Adele's POV
The thing about dinner parties is that everyone's lying, but only I seem to know it.
Our apartment gleams with effort I spent all day polishing into existence. Candles flicker on the dining table Adrian insisted we buy for "entertaining." Wine glasses catch the light like tiny prisms. The scent of roasted lamb and rosemary fills the air, domestic and warm and utterly false.
Adrian's colleagues circle our table like well-dressed sharks, picking at the meal I've prepared while discussing grants and research and the brilliant future of psychiatric care. Their voices blend into a symphony of self-importance, each trying to out-intellectual the others.
I smile. Nod. Refill glasses. Play my part.
"This lamb is exquisite, Adele," Dr. Helena Marsh says, her voice dripping with that particular condescension reserved for wives who cook. She's Adrian's new supervisor,fifty-something, sharp-eyed, the kind of woman who's spent her whole life in rooms full of men and learned to survive by being sharper than all of them. "You have hidden talents."
"Thank you," I murmur, watching Adrian across the table. He's laughing at something Dr. Richard Chen said, his hand gesturing animatedly. He looks happy. Relaxed.
He hasn't looked at me that way in months.
"Top you up?" Dr. Helena's voice pulls me from my thoughts, her hand already tipping the bottle toward my glass.
I shake my head lightly. "No, thank you."
"Oh, that's no fun," she says, smiling too wide.
I return it, the kind of smile that doesn't reach my eyes. "Table full of psychiatrists , I like to keep my wits about me."
They laugh. Of course they do. It's the kind of line expected from the charming wife.
"You're probably very wise," Helena says, swirling her own wine.
"Whereas I know the truth," Adrian adds, chuckling. "We're just as messed up as anyone else. We're just better at hiding it."
The table erupts again, a chorus of self-deprecating laughter.
They think it's humility.
I know it's confession.
I tilt my head toward him, the practiced intimacy of a wife who knows her husband's rhythm. "And you don't want me getting drunk and sharing all your secrets," I tease.
It lands , light, flirty, believable. No one notices how tight my hand grips the stem of my glass.
Helena leans in, voice lilting with curiosity. "And you didn't mind uprooting your life to move up here, Adele?"
There it is , the question they've all been circling.
I keep my tone warm, casual. "This was a great opportunity for Adrian. I would never stand in the way of that."
Another round of approving nods, polite smiles.
The performance continues.
Then Adrian speaks, and the air shifts.
"And Adele had her own reasons for wanting to move up here,We were definitely ready to move on."he says smoothly, staring at me coldly across the table.
We were.
A statement pretending to be truth.
Dr. Helena arches a brow, intrigued. "And what were those reasons?"
I pause , too long, maybe , and then give the kind of answer that makes everyone comfortable.
"Oh, nothing really." I smile. "I've always wanted to live in central London. I grew up a country girl, so the city feels exciting. I think this is a real opportunity for both of us."
Laughter. Glasses raised.
All the right responses.
"I'll drink to that," Helena says.
"To Adrian and Adele," someone else adds. "Welcome."
"Cheers," Helena echoes.
We clink glasses.
Wine glitters like blood in the candlelight.
I lift mine, smiling, pretending the taste isn't bitter.
Across the table, Adrian's laughter fills the room , that easy, effortless sound that once felt like home.
Now it feels like distance.
By eleven, they're finally gone. The door closes behind the last guest, and the apartment falls silent except for the ticking of the kitchen clock and the sound of Adrian exhaling,long and exhausted.
I start gathering plates, stacking them with mechanical precision.
"Leave it," Adrian says. "I'll help clean up in the morning."
"It's fine. I don't mind."
"Adele,"
"They liked you." I carry plates to the kitchen, my voice light. Conversational. "Helena especially. You made quite an impression."
He follows me, loosening his tie. "She's my supervisor. She's supposed to like me."
"Richard thinks you're brilliant. 'Groundbreaking research,' he said."
"Adele, what are you doing?"
I set the plates in the sink and turn to face him. "What do you mean? I'm cleaning up. From the dinner party. The one celebrating your big promotion."
"You're angry."
"I'm not angry."
"You're something."
I move closer, until I'm standing in front of him, until I can see the guilt written across his face like a diagnosis he's trying to hide. "I'm proud of you. That's what I am. Proud of my brilliant husband and his prestigious new position."
His eyes search mine, looking for the trap. "Adele,"
"Don't you want to celebrate?" I reach up, loosening his tie the rest of the way, letting my fingers brush against his throat. "Really celebrate? Just the two of us?"
He catches my wrist. Gently, but firmly. "What are you doing?"
"What do you mean? I'm celebrating with my husband." I lean closer, my voice dropping to a whisper. "Isn't that what wives do?"
"Adele, don't,"
But I kiss him before he can finish the protest. Hard. Desperate. Trying to reclaim something that might already be gone.
For a moment, he's frozen. Unresponsive. A statue wearing my husband's face.
Then he kisses back, and it's not gentle. It's rough, almost angry, his hands gripping my waist like he's trying to hold onto something or push it away,I can't tell which.
We stumble backward into the living room, knocking into furniture, shedding his jacket and tie. I pull at his shirt buttons, hear one pop off and clatter across the hardwood floor.
"Adele," he gasps against my mouth. "We shouldn't,"
"Why not?" I pull back just enough to look at him. His eyes are wild, conflicted. "Don't you want me?"
"That's not,it's not that simple,"
"Yes or no, Adrian. Do you want me?"
He stares at me, and I see the war happening behind his eyes. Duty versus desire. Guilt versus need. The man he thinks he should be versus the man he actually is.
"I can't keep doing this," he whispers.
"Doing what?"
"This. Pretending. Acting like everything is fine when it's," He stops himself, jaw clenching.
"When it's what?"
"When it's not working, Adele. We're not working."
The words should hurt. Maybe they do, somewhere beneath the numbness. But I press closer anyway, my hands in his hair, refusing to let him retreat.
"Then let's not pretend," I murmur against his neck. "No more acting. No more performing. Just us. Just tonight."
"Adele,"
"Please." I kiss along his jaw, feel him shudder. "Just tonight. I promise this will be the last time."
He pulls back to look at me, and something in his expression breaks. "Promise?"
"Promise."
It's a lie. We both know it's a lie. But he's so desperate to believe it that he nods, closes his eyes, and pulls me close again.
We make it to the bedroom somehow, leaving a trail of clothes behind us.
I close my eyes and let him touch me.
But it's wrong. All of it is wrong.
His hands are hesitant, careful, like I'm something fragile he's afraid of breaking. Or something already broken he's trying not to damage further.
We layer side by sided in the dark with the space between us wider than the bed itself, the silence is deafening.
"Adele," he says finally. His voice is rough, defeated. "I can't do this anymore."
"I know."
"I mean it. I can't. This,us,it's not… I can't keep being what you need me to be."
"I'm not asking you to be anything."
"Yes, you are. You're asking me to be your husband. And I'm," He stops, takes a shaky breath. "I'm not able to do that anymore. Not the way you deserve."
I stare at the ceiling, counting the shadows cast by the streetlight through our blinds. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we need to talk about options. About what comes next. About how we," He struggles for words, this man who makes his living with language. "About how we move forward. Separately."
Separately.
There it is.the word he's been wanting to say for weeks now
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay?"
"If that's what you want."
He turns toward me in the darkness. I can feel his eyes on my face, searching for something. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Then don't."
"Adele, I,"
"Go to sleep, Adrian." I turn away from him, curling into myself.
"You're exhausted. We both are. We'll figure it out in the morning."
But we won't. In the morning he'll leave early for the hospital. He'll avoid this conversation for days, maybe weeks, letting it hang between us like a death sentence neither of us wants to pronounce.
And I'll let him. Because I'm not ready yet.
Not ready to lose everything. Not ready to be discarded like a failed case study.
Not ready to let him go without understanding exactly what I'm losing.
Behind me, Adrian's breathing slows and deepens. He falls asleep within minutes, the sleep of someone who's finally been honest. Who's spoken the truth he's been carrying for months.
I lie awake in the dark, my body still, my mind racing,then my mind drifted to the past…
I was eighteen the first time I died.
At least, that's what it felt like.
It was winter. The lake behind my parents' house was frozen, the kind of silver-blue that looked solid until it wasn't. I remember running, breathless, the sound of my father shouting behind me , and then the ice gave way.
The water was a scream.
Cold. Endless.
Hands pulled me under, or maybe that was panic.
Everything went dark.
Then , light.
I was floating. But not drowning.
Above.
Watching.
I could see my body beneath the ice, the ripples, the blur of my father's coat as he ran toward me. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't anything. Just… still.
I liked that feeling , the quiet, the distance from everything that hurt.
When I woke up in the hospital, they called it an "out-of-body experience."
A side effect of oxygen deprivation.
A trick of the brain.
But I knew better.
Because after that day, the line between being in myself and outside it was thinner , fragile, almost see-through. Sometimes at night, I'd feel my consciousness slip loose, like silk sliding off skin. I'd hover at the ceiling, watching my small body sleep.
Safe. Separate.
I told my mother once. She cried. My father told the doctor.
Then came the pills. The "episodes." The hush.
When they sent me to Westfield, I was twenty.
That's where I met Rowan.
He had the kind of sadness that sits behind the eyes quiet, waiting.
We became close quickly. We talked about everything our fears, our dreams, even Adrian, who was my boyfriend at the time. He listened without judgment, and I taught him things I hadn't told anyone else: how to recognize the moments when your mind drifts away from your body, how to hold onto the thread of consciousness while letting the rest of you float free.
I showed Rowan how to lucid dream, how to leave his body for a time without losing himself, and he soaked it up eagerly. Every technique, every subtle shift, he recorded in his journal.
The shared experience of astral projection bonded us in a way words could never reach.i didn't know when I'd slept off while thinking of Rowan.
The next morning I was sitting at the kitchen table in my robe, hands wrapped around a mug that's gone lukewarm. Steam curls upward and vanishes before it reaches my face. Everything disappears too quickly these days. Warmth. Sleep. Trust.
Adrian's voice comes from somewhere behind me , calm, professional, like I'm one of his patients.
"You didn't sleep."
I keep my eyes on the mug. "I did. Just not at the right hours."
It's the kind of answer that satisfies him , not a lie, not quite the truth.
The light through the blinds cuts the kitchen into stripes. I can feel his eyes tracing me through them. I used to love that , being seen. Now it feels like surveillance.
He pours his coffee, pretending not to notice me shake the pills into my palm. Two blue, one white. I pause, feel their weight. Little pieces of silence in tablet form. I swallow them dry. They catch halfway down, then dissolve , like I'm learning to disappear politely.
"Did the dreams come back?" he asks.
Dreams. He says it like it's a symptom, not a message.
"They never leave, Adrian," I tell him quietly. "They just wait."
He doesn't understand , not really. The dreams are where I still feel alive.
Where the walls bend, and I can breathe.
A chill passes through him. I see it , the way his hand tightens on the cup, how he hides it by taking a slow sip.
"Try the breathing exercise I showed you," he says. "It helps slow the pulse."
I almost laughed.
His exercises. His methods. His little boxes for human pain.
"Your exercises are for patients," I say softly. "Not for wives."
He flinches , barely. Then: "I only want you steady."
"I am steady."
The lie slides out easily, practiced. My smile holds, but my jaw aches from the effort.
You just don't believe it.
The silence between us hums, thick as fog.
Once, we used to fill mornings with laughter and half-dressed kisses. Now there's just the sound of spoons and the slow erosion of us.
He glances toward the mail, toward that neat envelope with his clinic's logo , his new beginning. Our fresh start, he called it. I wonder if he knows how cruel that sounds when one of us never got to start over at all.
"I'll be home for dinner," he says, checking his watch.
"You always say that."
"I mean it this time."
Of course he does. He always means it. Until something more important comes along , a patient, a paper, a drink.
He smells faintly of gin. I can taste it even from here , sharp, bitter, a memory.
"You smell like gin," I say.
His cup stops midair. "I had one drink with a colleague."
"Of course."
I say it gently, even smile when I do. That's the trick , keep it soft, keep it civilized. People trust what sounds kind.
"Just… be careful, Adrian. People notice things."
He looks at me then , really looks. For a heartbeat, I think he suspects what I mean. But no. He never does.
"I'll call you at lunch," he says, already halfway out the door.
I nod, eyes on the window. Rain has begun tracing slow lines down the glass , the kind that blur everything, soften edges.
As he leaves, I whisper , almost to myself, almost to him:
"Make sure you lock your office door today."
He doesn't answer.
The door closes.
The house was too quiet again.
Our home used to sound like life , the kettle whistling, Adrian humming in the shower, the faint scrape of his shoes across the marble floor.
Now it's all stillness and clocks and the soft click of a pill bottle cap.
I sat on the couch long after dinner went cold. The lamp cast a soft, amber glow across the room, turning the untouched plate into a museum piece , another relic of patience.
Adrian had said he'd be home early.
He'd said he'd call.
He hadn't.
I wasn't angry.
That would've been easier.
It was the not knowing that gnawed at me , where he was, what he was thinking, if he was even thinking of me at all.
He's been distant for weeks.
Careful smiles. Polite kisses.
When he touches me now, it feels like memory rather than affection.
At first, I told myself it was work. The new clinic, the move, the stress. But lately… it feels like something's unraveling, something quiet and irreversible.
I walk through the house barefoot.
Every light is off except the one in the hallway.
I can still feel his presence here
The air is thick with silence, and the walls seem to lean in, listening.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
The sheets are still cold on his side.
My reflection in the mirror looks almost like a stranger , pale, fragile, eyes too bright.
The girl who paints fires, they used to call me at Westfield.
Maybe because I had a habit of burning the world down when I couldn't make sense of it.
But I don't want to burn tonight.
I just want to see.
I close my eyes.
I breathe, steady and deep,
to when my mind started to split.
Count backward from ten.
Let the body sleep before the mind does.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
The world begins to thin around me, colors fading until only sensation remains.
Seven. Six.
The hum grows stronger.
Five. Four.
My heartbeat slows.
Three. Two.
I am weightless.
And then , I'm standing beside the bed, looking down at myself.
It's always a strange thing, seeing your body from the outside.
So small. So still.
But I don't linger.
The air bends around me as I move , not walking, not flying, just shifting.
The space between here and there doesn't feel like distance, more like thought.
And I think of him.
The clinic.
The faint scent of his cologne that lingers in every hallway.
When the world reforms, I'm standing in the corridor of his office.
The air hums faintly with fluorescent light. The windows are dark, reflecting more shadow than room.
He's here.
I know it before I saw him , the rhythm of his movement, the tilt of his head when he's reading.
And then… I saw a woman She's standing by his desk, her laughter soft and nervous,
Adrian smiles , that rare, quiet smile I used to think belonged only to me.
It's nothing scandalous , not yet.
Just conversation.
But the way he leans forward, the way her hand grazes his arm, the way his eyes linger a heartbeat too long… it feels like more.
I press my hand against the glass , but it passes right through.
I want to call his name. I want him to look up. To feel me the way I feel him, even now.
But he doesn't
He hasn't looked at me the way he looked at her in ages.
then he kissed her.
Not the careful, dutiful kiss he gives me.
This was desperate, hungry… real.
His hands slid into her hair. Her body melted into his.
The sound of it , the small gasp, the movement of breath , was louder than anything I'd ever heard.
Even here, even without sound, I felt it.
It ripped through me like a live wire.
I couldn't breathe.
Which was absurd, because I didn't have lungs here.
But it still hurt , sharp and immediate, as if my spirit itself had nerves.
My first instinct was to call his name.
To remind him I was still his wife
That I'd done everything , everything , for him.
But I couldn't
I wanted to look away.
I wanted to scream.
But instead, I just watched.
The light flickered, sharp and sudden. The room trembled around me.
The walls blurred, the light pulsed, and then I was back , slammed into my body, heart racing, lungs dragging in air like drowning.
My sheets tangled around me, cold with sweat.
I lay there, staring into the dark, trembling from something far worse than fear.
He'd kissed her.
And it wasn't the kiss that destroyed me , it was how alive it made him.
Tears burned, but I refused to let them fall.
Instead, I whispered to the ceiling, voice barely more than breath:
"You don't get to leave me, Adrian. Not after everything."
I didn't feel powerless.
I felt awake.
And somewhere deep inside, a darker thought took root , quiet and certain:
If she could touch him in that world
then I would find a way to touch her in mine.