Chapter 5: The Footsteps and Apology

I was still standing at the window when I heard the first step on the stairs. The sound was soft, almost careful, the way Nick moved when he did not want to wake the kids. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I felt it in my throat. My palms went slick. The phone was still face-down on the dresser where I had left it after Roxie’s last text. I could not make my feet move. The window glass was cool against my forehead, and I stayed there, frozen, listening to him climb and dreading the moment I heard his footsteps stop at the doorway.

I tried to picture what I would say if he came through the door and saw the room the way it had been an hour ago—the stripped mattress, the cloying smell of sex, pungent and heavy, hanging in the air no matter how much perfume I sprayed. I had cleaned as much as I could. The sheets were buried in the hamper in the closet, but I thought I could still smell them from here. The dried evidence on the floor was gone. But the dents in the wall behind the headboard remained. The makeup table was still missing half its bottles. My body still ached. If he looked at me long enough, he would know. He always knew when something was wrong.

Terror locked my knees. Guilt sat so heavy in my chest I could barely breathe. Shame burned under my skin. What if he had heard everything? What if he had stood outside the door the way I sometimes stood outside the kids’ rooms when they were little and crying? What if he had heard me beg Ryan not to stop? What if he smelled him on me even after the shower? The questions stacked until I could not separate them. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide in the bathroom and lock the door. I wanted to fall to my knees, confess everything, and beg him to forgive me. Roxie’s texts and the videos kept me upright and silent. If I told him the truth, the videos would go out. Our families would see them. His mother. My parents. Nicole someday. I could not do that to them. I could not do that to him.

I felt a bead of sweat slide down my cheek and onto my neck. I wiped it away absently, my mind occupied with all the what-if scenarios running through my head. I glanced at my finger and saw a beige concealer stain that now covered it, and it registered that I had just wiped off the covering of one of the marks that Ryan had given me last night. I glanced at the mirror again and fear shot through me, hot and sharp. A hickey on my neck was now clearly evident, large, red, bold. I looked away from the mirror. I did not have time to fix it. If Nick looked at me, really looked at me, he would see it, and he would know.