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Callie's POV

For a long moment, nobody said anything.

Mason looked at Theo. Theo looked back at him. They had been best friends since college. I had seen them laugh together at our wedding, fight over football on Sunday afternoons, and fall asleep on our couch after too much wine. I had never seen them look at each other like this.

"She has you," Mason said slowly. "What does that mean?"

"It means exactly what I said," Theo said. He walked into the room and put the discharge papers on the table next to my bed. "She's not alone. Not anymore."

Mason gave a short laugh. "You've been sitting by her bed for three days, and now you think you're some kind of hero?"

"Somebody had to sit there," Theo said. "You were busy."

The words landed hard. I saw Mason's face go red, and for a second I thought he was going to hit him. Instead, he stepped closer, so close that their faces were only a few inches apart.

"Be careful, Theo," he said quietly. "She's my wife."

"Then you should have pulled her out of the car," Theo said.

Mason didn't have an answer for that. He looked at me over Theo's shoulder, and I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. It wasn't guilt. It was a surprise, like a man who reaches into his pocket for his keys and finds them gone.

Then his phone buzzed. He looked down at it, and his face changed at once. It went soft and worried.

"I have to go," he said. "Kendra's having pains."

He walked out without saying goodbye. I listened to his shoes going down the hallway, fast, toward the elevator.Toward her.

Theo let out a long breath and sat down in the chair beside me. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said all that in front of you."

"Don't be," I said. "Nobody has ever said anything like that for me before."

He looked at me, and his eyes were sad. "That's the part I'm sorry about."

The doctor came in an hour later and told me I could leave in the morning. I would need crutches for six weeks and lots of rest. She asked who would be taking me home, and I opened my mouth and realized I didn't know the answer.

Mason was right about one thing. I had no job. I had no money of my own, because I had closed my bank account when we got married and put everything into our joint one. My parents had died in a boating accident when I was twenty. My old friends from design school had drifted away over the years because Mason never liked them, and I got tired of making excuses.

"She's coming with me," Theo said.

I turned to him. "Theo, no. I can't do that to you."

"You're not doing anything to me," he said. "I have a guest house behind my place that nobody has used in two years. It has its own door, its own kitchen, and nobody will bother you there. Stay until you're back on your feet. That's all I'm asking."

"People will talk," I said. "Mason will say things."

"Let them talk," he said. "Let him say things."

I wanted to say no. I had spent five years making sure I never asked anybody for anything. But I looked down at my leg in the heavy white cast, and I thought about that big empty house with Kendra's photo still on the kitchen counter, and I knew I couldn't go back there.

"Okay," I said quietly. "Just for a little while."

The next morning, Theo pushed me out of the hospital in a wheelchair. It was cold and bright outside, and I closed my eyes and let the sun touch my face. For the first time in days, I could breathe.

"There's one thing I need to do first," I said as he helped me into his car. "I need to go to the house. I need my things."

He looked at me carefully. "Are you sure? I can send someone to pack for you."

"No," I said. "I need to do it myself."

He didn't argue. He just nodded and drove.

Neither of us talked much on the way. Theo kept the radio low and drove slowly over every bump, and once, when the car hit a hole in the road and I gasped, he reached over and touched my hand without saying a word.

The house looked the same as always from the outside. Big and white and quiet, with the tall trees in the front yard and Mason's name on the mailbox. I used to love this house. I used to think it was the most beautiful place in the world.

Theo helped me up the steps on my crutches and waited by the door. "Take your time," he said. "I'll be right here."

I let myself in.

The first thing I saw was the dining room.

Nobody had touched it. The table was still set for two. The candles had burned all the way down and left little pools of white wax on the good china. The beef had gone gray and dry. The lemon tart sat in the middle, sinking in on itself. And next to Mason's plate, exactly where I had left it, was the small box with the watch inside.

Five days. He had been in this house for five days, and he hadn't even cleared the table.

I didn't cry. I thought I would, but I didn't. I just picked up the little box and put it in my coat pocket because I had paid for it with the last of my own savings, and he didn't deserve it.

Then I went upstairs.

It took a long time on the crutches, one step at a time. When I finally got to the top, I stopped to catch my breath. That was when I heard it.

Water. Someone was running the shower in my bathroom.

My heart started to pound. I pushed the bedroom door open slowly.

The bed was unmade. There was a pink coat thrown over the chair by the window, the same soft pink coat I had seen on my porch. A pair of high heels lay on the floor next to my side of the bed. And on my dresser, next to my wedding photo, was a small white bottle of baby vitamins.

The shower turned off.

The bathroom door opened, and Kendra stepped out with her wet hair wrapped in a towel. She was wearing my robe, the white silk one Mason gave me on our first Christmas.

She saw me and stopped. Then she smiled.

"Oh," she said. "You're home."