Lorna said into the phone cradled between her shoulder and her flushed cheek. “If I spend the day here, just waiting for him to come home, I’ll go fucking crazy-“

Chewing on a piece of charred toast, she listened to the clattering of her best friend washing up on the other end of the line. Lorna began to pace the kitchen, her cashmere sweater hanging loosely at her starved, protruding clavicles.

“Well if you want to spend the next few hours watching Oliver breastfeed until my nipples bleed, that’s your funeral, Lor-“ Hannah’s voice sounded distant, the call on speakerphone as she mothered. “Can you pick up some wine on the way? I’d like to watch you drink it and pretend I’m not a nursing mother starved of anything remotely fun…”

Lorna was already tugging on her Burberry trench coat, pressing the phone harder to her ear with a raised shoulder, cinching the belt around her waist. The loud clatter of freshly-washed pans filled her eardrum and she grabbed a fistful of her car keys from the pot by the front door.

“I’ll bring a Chardonnay. Oaked. You can sniff it whilst Oliver swaps nipples. Love you.”

The journey to her best friend’s house was one Lorna could drive whilst completely disassociating. It took 25 minutes and as she drove, she let the inane chit chat of the radio host seep through the car speakers. Catching a glimpse of herself in the rear view, Lorna winced. Her cheeks had hallowed out in recent weeks, cheekbones jutting out further still than they did naturally. Dark circles clumsily hidden with concealer told the story of her sleepless nights, guilt oozing at her tear ducts. She pressed her lips into a hard line, thumbing the button at her elbow that sent the drivers side window juddering downward. The cool breeze caressed her cheeks, flicking the stray curls that escaped her half-arsed bun into watery eyes. The indicator clicked as she turned into Hannah’s driveway.

Little bicycles discarded at the front steps, indoor toys turned outdoor toys lay abandoned in the overgrown grass and the front door swung open to reveal Hannah with Oliver propped on widened hip. A weary smile tugged at both their lips in greeting, Hannah moving effortlessly to one side as Lorna shouldered past with a bottle of Chardonnay gripped in her right hand. The familiar smell of Hannah’s home greeted her like an old friend and Lorna breathed a sigh of relief. This home was uncorrupted, not sullied by her own mistakes. This was a home brimming with love and life, the sound of giggling children flowing down the stairs. Hannah sighed.

“The boys are too sick for school, apparently…” she mumbled, slippers clapping as she made her way into the kitchen. Her red hair was clumsily pulled into a clip at the nape of her neck. Oliver burbled happily in her arms. “Here. Pour yourself a large one.”

The wine glass tinkered as it was placed on the cluttered worktop. Lorna unscrewed the Chardonnay and cleared her throat as the honeyed wine splashed into the glass. She avoided Hannah’s watchful gaze, the doting look of a concerned mother reserved exclusively for her children and her heartbroken best friend. The two shared a silence, ignoring the elephant that filled the room. The pair, years deep into a friendship more like sisterhood, didn’t need to fill the empty space with small talk. They were far beyond that. Instead, they shared a knowing look that said “Let’s spend the day not talking about this.”

____________________________________

Driving home in the dark, Lorna felt the effects of the Chardonnay tugging at her hands as they traversed the wheel. Reversing into her driveway felt like an extreme sport and she breathed a sigh of relief as she engaged the parking brake. Keys jingling melodically as she unlocked the front door, Lorna silently thanked the wine that clouded her mind. Returning home to Lars filled her with dread, sober. But now? She flicked the hallway light on and glided into the front room where he slept on the reclining sofa.

She stared at the back of his head for a while, admiring the way his hair ruffled at the tip of his spine. Her heart wrung out like a wet towel in her chest. Lorna took some careful steps forward as if she were approaching a nervous street cat and outstretched a hand. Her fingertips gently brushed the back of Lars’ head, plunging into his hair. The feeling of his thick dark tousled strands splaying between her fingers made her shiver.

“Lars,” she called softly. Her voice was thick with the effort of saying his name. It felt like salty guilt on her palette. “Lars, I’m home.”

youtu.be/eAQMvUioV6c?si=YRIJLHgUemJxuhq6 (just a jam to listen to while reading)

“Lars, I’m home.”

She dared to touch him.
Did she even have that right anymore?
Did he?

To receive the caress of a loving wife after what he’d done. After what she had done.

Everything was blurred now. Not by consequence because surely they never thought that far. Actually , the reason was much more mundane. It was by neglecting the little things, the small gestures. Their love.

I’m home.

Too careless. The words fit her mouth like nothing had shifted.

Home?

You still think you have one to return to? Is that what this is? The soft couch beneath him felt familiar in the way an estranged neighbor's does. And the coffee? The smell from this morning had long gone sour. Everything was the same way. Especially that fucking light bulb he never fixed.

Yeah, this was home and he had one as much as she did.

He did not move at first and simply let her believe he was sleeping and let her hand linger. Even when her fingers felt like a rake across his scalp gently, he remained still, gaze locked on the spinning ceiling fan. The blades carved slow circles through the dark ticking faintly as if they were hands on a clock out of touch with time.

He had stared long enough to rehearse the words until they sounded believable.

It was half a year before yours, not just tonight.

He practiced the tone and the exact pause where shame should sit in the manufactured confession. He practiced the look of someone guilty not just calculating. If he made it older than hers, dirtier than hers, then the weight would distribute evenly.

This wasn't martyrdom for Lars, just love expressed in painful sacrifice. Her fingers pressed at his scalp tenderly. His shoulders tensed, then forced themselves to soften. He almost said it all then. Almost turned his head and let it all spill out, names without faces and rooms without meaning.

Bleach and fake lavender, and the way he counted minutes between girls like a man counting down to his execution. He imagined her flinch, maybe stumble because of the wine.

Imagined the way her shoulders would stiffen. Imagined the way she would ask questions, how she tried to rationalize the why of it all. He pictured another argument, more shouting, more disgust. He felt the tremor in her knuckles when she brushed his temple. It's not easy to take the blame without retaliating. Wounded animals trying to survive a bleeding monogamous life. He closed his eyes slowly as if surfacing from sleep.

“Hey,” he turned and smiled.

The confession stayed behind his teeth like shards of glass he decided to swallow. Tonight would have to remain quiet, the happy picture frames and souvenirs of their memories had already heard enough.
So why then?

Why do words that linger in the tongue stay silent when lips come apart?

They didn't talk about it. And even if they did, what would that accomplish anyway?

More scorn?
More ache?

No.

Lorna was tired of performing and Lars was sick of hurting.

He simply stood and walked past her to the bedroom and she followed him like muscle memory, not side by side kissing passionately like they used to, but in line as if they were walking through an airport terminal.

No apologies, no permissions, only routine. Their silence was a mutual treaty of understanding in knowing that if they thought for too long, they would both break.

The bedroom light stayed off. She kissed him first in the same way their schedule always allowed. His mouth angled where it knew her best and the glide of her hands found the spots familiar to his body.

Pressure.
Pressure.
pressure.

Soft pads found his jawline in the exact place right before his chin where she always made sure he knew she meant it. Looking at her like this he saw versions of himself in her eyes that he could no longer be, so he responded mechanically. His palms to her waist, fingers trailed up her spine to undo the clasp of her bra.

Actually, if someone had walked in, it would have looked normal and that was the worst part.

She pulled his shirt over his frame. Lars raised his arms without protest. Pants, belt and the rest came off like choreography. Her kisses marked his neck and the dip of his collarbone. She paused. Her lips hovered over faint bite marks, reddish, recent, wrong. She made space for them. Kissed around them. Continued to the spot under his earlobe where he used to shiver.

He didn't shiver. She noticed, but didn't stop. She pushed him back onto the bed and he settled on the familiar side where they always started. Lorna climbed on top of him and kissed him again, deeper this time. Her gaze scanned desperately trying to find anything under the surface, and tried to reach a part of him that used to meet her halfway.

He kissed her back but it felt like he was following instructions. She pulled back to look at him though his eyes focused on a smudge on the ceiling past her shoulder, lost in trance.

"Lars I–," the line of her mouth barely moved. He blinked, looked at her and remained silent. Their lips locked again in dead consent.

When she straddled him, nothing stirred. There were no expressions of surprise or twisted grief. His features didn't change, his breathing stayed even. Slowly, the rhythm of her milky hips settled into habit as she watched for any reaction, or some signal that she wasn't dead weight on the man she loved and that her body still gave him pleasure.

Nothing.

She leaned, hands on his chest and moved faster and faster searching for that line on his cheek when he would clench from ecstasy. Instead his hands slid to her thighs and pressed lightly, no grip, just there.

The lids of her eyes curtained to contain the mourning of their marriage. Yet his kept open while their motions stayed practiced and automatic. Years of muscle memory ingrained into every gesture, bodies that synced with each other's rhythm and timing without trying.

A sound escaped her. Half a breath, half a moan and all poison. He responded by burying deeper inside her, not for desire but for her validation. It should have felt good.

It felt like a star had collapsed in his chest. She opened her eyes and looked down. He still stared at the ceiling.

"Look at me," the words hardly tangible above the sound of their breathing.

He did.

And that's when she saw it. Tears. They leaked over his temples and disappeared into the pillow. No grief theater, no quiver, no contortions on his face... just release.

One of them landed on her wrist.

Warm.

She froze while moving.
Still connected, still inside.
Still throbbing.

This man, her lover, her soulmate, had never looked at another woman. Not performatively, but because he'd turn his face for devotion. Even the suggestion of infidelity felt like it could stain something sacred. She remembered holding his hand in public and feeling oddly safe because he policed himself before she ever had to.

There were times when she remembered the absence of jealousy when it had no space to grow. And now here he was, crying without crying. Fucking without wanting. Staining himself to escape and to carry the weight so she wouldn't have to bear it alone.

The realization hit her with physical strangulation in her lungs. She stopped moving.

"Lars–"

He kept his hands on her thighs. Didn't move them. Didn't pull away. Then he spoke with a steady low voice that was devastating in its calm.

"Oh my God," the words hooked in his throat.

She felt her chest crack.

"He touches you."

Her breath caught.

"You let him touch you."

She began shaking.

"You want him to touch you."

The dam broke.

She collapsed forward, chest to chest, and her face pressed into his neck, and the sound that came out of her wasn't controlled or dignified. It was an animal being shredded to pieces. She sobbed with abandon, full body shaking, fingers trembling, nails digging into her own flesh.

Lars didn't tell her it was all going to be okay. That they would sort it out and figure out a way together.

No,
Not this time.

Whilst I typed this… Listen whilst you read, if you want…

Lorna’s fingertips hovered at the nape of Lars’ neck like a ghost, his hair scratching against the leather of the recliner as he turned to face her. Her chartreuse eyes locked on his, a warmth flooding her body that told her the Chardonnay still lingered in her bloodstream. Her gaze traced across the well-groomed stubble that framed his jaw line, the stray brow hairs that littered his brow bone, the pores across the bridge of his nose… She committed those details to memory, filing them away in the depths of her mind in case she ever needed to call upon them again. His was a face she was oh-so-familiar with. Her fingers had clutched at that jaw, she’d pawed at those cheeks, dragged many an index finger across those lips… But the expression he wore was a stranger to her. As Lars smiled to greet her, the usual light that danced in his eyes was snuffed out. It was as if someone had pulled the shutters down, closed for business. Boarded up the windows. Where were the usual folds that appeared at the corners of his eyes? The singular dimple that normally pinched his cheek? It was less than a smile, more an upturned lip. Absent of any substance. Disingenuous. That realisation was like a pinprick straight through Lorna’s heart. It made the breath hitch in her throat, trapping the “Who are you?” in her jugular.

“Hey,” Lars said. Voice like a ventriloquist; Phantom and displaced. Something haunted her husband and the dread in her ribcage knew what it was.

As the gaggle of words in her throat threatened to leap forth, Lars rose to his feet. She watched her husband leave the front room, flicking the light switch as he left. Plunging her into darkness, Lorna drifted in his wake. Like a shadow, she fell into step with him, footsteps thudding in unison up the staircase. The floorboards ached and groaned beneath their weight, the only sound to punctuate the silence.

Their wordless exchange as they began the ascent to the bedroom reminded Lorna of when they’d made love on these very stairs years ago. So juxtaposed, those people were not the same people that walked single file like passers by. In the alternate universe, that Lorna and Lars could barely make it to the bed without shredding one another’s clothes to ribbons. She allowed herself to be reminded of that version of them despite the consequential bile that brewed. It was their moving day. Surrounded by cardboard and bubble wrap, their entire lives wrapped in sellotape, they’d climbed on top of one another right there on the staircase. They’d shared laughter layered with kisses, limbs intertwined in a pinky promise, fingers interlocked and pressed into the wooden steps. The ghosts of them were right there, gripping the bannister and shaking the wooden railing with their love. Yet they breezed right past them with barely a nod of acknowledgment. Lorna adverted her gaze. Instead her eyes burnt a hole in Lars’ back, the spot right between his shoulder blades.

In the darkness, Lorna found solace. The only light came from the street lamps outside as they cut through the blinds. Little slivers of cold white light sliced across the bedroom floor like piano keys. She filled her lungs with the shadows, enjoying the anonymity they graced her with. Here, she could deny the pain Lars had etched into his face. Here, she could deny her own. Darkness and denial held each of her hands and lifted them into Lars’ hair once again. This time, they ate at his locks hungrily and it was the Chardonnay that pressed her lips into his.

Skimming his skin with hers, she plucked at the familiar strings of him. A tune she played with confidence. A song she could play from memory. One breath shared between them, they moved in harmony. She lead Lars with keenness, ever the conductor. Leaning her hips into him, placing his palms at her sides, guiding him further and further into the abyss. Nails dragging the line of his back, feeling each ridge of his spine, she breathed him in. The bed welcomed them into its embrace, clothes strewn across the room, abandoned in the lamplight. Lorna moved serpentine, snaking up the length of him. Palms wide. Fingers splayed. Finding every hidden crevice of him and touching him there, desperate to consume all she could, she left a trail of half-touches across him.

He filled her. She emptied him. Lars lay beneath her with everything and nothing behind those vacant eyes. Even as she wound her hips in devastating circles, the hard line that formed across his face remained unbroken by the supposed pleasure. Lorna wanted to scream. Something shrill and banshee-like. Her eyes burnt, blurring with the tears that threatened to burst from her ducts. And through those wet eyes she saw the marks of another puncturing her husband’s skin. Suddenly the scent of a stranger filled her nostrils and she knew her lips were not the first to dance along his neckline that day. Hands on his chest as she rode him harder, she wondered if she’d feel a heartbeat beneath his sternum. The lights were on in Lars but no one was home and Lorna kept knocking, kept knocking, but the door never opened. She screamed his name inside her. Begged for him to let her in. But that closed door stared back at her, wordlessly. His silence save for the rugged breaths that escaped his lips grabbed hold of her throat. Squeezed.

“Look at me…” she choked.

But Lars’ dilated pupils stared straight through her. Gaze piercing a hole right through her skull. He said nothing but angled his hips deeper in her still. The disconnect didn’t suffocate the pleasure. Spiritually, he was elsewhere. But physically? He filled her to the brim. Just as he’d filled someone before her. Hips rocking back and forth in unison, a sound quivered from her. She imagined him elsewhere; A faceless, nameless woman straddling him just as she was. The image took hold of her mind with both hands and shook it violently. She convulsed. It wrecked through her, shattered her. Then Lars was crying too. Watching tears trickle down his cheeks, pooling the pillow beneath him, Lorna’s jaw fell slack.

“No.” Broken. Fragmented. Spoken like a petulant child. She turned away, squeezing her eyelids shut in an attempt to erase the image of her husbands heartbreak.

‘I love you, Lorna’
‘God, I love you too.’

Ghosts. Only ghosts.

Then it fell from her. Slipped through her fingers like water and crashed over them in a big, bawling heap. Lorna’s cries cracked through the night air, window panes aching with the effort of containing her sobs. Juddering from her like a spluttering exhaust, this was not a movie cry. This was an ugly, unbridled, uncontrollable stream of sadness that gripped her wholly and completely.

“I don’t know what to do, Lars-“ she choked out through heaved breaths.

Crescent moons carved into her forearms from the nails that gripped her skin. If she tried hard enough, perhaps she’d break through her shell and reach bone. Perhaps then she’d feel this pain physically instead of in every corner of her soul.

‘Will you always love me?’
‘Like I’ll never love again.’

A crying toddler’s outstretched arms are a plea for comfort. Lorna’s nose pressed flush against Lars’ neck was hers. She saw the evidence of his infidelity, as well as and in spite of hers, littered across the same neck she sought comfort in. Someone else had felt this body in theirs. Someone else.

“Tell me what to do. Please.” He went limp inside her. She flopped off of him, crumpling at his side, the wet pillowcase kissed her cheek. “I can’t see you like this. We can’t be like this. How can we? How can we be… Like this?” Hands flew to her face, covering her eyes. Pressing into her sockets, Lorna’s broken words lay in pieces along with their clothes left scattered on the floor.

A car alarm blared in the distance. The wailing siren mimicking Lorna’s not-so-distant cries. This bedroom that had the fragments of a love story bricked in beneath wallpaper and it suddenly felt like a shallow grave. How did that happen? How did they get here? This wasn’t meant to be them. This story was someone else’s. Some other fucked-up marriage. Some other poor unsuspecting husband and a troubled wife. Not them. The bed that had welcomed them so naively almost tipped them out. A bed frame ashamed to cradle the broken pieces of a marriage, haunted by the happiness that used to live in it.

“… I don’t want him to touch me,” she whispered her denial. Barely there. Barely audible. It had been a lie, once. Now she meant it. “I don’t want him to touch me,” Lorna said again, louder.

But he had.
Oh, he had.