Chapter 3 The Rules

I didn't check the message all day.

It stayed there in my mind like an open door, creaking softly with the wind, waiting. Those three words she'd sent "I see you" echoed every time I passed Ethan, every time I touched my phone and didn't unlock it.

I went through the motions. Showered. Answered work emails. Folded laundry. Even watered the dying plant in the corner I usually ignored. But nothing felt normal anymore. There was a thread pulled loose beneath everything, and I kept waiting for it to unravel the whole rug beneath my feet.

By early evening, I still hadn't said her message out loud. Ethan didn't push, though I caught him glancing at me more than once, like he was studying me. Not as a wife. Not even as the woman who'd asked for permission. As someone entirely new. Someone neither of us knew how to hold yet.

After dinner, he finally asked.

"Have you read it again?"

I didn't lie. "No."

He nodded. "I've read it three times."

That night, I waited until he fell asleep, or pretended to. Then I opened the message again. I see you.

I whispered it into the darkness, just to hear it aloud. It sounded different in my voice. Softer. Needier. Like a part of me had been waiting for those words without knowing it.

I typed one sentence in reply and hovered over the send button for too long.

Then tell me what you see.

The message sat there in the text box, quiet and pulsing. I hit send and turned the phone face-down.

I didn't expect her to answer right away. I didn't expect her to answer at all.

But she did.

"I see a woman who is drowning quietly. I see someone who's been good for too long. I see someone aching to be ruined, just enough to remember she's real."

I stared at the words. My fingers shook, and I set the phone down before I could answer. But the words stayed in me.

Drowning quietly.

Ruined.

Real.

I lay awake for hours, my heart thudding beneath my ribs like a knock I couldn't answer yet.

The next day, I sat across from Ethan at breakfast. The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable, just watchful. We were both waiting, measuring. Not each other. Ourselves.

"We need rules," I said.

He didn't blink. "I agree."

I pulled out the small leather notebook I kept in my nightstand. The one I used for grocery lists and things I'd never say out loud. I flipped to a blank page.

I wrote the first one down slowly.

1. No names.

2. No faces.

3. No contact outside the app.

Ethan leaned over and tapped the table. "And?"

I added:

4. No meetings unless we both agree.

5. Either of us can end it at any time.

6. Total honesty. No edits.

He nodded. "Add one more."

I looked up. "What?"

He met my eyes. "We don't lie to ourselves."

I swallowed. "Even if it hurts?"

"Especially then."

I wrote it.

7. No lying to ourselves.

We didn't talk about her again until Sunday afternoon. We were cleaning out the hall closet, of all things. Our hands were full of old scarves and winter coats neither of us wore anymore when he asked, as casually as someone might ask about takeout.

"Do you want her to know you're nervous?"

I froze. My hand hovered over a gray scarf I hadn't seen in years.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Does that make me weak?"

"No," he said. "It makes you human."

I sat down on the edge of the bench beside the door. My legs felt too light, like they weren't holding me properly.

"I think I'm scared of her seeing me the way I don't even want to see myself."

"Then tell her that," he said.

I shook my head. "What if she disappears?"

Ethan didn't sit down. He stood above me, watching me with the kind of patience that felt like pressure anyway.

"Then she wasn't meant for us."

I looked up at him. "Us?"

He nodded once. "This isn't just your thing anymore. You asked. I said yes. That means I get to be inside this too."

My heart clenched. "And if it changes me?"

"It already has," he said.

He crouched down then, took my hands in his. His fingers were calloused at the tips, rough from years of playing guitar even though he hadn't played in months. I forgot how steady his touch could feel.

"I want to see you change," he said. "But only if I get to change with you."

That night, I wrote to her again.

I'm afraid you'll see too much. That you'll see what I try to hide, even from myself.

Her reply came a few minutes later.

I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to open you. Some things are meant to be seen. Especially the parts you think no one will want.

My throat tightened.

I read it aloud to Ethan.

He didn't flinch. He just listened.

Then he said, "Ask her to tell us what she wants."

I hesitated.

He waited.

I typed it out.

"And what do you want?"

Her reply came slower this time. Almost careful.

"I want to take my time. I want to touch her in the places she hides. I want to make her forget how to say no, not because I take it away from her-but because she won't want to. I want her voice raw with want. I want him to watch and burn with it too. I want to feel the moment she stops asking for permission and starts asking for more."

I handed the phone to Ethan. He read it in silence, then placed it between us on the bed.

His voice was low.

"She's not just playing."

"No," I said. "She's not."

"Are you ready for that?"

I didn't answer right away.

But I knew the truth.

"Yes."

Later, while Ethan showered, I stood in front of the mirror. I let the robe fall open. I looked at myself the way I thought she might. Not with judgment. Not with pity.

With interest.

With purpose.

I touched my own collarbone. My waist. The soft curve of my hip.

Not to arouse.

Just to remember.

This was me.

Before her.

Before the fall.

Before I became something else entirely.