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The Long Night
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2026-04-28 15:56:28Damien did not leave the house that night.
He did not ask to stay. He did not suggest it. He just took a phone call from Nathan in the sitting room at 10 p.m. about a lead in the stalker investigation, and when he looked up at the end of the call, Seraphina was standing in the doorway in pyjamas and a cardigan, holding two glasses of whiskey.
"Stay," she said.
"In the sitting room."
"Yes."
"Not."
"Not the bedroom. The guest room. Or the sitting room. I do not care. I just. I do not want to be alone tonight."
He took the whiskey from her hand.
"Okay."
They sat on opposite ends of the couch. They did not touch. They did not speak for a long time. The rain kept falling outside. The house was quiet. Luna was asleep upstairs. Nanny Rosa had gone to bed an hour ago.
"Damien."
"Yes."
"The day you threw me out. Did you think about me at all. After I left. That week."
He was quiet for a long time.
"Aria. Do you actually want me to answer that. Because I will. I will tell you the truth. But I am warning you. It is not a good answer."
"Tell me."
He looked at the fireplace. The fire had gone down to embers.
"I got drunk the night you left. I thought about calling you. I did not. I thought you had cheated on me and I was trying to hate you. Vanessa came to the apartment around midnight. She brought dinner. She said she wanted to make sure I was not alone. She stayed the night in the guest room. In the morning I woke up and she made me coffee and she told me that you had always been manipulative and that I should not blame myself for the divorce. And I listened. I let her move in a week later. I let her take your things to the thrift store. I did not think about you again for almost six months."
Seraphina's throat closed.
"Six months."
"Six months. And then it hit me all at once. In a grocery store. I saw a woman with your hair. From the back. And I ran across the store to catch up to her because some part of me had never actually believed you were gone. And when she turned around and it was not you, I went out to my car and sat in the parking lot for three hours and could not move."
He took a drink.
"Every day after that, for two and a half years. It has been like that. There has never been a day that I did not think about you. There has never been a night I have slept through. There has never been a woman I looked at without measuring her against you and finding her lacking. And I deserved all of it. Every second of it. Because for six months after I destroyed your life, Aria, I forgot you."
She was crying silently.
"That is the worst part. I want you to know. I want you to know the worst part, because I do not want to ever be in a room with you again pretending I am a better man than I was. For six months, I forgot you. And I have been paying for that forgetting for almost three years. And I am going to pay for it for the rest of my life."
"Damien."
"Do not forgive me yet. Do not forgive me. I have not earned it."
"I am not forgiving you."
"Good."
"I am just. I am glad you told me."
"Yes."
She put her whiskey down. She pulled her knees up under the blanket. She looked at the embers of the fire.
"Damien."
"Yes."
"Tonight. I do not want you to sleep in the guest room."
He did not move.
"I do not want anything from you," she said. "I am not asking you for anything. I just. I do not want to be in a bed by myself tonight. And I think, for the first time in three years, I trust you to be in a bed with me and not take anything."
"I will not take anything."
"I know."
"Aria."
"Come upstairs."
He followed her.
In the bedroom, she turned off the lights. She climbed into the bed. He took off his shoes and his belt and his jacket and climbed in on top of the covers, fully dressed, on the far side of the bed, as far from her as he could get without falling off.
She reached across the mattress. Touched the back of his hand.
"Closer."
He moved closer.
She put her head on his chest.
He put his arm around her.
Neither of them moved again.
She fell asleep listening to his heart.
For the second time in three years.
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