TV cast blue shadows across the living room, its muted images flickering like ghosts. I sat in perfect stillness, a glass of wine untouched on the coffee table, waiting.
The door opened at eleven-forty. Andrew's keys jangled as he set them on the console, his movements deliberately quiet, hoping I was asleep.
"Were you avoiding me?"
He jumped, hand flying to his chest. "Jesus, Angie. You scared me."
"Were you?"
"What? No. Of course not." He loosened his tie, the gesture practiced, casual. "The gala ran late. You know how these things go—donors wanting to talk, gallery politics."
"So staying late every night this week was just a coincidence?"
Andrew moved to the bar, pouring himself a scotch with steady hands. "Honey, I'd love nothing more than to spend more time with you, but you know how it is."
"Yes." I stood, my voice cutting through the darkness. "I know how it is. I know you kissed Hannah."
The scotch bottle slipped, catching the counter's edge. Amber liquid splashed across marble.
"What are you talking about?"
"Outside Café Lumière. Tuesday evening. Your hands in her hair, her body against the wall." Each word deliberate, precise. "Should I continue?"
"That's—you're mistaken." He grabbed a towel, mopping up the spill with frantic movements. "It must have been someone else. The lighting on that street—"
"The lighting was perfect. Try again."
"Can't I have friends?" His voice pitched higher, defensive. "Hannah and I work together. We were discussing a project."
"Against a wall? With your tongue in her mouth?"
"She was upset. Her grandmother died." The lie came so easily, his face arranging itself into concerned sincerity. "I was consoling her."
"Her grandmother died four years ago. I went to the funeral."
Andrew's facade cracked. "Why are you doing this? It's been such a good evening—the gala raised record funds, my new piece sold—and you have to start a conflict?"
"I'm not starting anything. I'm ending it."
"This is insane." He paced now, running his hands through his hair. "You're interrogating me like I'm a criminal. I have emotions too, Angie. I have needs you haven't met in years."
"So you met them with Hannah."
"That's not—why do you have to ruin everything?" His voice rose to match mine. "One innocent moment and you turn it into this dramatic confrontation."
"Innocent?"
"More innocent than whatever you've been doing. Coming home with bruises, acting strange, probably fucking someone at your office—"
"Those bruises were from you." I stepped into the light, letting him see the marks on my throat. "Tuesday night. After you came home reeking of her perfume."
The color drained from his face. The room contracted to just us, the muted television casting us in shifting blues and whites.
"I don't..." He set down his glass, shoulders sagging. "This isn't working."
"What isn't working?"
"This. Us." His eyes found mine, and for the first time in months, Andrew looked honest. "I don't want to be here anymore."
The words hung suspended. I waited for them to land, to pierce, to shatter something essential. Instead, they simply confirmed what I already knew.
"You don't want to be here," I repeated, tasting each syllable.
"No. I haven't wanted to be here for a long time." He straightened, finding courage in his confession. "And neither have you. We're just going through motions, Angie. Dead people pretending to be alive."
"I was dead." My voice came out steady, controlled. "Until I saw you with her."
"Then I did you a favor." He grabbed his keys, the sound sharp in the silence. "Maybe Hannah did us both one."
"Where are you going?"
"Does it matter?" He paused at the door, silhouetted against the hallway light. "To my studio. To Hannah's. Anywhere but here."
"Andrew—"
"What? What else is there to say?" He turned, his face a stranger's. "You want apologies? Fine. I'm sorry. Sorry I kissed her. Sorry I felt something. Sorry I remembered what it was like to be wanted."
"Tuesday night was the most alive you've been in years." My voice cut through his self-pity like a blade. "When you grabbed me, when you finally stopped being careful—that was real. Tell me that didn't wake something in you."
His hand froze on the doorknob. The muscles in his jaw tightened.
"Tell me, Andrew. When you were inside me, when we were tearing each other apart—was that the same as your careful kisses with Hannah?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." I stepped closer, glass crunching under my heels. "Your body knew exactly what it wanted. For once, you weren't performing."
"That was—" He wouldn't turn around, wouldn't face me. "That was different."
"Different how?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It's the only thing that matters. But you're too much of a coward to admit it." I laughed, the sound sharp and bitter. "Running to someone easier, someone who doesn't challenge you, someone who makes you feel like the artist you pretend to be."
"I already am."
And he left. The door closed with devastating softness.
For a moment, I stood frozen, every emotion—rage, pain, humiliation, fury—colliding and canceling each other out, leaving me paralyzed. The apartment's silence pressed against my eardrums.
Then my body moved without permission. The wine glass flew first, exploding against the door in a shower of crystal. Then the remote, the coffee table books, the vase of dying flowers Andrew had bought in a half-hearted gesture last week.
The scream that tore from my throat wasn't human. It was primal, savage, the sound of something breaking free from a cage made of propriety and resignation. I screamed until my throat burned, until my legs gave out, until I was on my knees in the wreckage of our living room.
Andrew thought leaving was his choice. His freedom.
He'd learn soon enough that he hadn't escaped.
He'd simply started the hunt.