Chapter 2

I was so focused on the glowing screen, on the past, that I didn't hear the front door open.

I didn't hear the soft click of it closing, or the footsteps on the hardwood floor.

The first thing I registered was the sharp, annoyed voice of my wife.

"Liam."

I jumped, slamming my laptop shut instinctively.

Present-day Chloe stood in the doorway of my small office, her arms crossed. She was dressed in a sleek, expensive pantsuit, her hair pulled back so tightly it seemed to pull at the corners of her eyes. She looked powerful, intimidating, and exhausted. Nothing like the girl on my screen.

"What are you hiding?" she asked, her voice flat. It wasn't a question so much as an accusation.

"Nothing," I said, my heart pounding. "Just work. The game."

She scoffed, a small, ugly sound. "The game. Still playing with your little toys while I'm out in the real world making a living for this family."

She walked toward me, her heels clicking like a countdown. "You snapped that shut like you were hiding something. Are you talking to someone?"

"I was just coding."

"Let me see."

It wasn't a request. She held out her hand, her expression daring me to refuse. We had been down this road before. Her suspicion was a constant, suffocating cloud in our home.

"Chloe, don't be ridiculous."

"Give me the laptop, Liam."

When I didn't move, she lunged, her movements quick and practiced. She snatched the laptop from my desk before I could react. She flipped open the screen.

The black window of the Cosmic Stream was still there. The last message I'd sent to Past Chloe was visible for a split second before the screen saver kicked in.

`But do not, under any circumstances, trust him.`

Chloe's eyes narrowed. She didn't understand what she was seeing, the strange interface, but she understood the words. A secret message.

"Who is 'him'?" she demanded, her voice dangerously quiet. "Who are you warning someone about? Me?"

She shook her head, a bitter smile twisting her lips. "Of course. You're probably talking to another woman. Telling her what a monster your wife is. Is that what you do all day, Liam? Sit here in the dark and complain about me while I'm working to pay for this roof over your head?"

The injustice of it burned in my chest. Every word was a lash, meant to demean, to belittle. She saw my passion as a "hobby," my work as "playing with toys." She had no idea that the "real world" she was so proud of was a prison she had built for both of us.

"That's not what it is," I said through gritted teeth.

"Then what is it?" she shot back. "Another one of your failed projects? Another fantasy world you can escape into because you can't handle reality?"

That was it. I couldn't take it anymore. All the resentment, all the years of being treated like a burden, it all came boiling to the surface.

"You want to talk about reality, Chloe?" I stood up, my voice shaking with a rage I hadn't felt in years. "Let's talk about your reality. Let's talk about your late-night 'strategy sessions' with Mark."

Her face went rigid.

"Let's talk about the fact that you haven't been home before midnight all week," I pressed on. "You reek of his cologne. You laugh at his jokes on the phone but you can't even stand to look at me. So don't you dare accuse me of anything."

For a moment, she was silent, her composure cracking. I had hit a nerve. A raw, exposed nerve.

"Don't be absurd," she finally said, but the denial was weak, brittle. Her eyes darted away from mine. "My work with Mark is complicated. It's demanding. Something you wouldn't understand."

Her voice was full of manufactured annoyance, a poor mask for the flicker of guilt I saw in her eyes. She wasn't denying the late nights. She was just denying what they meant.