He Would Hug Another

Shawn walked out of the bathroom just as I was still lost in thought over the name Cynthia.

We'd lived together for four years, and every single day without fail, he sent her messages.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, every one marked with a glaring exclamation point.

Those unsent messages added up to a Shawn I didn't recognize at all.

Wasn't he supposed to be a man of few words?

Seeing me sitting alone on the bed, he dried his hands and reached for the pressure point on my forehead, rubbing it the way he always did.

It was one of the few times he ever willingly touched me.

"Headache again? Does this help?"

I pulled back a little and looked down. "It's nothing."

He didn't say anything else. He dried his hair and lay down beside me.

Then, the way he did every night, he picked up the goose plush lying between us, wrapped his arms around it, and turned his back to me to scroll through his phone.

After a moment of silence, I asked, staring at the back of his head, "Who's Cynthia, the one you've got pinned at the top of your chats?"

His arms tightened around the plush without him seeming to notice.

My heart skipped at the sight of it.

He never held me like that on his own.

"You went through my phone?

"An ex. She's blocked. I just kept her there as a reminder. Don't read into it."

A reminder.

A reminder that had lasted four years. Longer, probably.

Did people usually tell a reminder that they missed them?

It was so absurd I almost laughed. The corner of my mouth twitched, but I couldn't manage a smile.

He was a neurologist, and plenty of people came to see him.

I'd text him, and he'd never answer.

At first I used to get upset about it, and he'd rub my temples to calm me down. "Work's been busy. I don't check my phone much. It's not that I don't want to answer you."

Eventually I got used to it and stopped making a fuss.

Turns out it wasn't that he didn't want to answer. He'd just been answering someone else instead.

I didn't argue with him.

The next day, I went straight to the hospital where he worked.

Appointments with him were nearly impossible to get, but he always said I had special privileges.

Whenever I wasn't feeling well, I could go find him directly, and he'd carve time out of his break to see me.

His private break room door was shut, but the light inside was on.

I looked through the narrow gap in the curtains.

Inside, someone's hand was running through Shawn's hair, leaving it messy, stripped of all his usual cool detachment.

The moment I saw whose hand it was, my breath caught.

The day before, when I'd gone through his chat history, I'd seen the photo he'd set as her profile picture. It was the same face.

I went cold all over, like someone had dumped ice water over my head.

The window didn't block out sound, and I caught the edge of irritation in his voice.

"Cynthia, do you think I'm your dog? That you just wave and I come running with my tail wagging?"

It was a voice I knew better than my own, and yet it sounded like a stranger's.

Was this the same steady, composed Shawn, capable of talking like this, so unguarded and alive?

Cynthia McCarroll laughed and cupped his face in both hands.

"And yet here you are, come running the second I wave."

Shawn grabbed her by the wrist, spun her around, and pinned her against the wall, leaning in like he meant to kiss her.

I pushed the door open.