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FIFTY SEVEN
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2026-05-26 18:14:03
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I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 206
CHAPTER 206THALIA“Understood,” Brandon said at last.That was all. He swallowed the tablets one by one, set the glass down with great care, and walked out of the kitchen. I listened to his steps on the stairs, steady and unhurried, and a door closing at the top.I had said exactly what I meant, in exactly the voice I had planned. There was no reason for my hands to be shaking.He kept to my terms with a precision I found, by the next morning, almost unbearable.“Shall I look at the window, or at the wall?” he asked, in the study, as I peeled back the edge of his dressing with the door wide open.“At whatever you like.”“Then the window. You said I was not to look at you the way I did yesterday, and I am not certain how else I look at you, so I have decided to look at nothing.”“That’s very mature.”“I thought so.”I dabbed the cut, and the skin at its edge was warm under my fingers, warmer than it should have been. “This feels hot.”“The heater is on.”“The heater is across the room
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 205
CHAPTER 205THALIANobody moved.The rain ticked against the glass. Catherine stood with the spoon still lifted over the pot, and a drop of soup fell from it and landed on the stove with a tiny hiss that sounded enormous. Brandon had not picked up his crayon. He sat with his hand open on the table, looking at his nephew, and I could not read a single thing in his face.“Leo,” Catherine said at last, very gently. “Sweetheart, what made you say that?”“Because it’s true.” Leo looked from one adult to the next, puzzled that no one was nodding. “Uncle Brandon laughs when Thalia’s here. He doesn’t laugh at home. And Mommy makes him do the quiet face.”“The quiet face,” Catherine repeated faintly.“The one he does when he’s not happy.” Leo picked up a purple crayon and went back to his stegosaurus, as if the matter were settled. “I’m only saying.”I wanted the floor to open. I stared at the teapot, and I felt Brandon’s eyes come to me, slowly, and stay. I did not look up. If I looked up, I
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 204
CHAPTER 204THALIAIt rang twice, bright and cheerful, and I jumped. Brandon went rigid. He pushed back his chair and walked down the hall with a stiffness in his shoulders I had never seen for anyone else at the door, and I followed, tugging my cardigan closed, my face burning.Catherine stood on the step under a black umbrella, a bag of groceries on one arm. Beside her, in a yellow raincoat two sizes too big, Leo hopped from foot to foot with the stegosaurus blanket in both fists.“Uncle Brandon! Thalia!”He shot past his uncle’s legs and hit me at the waist, and I caught him, grateful for something to do with my arms.“Leo.” Brandon’s voice was level and a shade colder than I liked. “Why are you not in school?”I glanced up. He never sounded like that with Leo, and I found it oddly unsettling.“It’s the weekend,” Leo informed him, with the weary patience of a child explaining the obvious. “There’s no school. Grandma brought me.”“And soup,” Catherine said, lifting the bag. She look
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 203
CHAPTER 203THALIA“What is going on?” he asked.I stared at him, heart going like something trying to get out, and the only thing I could think to say was:“You were quick.”That was not very smart of me.“It was a very short visit.” He had stepped out of the bathroom at the far end of the dressing room, drying his hands on a towel, his hair damp, his sleeves rolled to the elbow and his gray shirt only half buttoned. His eyes went to the wardrobe behind me, and his jaw tightened for half a second before it smoothed. “You, on the other hand, are standing in my dressing room in a robe.”“I came for a sweater.”“Then take one.”“I will.”“Then why haven’t you?”I pushed myself off the wardrobe door and started for the exit, and he crossed the room in three slow steps and stopped in front of it with one hand on the frame, so that the doorway was suddenly full of him.“If you want to pass, you may ask me to step aside.”“Step aside.”“Say please.”“Brandon.”“You have been giving the orde
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 202
CHAPTER 202THALIAI woke to the sound of water running through the wall, the old, deep rattle of pipes that meant someone was in the shower, and I lay there for a full minute staring at the ceiling of a guest room that smelled of lavender and cold linen.Dr. Evans had been very clear that the head wound was to stay dry for another three days. I had written it on a card, in capital letters, and propped it against the bathroom mirror, and I did not need to wonder whether a man who had spent his whole life disregarding instructions had read it.I pulled on my robe and went down the landing with my hair still tangled from sleep, and knocked on the bathroom door twice."Brandon?""Yes?" His voice came through the wood, perfectly level, with the steam in it."The dressing is meant to stay dry.""I used a towel to cover it.""A towel does not cover a dressing. That is not what covering means.""Then I will be out in a moment, and you may tell me what it means."The water stopped. I stood th
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 201
CHAPTER 201THALIAThey discharged Brandon on Saturday afternoon, with a bag of dressings, a sheet of instructions that Dr. Evans read aloud twice, and a look at me that said the rest of the responsibility was mine.The car pulled up outside our house just as the light was going, the tall, quiet townhouse behind black iron railings, with every window dark. I had not stood on this pavement since the morning I walked out with one suitcase, and the black door was the same, and so was the brass knocker I had once polished out of sheer loneliness.The driver came around to open the door, and Brandon, who had insisted the whole way home that he could manage perfectly well, swung one leg out onto the pavement and stopped."Don't," I said."I haven't said anything.""You were about to say you can do it yourself." I came around the car and took his arm above the elbow. "Lean on me.""Thalia, I have a cane.""And you have a cut that reopened on a courthouse step. Lean."He gave me a long, level
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FIFTY
THALIAI stood just behind the stage entrance, my hands resting lightly against each other as I adjusted my grip, then released it again when I realized I was doing too much.“You’re good,” the event coordinator said quietly as she passed me. “It’s almost your turn.”I nodded once without respondin
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON SIX
THALIAAcross the city, my new apartment still smelled faintly of fresh paint.Freedom had a strange scent.I stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the half-opened boxes scattered everywhere. The place wasn’t nearly as large as the Langford estate, but it felt lighter somehow. The sile
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FIVE
BRANDONThe first thing I felt was anger.It sat heavy in my chest all afternoon, refusing to fade.I stood in my office at Langford Pharmaceuticals, staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Traffic crawled below like ants. People moved through their ordinary lives, wh
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FOUR
THALIAI had just placed the cardboard box in the passenger seat and was about to start the engine when someone called my name.“Thalia!”The voice came from behind me.I froze for a second before turning around.Brandon was walking out of the company building, his expression already dark with ange
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