I loved that smile.
I had trusted that smile for eleven years.
And standing there with my car keys digging into my palm, I hated myself for wondering whether I had ever really known what it meant.
The cruel thing about suspicion is that it can rewrite the past in seconds.
Elena’s tired face was no longer proof of long days and early mornings.
It was a sign.
The long sleeves she wore despite the heat were no longer a habit.
They were a sign.
The way she had been showering before bed, keeping her phone close, turning away from me some nights, falling quiet in the middle of conversations, all of it lined up in my mind like witnesses waiting to testify.
Around noon her phone buzzed while she was folding laundry.
She glanced at the screen, stepped into the next room, and lowered her voice.
I only caught one sentence before the door half-closed between us.
— Tonight then… after he’s asleep.
That was enough.
More than enough.
