We pulled away from the house, her mother waving goodbye, Leo’s arm resting casually around her shoulders.
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Driving down those familiar streets where I grew up: past the Andersons’, the Chens’, and the once-empty lot where we had spent countless afternoons playing.
There was Mr. Jefferson, sitting on his porch. So old, far older than I ever imagined he’d still be alive. As a kid, we used to fling whatever we could find at his house, never thinking he’d endure through the years like this.
He caught sight of us and gave a faint wave. I honked quickly, waving back in return. I doubted he had any idea who was in this car.
We turned the corner, and a sudden question crept in—when exactly had I traded away my childhood? Or had it been ripped from me without notice? I couldn’t recall.
The long drive began.
For several silent minutes, we drove on. The highway stretched endlessly out before us, trees blurring past with the hum of the engine and that familiar rattle on the passenger side that had always been there. Chloe stared out the window.
“I can’t believe it,” she finally murmured, her voice trembling slightly. “That neighborhood looks almost exactly like the one I grew up in. I’m really going to miss Stella. You made her sound… well, difficult. But she’s not.”
“I never said that,” I replied.
“I know. I just… she’s amazing.”
“Yeah, she’s softer now than she used to be.” We both thought of Leo. “I suppose years can wear on a person.”
“She’s still young, though.” She sounded relieved I hadn’t named Leo.
A minute passed. The radio started crackling statically, the station unlistenable.
I switched it off.
“Want me to play something from my phone?” Chloe offered.
“No, thanks.” She grew quiet again.
I watched the road ahead, grateful for the focus it gave me. More cars these days could practically drive themselves. Maybe it would be harder if we both had nothing to occupy us in silence.
Chloe was busy scrolling through her phone, not pausing on anything, just moving her fingers down the screen.
“You wanted to talk,” I said.
“Didn’t you?”
I shrugged, feigning indifference. I didn’t care that I was pretending. The past few days had left me too numb to care. Yesterday, I couldn’t have done this; today, I could do anything.
The important questions had already answered themselves, with outcomes both good and bad that no longer mattered.
“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to,” she said, offering me an escape, relieved to take it herself.
“Does it really matter what I want?”
“Does it?”
We drove on.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” Her voice took on a firmer edge, though I recognized the uncertainty beneath it. “You’re just going to sit there with that holier-than-thou attitude?”
Her attack was clumsy, uncertain—so I stayed silent. Her fear gave me a strange kind of strength. It stung momentarily, but also felt like something else—a strange concoction, like strawberry ice cream mixed with whiskey and fish stock. I sat inventing disgusting flavors in my head while she waited for my reaction.
From the outside, I’d appear calm, even collected—if only no one knew my wife had been with my mother’s boyfriend just days before.
I tested that thought silently. But no matter how hard I tried, the image of Chloe didn’t grow ugly. The anger from yesterday had helped keep me anchored, but now I simply sat—an iron man without a heart, a scarecrow without a brain. Or was it a scarecrow in armor? No, don’t think about that.
Chloe glanced up from her phone, showing me a clip with a wide-eyed innocence, as if the shock of it would make us forget everything else and laugh like we once did over Kanye West’s antics.
“Oh my God, listen to this…” she said.
I heard the words, jarring and offensive, cutting through the heavy silence. She shared it with naive hope, attempting to return to a world that no longer existed.
I couldn’t even feign interest.
I simply looked at her, letting her know—no, that wasn’t going to work.
She shrugged back to her phone.
I stared out the window. Fields that had long vanished from my childhood haunts had given way to new developments. What used to grow here? Not corn. Perhaps soy?
Chloe stopped pretending to scroll and turned toward the window. A small sob escaped her lips—she was trying to hold it back.
She never played games with tears. People say women’s tears come cheap, but Chloe only cried over things that were real.
And I couldn’t stop thinking: did she cry after Leo was with her?
But that thought offered no protection; panic surged instead.
My mask cracked.
“I don’t fucking know what to tell you!” she said quietly, tears welling but not hysterical. “Why didn’t you hit me? Why didn’t you do something?”
“You knew I wouldn’t.”
“You knew I…” She faltered, unable to finish.
In my head, I ran through all the possible endings to her sentence, but I didn’t ask.
She wiped her nose, eyes full of pain.
“You know I love you?” she asked—no pleading, no manipulation, just the question.
“No,” I answered dryly.
“I love you.”
Simple, without softness.
“I love you, too,” I said.
It was easy to admit. I turned to look at her for a few moments—maybe five seconds, too long. I should have kept my eyes on the road.
It didn’t satisfy her; her frown deepened.
A big SUV passed us, but I didn’t speed up.
“I thought you’d stop me at first,” she said softly. “I thought you’d…”
Become someone I’m not? Maybe you never truly knew who I was before we married.
I knew I had gone too far as the words escaped me.
She didn’t like it either and didn’t want to spark that fight.
“I don’t even want to imagine us…” she whispered, voice breaking. “…I can’t.”
“Me neither.”
Honest. Always honest about things like this.
“Do you want me to promise…”
“Chloe.” No, no, no. Please, not that. “Chloe, please.”
I didn’t want her to promise she wouldn’t sleep with other men while I sat there feeling pathetic.
The word “please” warned her.
She was smart; she understood.
Emotions warred across her face—wanting forgiveness, wanting to blame me.
You’re an idiot, Felix. The first time I’d called myself by name.
Only one thought pushed through: Does she even realize she’ll break that promise? Because I wouldn’t stop her.
When did it become like this?
And then I understood: it always had been.
I struggled for breath, rolled down the window all the way, letting fresh air hit my face.
Finally, I broke the silence with the thought that had been lingering on my tongue:
“I don’t want to be your guard.”
I stopped myself before adding the terrifying image of catching her with someone else—anywhere, in a car, a bedroom, or a garage.
Disgusting. And yet, somehow, it prickled my mind in a way that wasn’t purely repulsion.
“I don’t want you to be my guard,” she replied calmly.
We skirted around the danger zones, throwing safe phrases like life rafts.
I no longer held back. Tears welled in my eyes, dampening my vision. I didn’t care.
I pulled the car over carefully to the side of the road.
“I love you, Felix,” she whispered. “And you love me, too.”
I was certain she wasn’t trying to manipulate me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
And just like that, I broke.
She kissed me—softly, tenderly—on my cheeks, my lips. We sat there together, letting the silence speak between us.
“Let’s grab some duck from Andy’s,” I said later, as we approached town.
Her grateful smile warmed me more than the August sun.
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