The Return

SLOANE

The house felt too big without him.

For the first two days, it was a relief. The air was lighter. The constant, low-level thrum of tension that had taken up residence in my chest finally subsided. I could walk into the kitchen without my heart hammering against my ribs. I could sit at the dinner table without feeling the heat of his gaze on the side of my face. I could breathe.

I told myself this was better. This was normal. This was the way it was supposed to be.

By the third day, the silence had started to curdle. It was no longer peaceful. It was empty. A hollow, echoing void where his presence used to be. I found myself listening for things that weren’t there: the heavy thud of his footsteps on the stairs, the sound of his car pulling into the driveway, the low, infuriatingly attractive rumble of his voice when he was on the phone.

I was miserable.

And I refused to admit why.

I threw myself into work with a manic intensity that bordered on self-destruction. I wrote three pieces in five days. A deep dive into the declining effectiveness of the dump-and-chase in the modern defensive scheme. A scathing takedown of a team that had signed an aging defenseman to a bloated contract. A profile on a junior league player with a heartbreaking backstory and a wicked slap shot.

I was productive. I was professional. I was a fucking machine.

At night, I’d lie in bed, laptop screen illuminating my face, and re-read the draft of the article about him. The one Derek had called fantastic. I’d read the quotes I’d pulled, the observations I’d made. *“He skates like someone trying to outrun something.”* *“The best players aren’t the ones who’ve made peace with the pressure.”*

God… his hands on my skin.

I’d close the laptop and press my palms against my eyes, trying to erase the memory, but it was no use. It was branded on the inside of my eyelids.

The sixth day, Riley came over.

She’d driven up from her internship at Cornwell—the one I would have gone to if I wasn’t here.

She took one look at me—curled up on the couch in the same sweats I’d been wearing for two days, a mug of cold coffee clutched in my hands—and shook her head.

“You look like shit,” she said, dropping onto the couch beside me and nudging my leg with her foot.

“Gee, thanks,” I mumbled.

“I’m serious. You look like one of those sad, damp ghosts in a British drama.” She grabbed the remote and muted the documentary I was only half-watching. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” She leaned forward, voice softening. “Is it the article? Did Derek hate it after all?”

“No. He loved it. It’s running next week.”

“Then what? Is it… him?”

My chest tightened. I didn’t have to ask who she meant. “He’s been gone for a week, Riley. How could it be about him?”

“Exactly,” she said, like that proved her point. “He’s been gone for a week and you look like you’re mourning the death of a pet you never even liked. You’re miserable, Sloane. Just admit it.”

“I’m not miserable,” I said, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. “I’m… focused.”

“Focused people don’t drink cold coffee at three in the afternoon while watching a documentary about concrete,” she said, gesturing to the screen. “Focused people also don’t jump a foot high when their phone buzzes.”

My phone had buzzed on the coffee table a minute ago. A notification from a hockey news app. I had, in fact, jumped. I hated that she’d noticed.

I didn’t say anything. Just stared at the muted screen.

“Sloane,” she said, her voice gentle now. “About the kiss?”

I looked down at my hands, throat tight. “We agreed to forget it.”

“Did you?” she asked gently.

“No,” I whispered, the word barely audible. “I don’t think we can.”

She reached over and took my hand, fingers warm and firm around mine. “So what are you going to do when he gets back tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and the admission felt like a surrender. “Pretend it never happened, I guess. Keep up the ‘silent truce.’ It’s what he wanted.”

“Is it what you want?”

I thought about the empty house. The silent dinners. The way I kept looking for his car in the driveway. I thought about the ache in my chest that had nothing to do with sadness and everything to do with missing someone I wasn’t supposed to miss.

“No,” I said, the word barely a whisper. “But I don’t know how to want anything else.”

She squeezed my hand. “You’ll figure it out.”

But I wasn’t so sure.

The next day, I was a wreck. I cleaned the already-spotless kitchen. I reorganized the bookshelf in the living room. I went for a run and pushed myself so hard I had to stop and dry-heave on the side of the trail. I was trying to burn off the nervous energy, but it was like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

At 5:47 p.m., I heard it.

The low, familiar rumble of an engine.

My heart leaped into my throat. I froze in the middle of the living room, a dust rag in my hand, listening. The engine cut out. A car door slammed. Footsteps on the pavement.

He was home.

I dropped the dust rag onto the coffee table. My hands were trembling. I smoothed down my shirt. Ran a hand through my hair. I felt like a teenager waiting for her date to pick her up. I hated myself for it.

I heard the key in the lock. The front door opening.

I took a deep breath. Braced myself.

And then he was standing there.

He looked tired. Not just end-of-a-long-week tired, but a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that seemed to radiate from him. His hair was a mess. There was a new, faint scrape on his chin. His duffel bag was slung over his shoulder, pulling him down.

Our eyes met.

For a split second, the world fell away. It was just the two of us, standing in the doorway, the air between us crackling with everything we’d left unsaid.

Then he looked away.

“Hey,” he said, voice rough, quiet. He dropped his duffel bag by the door with a heavy thud.

“Hey,” I managed, my own voice barely a whisper. “How was it?”

“Fine,” he said, already moving past me, heading for the stairs. “Long.”

He didn’t look back. He just walked up the stairs, footsteps heavy, and disappeared down the hall.

I stood there in the silent living room, dust rag still clutched in my hand, and listened to his bedroom door close.

The silent truce was back on.

And it was more suffocating than ever.