Isla POV•
I took in a deep breath and pushed open the door to the living room, two bags in both hands. My body ached badly as I hoped to drop the bags in the kitchen. I had just come back from my evening shopping.
I was hoping to prepare dinner for my husband, Marcus, before he came home from work. A small paper bag hung from my wrist, bread and fruit inside, still warm from the corner store. I usually rushed home after shopping because Marcus hated eating late, and he liked the television on while he talked through business calls, his voice filling the house even when he wasn't speaking to me.
I had slept past my usual shopping time and forgotten to set an alarm, which made me return home later than usual.
I expected to see Marcus in the living room when I stepped inside. I expected him to be pissed and angry.
But I was met with nothing more than a quiet room.
It pressed in on me, thick and alert, as if the house had learned how to listen. I stood just inside the door longer than necessary, keys still in my hand, listening for something that didn't come. Marcus was rarely silent when he was home. Silence usually meant he wasn't home.
I set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and poured myself a cup of tea, my movements slow and automatic. The porcelain warmed my palms, the steam fogging my lashes. I told myself I was tired. That the tight pull in my chest was nothing more than a long day settling into my bones.
Marcus had sounded distant earlier that morning before he left for work. Not angry. Not cruel. Just elsewhere. He'd loosened his tie without looking at me, his phone already in his hand, eyes skimming past my face like it was furniture.
"Don't wait up," he had said.
The words landed softly, but they stayed where they fell.
I carried the tea toward the stairs, expecting the familiar noise to greet me halfway up his voice, the television, something to ground me. Instead, the house stayed still. The first step didn't creak the way it usually did, and that unsettled me more than noise would have.
Halfway up, a sound drifted down the hallway.
It slid under my skin and caught there. Warm breath. Broken rhythm. The kind of sound you don't mishear, no matter how badly you want to.
My fingers tightened around the cup. The heat burned, sharp enough to demand attention, but I didn't let go. Another sound followed, lower this time. A man's voice. Familiar. Intimate in a way Marcus hadn't sounded with me in months.
I moved because standing still felt worse. Each step down the hallway pulled memories loose like threads—Marcus turning his shoulder when I reached for him, the space he left between our bodies at night, the way his phone never faced up anymore.
I had folded those moments away neatly. Labeled them compromises. Told myself this was what security felt like when the shine wore off.
The bedroom door was slightly open. The scent reached me before the sight. Marcus's cologne, clean and sharp, layered with something richer beneath it.
A perfume I knew too well.
My stomach dropped as recognition settled in, heavy and undeniable.
My mother had worn that scent for as long as I could remember. She said it reminded people she was not someone to underestimate.
I pushed the door open.
They were in my matrimonial bed.
White sheets twisted and pulled out of place. Marcus's hands were firm on a woman's waist, his touch practiced, claiming. Her skin was flushed, her body leaning into his with an ease that told me this was not new.
I didn't know it was her at first, not until she turned.
When she did, my heart ached badly, and I couldn't believe my eyes.
My mother didn't flinch. She didn't react, didn't gasp or scramble for clothes. She met my eyes steadily, her mouth tightening into something cool and guarded, as though I were the one who had crossed a line.
Marcus didn't stop touching her. He looked at me over her shoulder, his expression barely shifting.
"Isla, you're home already?" he said, mild irritation threading his voice. "Why are you standing there? Give me some privacy, would you?"
The words didn't make sense. They floated between us, fragile and absurd, like they might shatter if I reached for them. My legs felt weak, my body suddenly unsure of its own weight.
"Marcus," I said. My name for him felt wrong in my mouth. "What is this?"
My mother stood and gathered the sheet around herself, smooth and unhurried.
"Isla, don't cry," she said, already tired of the situation. "This isn't some dramatic love story."
I stared at her the woman who taught me to sit up straight, to choose carefully, to understand the value of appearances. The woman who told me that wanting too much was dangerous.
"How could you do this to me, Mom?" I said, my voice breaking as I tried to pull myself together. "How could you sleep with my husband?"
She scoffed. "Your husband? Have you forgotten why you married him in the first place? You thought he was safe, because he could give you a life without risk. Don't act like you love him."
Marcus rose from the bed, unapologetic, as though this were a conversation he'd rehearsed. He crossed the room, and I had to force myself not to retreat. Up close, he felt unfamiliar harder somehow, stripped of the warmth I used to search for in him.
"You knew what this was," he said calmly. "I gave you what you wanted."
He stopped too close. His hand lifted and smoothed the front of my robe, a reflexive gesture, intimate and careless.
That small touch broke something open in me more completely than the sight of them together ever could.
"I gave you everything," I said. My voice shook, and I hated that it did. "I gave up"
"You didn't give up anything," he cut in. "You chose wisely. You chose comfort."
Images flooded in uninvited. Nights spent staring at the ceiling beside him, measuring the distance between our bodies. Conversations that never quite reached the truth. A different man, years ago, with empty pockets and hopeful eyes, standing in the rain, asking me to take a chance I was too afraid to accept.
Understanding settled quietly. Solid. Cold.
This wasn't betrayal to Marcus. It was a transaction.
I turned away. I made it two steps into the hallway before my breath caught, sharp and shallow, like my lungs had forgotten how to work. My hands began to shake, the teacup rattling against the saucer until it slipped from my fingers and shattered at my feet.
The sound was small. Pathetic.
Nothing like the break happening inside my chest.
I slid down against the wall, my knees giving out, the carpet burning against my skin. This wasn't just my marriage. This was my mother. This was my past. This was every version of safety I had ever trusted, collapsing at once.
And then I heard Marcus speak again, his voice carrying into the hallway, calm and careless.
"Don't worry," he said to her. "She won't leave."
My sob caught painfully in my throat.
Because in that moment, through the pain and the ruin and the silence, I realized something else had broken too.
And this time, it wasn't just me.