Chapter 6

Corinne POV

Aubrie' s voice on the phone was small, resigned. "Corinne," she asked, her voice barely a whisper, "are you sure you' re ready to let him go completely?"

That question echoed in my mind for the rest of the night, a relentless hammer against my skull. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, the silence of the empty house amplifying the chaos within me. Let him go completely? Had I ever truly held him?

My mind drifted back, years and years, to a time before the coldness, before the intern, before the broken promises.

Grant and I grew up together in the same small town. He was the golden boy, the one with the dazzling smile and easy charm. Girls flocked to him like bees to honey, but he never gave them the time of day. He was always surrounded by a posse of guys, a natural leader. I was just Corinne, his quiet neighbor, his study partner, the only girl he actually treated like a human being, not a conquest.

He chased away any boy who dared to look at me twice. "She' s with me," he' d snarl, his arm casually slung around my shoulders, possessive even then. I had loved it. It made me feel special, chosen.

Our lives had been intertwined for so long, it felt inevitable that we would end up together. But our marriage, when it came, wasn' t born of blazing passion. It was born of tragedy.

He had just started law school, a brilliant star on the rise, when the accident happened. A drunk driver. Grant was critically injured. The doctors said he might never walk again. His mother was distraught, weeping, declaring his life ruined.

I was there every day, every single moment. I fed him, bathed him, read to him, walked him through grueling physical therapy. I was his shadow, his pillar of strength. I loved him with a fierce, unwavering devotion. He was broken, and I would fix him.

When he finally took his first shaky steps, when he was discharged, a miracle in his own right, his mother looked at me with tears in her eyes. "Corinne, you' re an angel. You' re the best thing that ever happened to my son."

Grant, still pale but recovering, took my hand. "Corinne," he whispered, his eyes filled with a raw, grateful emotion. "I' ll be good to you. For the rest of my life. I promise."

And he was. In his own way. He married me. He bought me expensive gifts. He took me on lavish vacations. He performed his duties as a husband, meticulously, almost clinically.

He would sometimes cook, making elaborate meals, but always forgetting I hated cilantro, or that I preferred my steak medium-rare. He' d drive me to work, but drop me off three blocks away, complaining about traffic, never waiting to see me safely inside. Our intimacy was a scheduled affair, a chore. Brief, detached, efficient. Never once did he look at me with the kind of boundless adoration I saw him bestow upon Kylee.

I used to complain to my friends. "He just leaves me on the curb, even when it' s raining." Or, "He makes my favorite dish, but fills it with ingredients I can' t stand." They' d shrug. "That' s just marriage, Corinne. After ten years, it' s normal. Don' t be so dramatic." I' d nod, accepting it, telling myself this was what a mature, lasting love looked like. This was stability. This was real.

Then Kylee arrived.

She wasn't just an intern. She was a revelation. With Kylee, I saw the true Grant. The man who truly loved.

I walked past his office late one night, after working late myself. The door was ajar. He was showing Kylee a blueprint of a new, accessible ramp they were installing to the firm' s back entrance. "This is for you, sweetheart," he was saying, his voice soft, almost tender. "So you don' t have to struggle with that sprained ankle." He was concerned about her sprained ankle, building a ramp. I had broken my leg once, and he just told me to take a taxi.

I saw him browsing obscure indie music blogs on his office computer, something he' d never done, then heard him discussing a band with Kylee, their voices low and intimate, their shared laughter echoing down the hallway. He knew all about her favorite obscure bands, her favorite vegan cafe, her passion projects. He learned about her. He saw her.

One evening, I found his phone lying on the kitchen counter. A new app, unfamiliar to me, glowed on the screen. It was a language learning app. I clicked on it. It was set to French. Kylee had mentioned once, playfully, that she wanted to learn French.

Then, there was the night I accidentally walked into his home office, expecting it to be empty. He was at his desk, his back to me. He was murmuring into the phone, his voice a low thrum. "I love you," he said, so softly, so utterly, undeniably sincere. "More than anything."

My blood ran cold. The phone was muted, the screen black. He wasn' t talking to anyone. He was practicing. Practicing for her. Practicing the words he had never once uttered to me. Not in our entire decade together. Not in sickness, not in health, not in joy, not in sorrow. Never.

He had never once said "I love you" to me. Not once.