Chapter 1 — Ten Seventeen

“Come now.

Lourdes isn’t home.”

I typed that from my husband’s phone while he was in the shower, less than ten meters away.

My hands didn’t shake.

That was the part that frightened me most.

A minute earlier a notification had lit the screen — from Valentina, my best friend since college. I want to see you.

Can you? No greeting.

No context.

It was 10:17 at night.

Damian had left the phone unlocked on the table, and I could hear the water running down the hall, and I sat there looking at eleven words from the woman I had known and loved and trusted for twelve years, and I understood that I already knew.

I had known for months.

I had just refused to hold it in my hands.

I keep coming back to my hands not shaking, because it told me something about myself I hadn’t known.