Page 20 of The Weight of Her Silence
“Yeah,” he said
“Grabbed something on the way.”
A lie.
She could tell. The way his eyes dropped. The way he didn’t ask her if she had eaten too. He didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to feel.
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. She wanted to scream at him. Shatter the plate beside her. Demand the truth. But instead, she just nodded and turned back toward the sink.
Behind her, Nate shifted awkwardly.
“I’ve got some emails to finish upstairs,” he said.
She said nothing. Just stared at the silverware in the drying rack, her own reflection warped and bent by the metal.
Nate
She knew. He could feel it in the way she moved around him that night—too quiet, too careful. Like she was holding back an ocean. He checked his jacket pocket while she was in the shower.
The receipt was gone.
His stomach twisted. Still, he said nothing. He went upstairs. Closed the door. Pretended there were emails to answer. Pretended this house hadn’t become a silent battlefield. He told himself it was just a phase. That Lila would never confront him. That if he could keep things balanced—his marriage, the affair—he wouldn’t have to choose.
He didn’t see the drawer she kept locked beside the bed. Didn’t know she’d begun writing letters she didn’t know if she’d ever send.
Didn’t notice that she’d started giving away things in small, quiet ways—her books, her jewelry, her grandmother’s locket—to the children, piece by piece. He didn’t notice her fading.
That night, Lila lay beside him in bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. She almost turned to him.
Almost asked.
Almost opened her mouth and demanded he tell her who she was. But she didn’t. Because she was still holding on to the version of Nate she married.
And letting go of that meant accepting that she wasn’t just losing her husband. She was losing the future. Her handdrifted to her side, where the pain had returned again—sharp and mean beneath her ribs. She winced.
Nate didn’t stir.
So she swallowed her cries and wept silently, as she’d done so many nights before.
Chapter 18
The Escape
He didn’t call ahead this time. Camille had told him he didn’t need to. Her door was always open. Her body always warm. Her lips always eager to swallow his guilt. So he went. Late afternoon. The sun dipping behind gray clouds, the kind of sky that matched the weight in his chest.
He didn’t even bother coming up with a lie for Lila. She hadn’t asked where he was going. She hadn’t asked him anything at all lately. And the silence? It was worse than any argument.
She knew.
He could feel it in the heaviness of the house, in the eyes that didn’t look at him anymore, in the quiet dinners and separate sleeps. But she still hadn’t said the words, hadn’t confronted him. And so, he convinced himself it wasn’t real.
Because that’s what he’d gotten good at—burying it all beneath convenience. Camille opened the door in nothing but a silk robe, her dark hair damp from a shower. She smiled like he was hers.
Maybe he was.
“Hey, stranger,” she said, tugging him inside.
He didn’t answer. Just kissed her. Hard. The kind of kiss that said take me away from everything. The kind that tasted like punishment, and longing, and the ache of a man who hated himself just a little more every day.
