The days blurred after that.
Cole came and went on his usual schedule, silent mornings, late nights, eyes always on his phone, never on her. The space between them wasn't filled with fights or shouting matches. It was worse.
It was silence.
A silence so vast it swallowed her whole, a silence that screamed louder than rage ever could.
One evening, Jade stood at the balcony window, the lights of the city blinking like distant memories. She didn't ask where he went anymore. He didn't offer.
But she knew.
Across town, the gallery was soaked in gold light and soft jazz, the kind of place people dressed in quiet money and louder perfume. The kind of place she used to belong to, before the headlines, before the miscarriage, before she had become someone others whispered about behind napkin-covered mouths.
Vivien stood beneath a canvas of violent reds and bleeding golds, her laughter low and polished. She looked beautiful, calculated. Like heartbreak had never touched her. Like she had risen from it, gleaming.
Cole arrived late.
Vivien turned the moment she sensed him. Her smile wavered just enough to let softness in.
"You came," she murmured.
He didn't smile. "You invited me."
They stood too close for strangers. Too far for lovers. But something in between pulsed faintly—unresolved, unfinished. The air between them hummed with shared history, the kind that never really let go, only softened its grip when no one was looking.
"I heard about the baby," Vivien said gently. "I'm sorry."
Cole's gaze flickered. "You didn't have to bring that up."
"I just thought… you might need someone to talk to."
"I don't."
Vivien's expression didn't change, but her voice dipped with meaning. "You don't look like someone who's okay, Cole."
"I'm fine."
She stepped closer, enough for the warmth of her perfume to fill the air. "You were never a good liar."
He didn't deny it.
"I've been thinking," Vivien continued. "About everything. About us. Maybe… it's not too late."
Cole looked away.
Vivien didn't push further.
She didn't need to.
Back at the penthouse, Jade stood barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back. The air smelled of rosemary and butter and something faintly burned. She had overcooked the garlic bread again, but it didn't matter.
The point wasn't perfection.
It was doing something.
Anything.
She hadn't cooked in months. Not since the wedding. Not since she had traded her voice and identity for a marriage built on borrowed time and borrowed love.
But now, every small task grounded her. She folded laundry. Rearranged the nursery. Wiped countertops until they shined. Took walks around the block in flats instead of heels. Said hello to the doorman. Smiled, even when it felt foreign.
And quietly, without fanfare, she began composing again.
At first, just notes scribbled in the margins of old journals. Then full measures, melodies echoing in her head while she folded towels or stood under the hot spray of the shower.
Music returned like breath after drowning.
She reopened her old piano files and reconnected her digital keyboard. The first time she sat down, her fingers trembled so badly she thought she might shatter the keys.
But then music bloomed.
Soft, tentative, aching.
Grief made into harmony. Loneliness translated into refrain. Loss stitched into rhythm.
It wasn't much. But it was hers.
That night, Cole came home after midnight.
The faint trace of Vivien's perfume clung to his sleeves. Jade was asleep on the couch again, her tablet glowing beside her, an unfinished composition still open on the screen.
Her hair was damp from a late shower. A mug of cold tea rested beside a folded basket of laundry. She looked exhausted. Peaceful. Resigned. Like someone who had stopped asking for answers because the silence had answered for her.
Something in Cole's expression flickered, guilt, maybe. Or regret. Or maybe just the hollow ache of knowing he was the reason she no longer waited up.
He stood there for a long moment.
Jade stirred faintly, but didn't wake.
He didn't reach for her.
He didn't cover her with a blanket.
He didn't say her name.
Instead, he walked past her without a word, the silence stretching long behind him.
He entered the bedroom alone.
And she kept sleeping on the couch like someone who no longer dreamed.