Page 22 of The Weight of Her Silence
But his soul was stretched too thin—one half tangled in guilt, the other wrapped around Camille’s body like a noose.
There were nights when he held Lila from behind, not out of desire, but desperation. There were mornings when he watched her step into the light and felt a pang so sharp it knocked the air from his lungs.
Guilt.
Regret.
But not enough to stop. Never enough to stop. Camille was his escape. She texted him while he sat through Ava’s parent-teacher conference, while he helped Caleb with his math homework, while Lila sat three feet away from him in the living room, curled up under a blanket neither of them touched anymore.
She sent pictures—her bare shoulder, a glimpse of her thigh, a mirror shot with just enough to make his pulse spike. And he responded.
Always.
He snuck away on his lunch breaks. Invented meetings. Stayed late at the office when there were no deadlines. Told Lila he was exhausted. That traffic was bad. That his boss needed him.
She never argued.
She stopped asking questions weeks ago.
Sometimes, when he came home from Camille’s apartment, her scent still clinging to his shirt, Lila would be asleep on the couch, a blanket folded neatly at her feet, as if she’d started waiting for him and then stopped halfway through.
And yet, there were moments when Nate looked at his children—really looked—and saw the cracks growing deeper. Ava no longer asked him anything. She barely looked up from her phone, her face drawn, cold. Like he had already been written out of her world.
Caleb was quieter than usual. Too quiet. He used to come to Nate with drawings, with random facts about volcanoes or dinosaurs or space. Now, he went to Lila. Or no one.
One night, Nate passed by Caleb’s room and heard him crying. He paused at the door, hand raised to knock.
But didn’t.
He went to bed instead. Because what could he say? That he was sorry? That he was still here? Both would have been lies. It all unraveled slowly, almost imperceptibly.
Camille wanted more time. She wanted a weekend away. A night that didn’t end with Nate rushing to his car at midnight, checking his phone for missed calls that never came.
“You said you loved me,” she whispered against his chest one night.
“I do,” he murmured, kissing her forehead.
“I just… I can’t leave yet.”
Yet.
He kept saying yet like it meant something. Like he was still planning to make a choice. But he wasn’t.
He was juggling glass—two lives that could shatter at any moment.
And deep down, Nate knew…
Eventually, he would drop both.
Meanwhile…
Lila sat on the edge of their bed, watching Nate’s side remain untouched, undisturbed. A still life of absence. She held a notebook in her hands. The same one she used to keep grocery lists, schedules, plans.
But tonight, it was different.
She turned to a blank page. And began to write.
To my babies—
