AN: yuh, so just checking in. how are we feeling? this part is a bit of a transitionary one, so it kind of jumps around to help ground the next few chapters. hope this is cool with y'all. enjoy xx

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THE THERAPY office felt smaller this week, as if the walls had crept inward during their absence. 

Auden arrived first, settling into her usual spot in the waiting room, her hands folded in her lap like a penitent waiting for confession. Her fingernails had been bitten down to the quick. The magazines on the coffee table remained untouched; their glossy promises of "10 Ways to Reconnect with Your Partner" and "Finding Joy in Midlife" felt like cruel jokes at her expense.

When Cillian walked in, she did a double take.

Gone was the man who had opened himself like a wound in their living room three days ago. This version of her husband moved through the space like a ghost haunting his own life, his eyes fixed on some middle distance that existed nowhere and everywhere at once. He took his seat across from her, hardly blinking.

Much like last time, neither said a word. Their chosen silence was punctuated only by the soft whoosh of the air conditioning and the distant murmur of traffic outside. Auden kept her eyes busy, looking everywhere but his face.

She knew her signals towards him had been scrambled, encrypted in a language of guilt and shame she didn't know how to decode. In the moment, Auden wanted to reach for him, to bridge the impossible distance with touch the way they'd always done when words failed them. But her arms felt leaden, weighed down by the remorse she felt whenever she found herself confronted by him.

The door to the inner office opened with a creak – Auden thought Dr. Bergman should get it fixed, to avoid the noise becoming some sort of punctuation mark to the start of her misery. The therapist appeared, her hair pulled back in a loose bun. She wore long cotton pants that seemed bizarre during this time of year.

"Good afternoon," Dr. Bergman said, her voice warm. She looked between them, and Auden caught the microscopic shift in her expression – the way her eyes lingered just a moment longer than usual, cataloguing the topography of their body language like a code she could crack.

As they filed into the office, Auden caught the development of a ritual: Cillian to the left side of the couch, herself to the right. Both of them pressed their bodies into the corner as if the center would somehow suck them in and give no opportunity to spit them back out. Just like last time.

Dr. Bergman settled into her chair, back straight with her notebook poised and smiled, "How has everyone been since our last session?"

The question lingered in the air like incense, sweet and suffocating. Auden instantly began to sweat, her underarms growing tacky beneath the sweater she'd chosen specifically because it hid stains, her palms clammy against the rough upholstery of the couch. The expectation to answer settled on her chest. It was a cat that refused to move, and she found herself doing what she'd always done when met with uncertainty – glancing sideways at Cillian, waiting for him to speak first, to take the lead.

But he seemed content to study his hands as if they belonged to someone else, turning them over and back again with the fascination of a child discovering their own limbs. His wedding ring caught the light from the window, a thin band of silver that somehow looked ridiculous now. It was nothing more than useless costume jewelry.

"I'm okay," Auden blurted out. She couldn't stand it.

Dr. Bergman nodded, her eyes sliding to Cillian.

"Cillian?" Dr. Bergman prompted gently. "You seem closed off."

His shoulders lifted in the barest approximation of a shrug, a gesture so minimal it might have been mistaken for a shiver. When he spoke, his voice carried all the enthusiasm of someone reading ingredients off a cereal box. "I'm fine."

Auden felt something twist in her chest – not the ache of missing him, but something sharper, more frustrated. This was the man who had stripped himself bare for her just days ago, who had told her about being gutted, vein by vein, and now he sat there like a statue refusing to participate in his own healing.

"Just fine?" Dr. Bergman pressed, leaning forward slightly in her chair. The leather creaked softly, a sound Auden had begun to associate with moments of breakthrough or breakdown – she was never sure which this would be.

"Yeah." His voice carried no inflection, no energy. He might have been commenting on the weather or the color of the walls.

Dr. Bergman made a note. Auden found herself wondering what she was writing. Patient exhibits classic signs of shutdown. Husband appears to have emotionally vacated the premises. Marriage showing signs of gangrene.

The silence stretched again, elastic and threatening. Auden could feel her pulse in her throat, could taste the metallic tang of adrenaline. Someone had to speak. Someone had to acknowledge that they were all sitting in this room pretending that silence was a form of communication, that withdrawal was a valid response to crisis.

Auden wracked her brain, attempting to find something to elicit a response from him. Part of her wanted to prove to Cillian that this was good — that this was the one space that shouldn't hold shame or embarrassment. The other part, the one that ultimately kept her up at night, was her need for him to prove himself worthy again. For Cillian to show Auden that she was still a priority in his life.

Auden tossed him a bone. "He's sleeping on Catherine's floor at night."

The words came out sharper than she'd intended, almost accusatory. She felt herself wince. Cillian's eyes flicked to her face for the briefest moment before returning to his hands, but she caught the flash of something there – hurt, maybe, or betrayal that she'd shared something so personal.

Dr. Bergman's pen stopped moving. Auden felt her statement hang in the air like smoke after a gunshot. She could feel it, the way they changed the atmospheric pressure in the room. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she watched her husband's face – waiting, hoping, pleading silently for some flicker of response.

But he didn't look at her. His eyes remained fixed on that same spot on his palms, his shoulders rigid with the stillness of a man who had learned to make himself small in the face of revelation. The muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice, then went still.

Dr. Bergman cleared her throat softly, the sound neutral. "Can you tell me more about that, Auden? When did this start?"

But Auden wasn't looking at the therapist. She was staring at her husband, willing him to lift his head, to meet her eyes, to show even a fraction of the raw honesty he'd given her when he'd finally, finally let her see his pain. Where was that man now? Where was the person who had broken down and let her touch him while he admitted he was drowning?

Look at me, she wanted to say. Look at me the way you did when you needed me. Need me now. Fight for this the way I'm fighting for this.

Instead, she watched him disappear further into himself, his silence a wall she couldn't scale.

Another shrug. Another monosyllable: "Dunno."

The session continued this way for fifty-three minutes – Dr. Bergman pulling teeth, Auden rambling, and Cillian offering nothing more substantial than affirmative grunts and the occasional "Not sure." Dr. Bergman tried different approaches. Direct questions, open-ended invitations, reflective statements designed to crack open whatever fortress Cillian had built around himself. Nothing worked. He sat there like a man underwater, watching their attempts to reach him from some unreachable depth.

When it was over, Cillian stood first, smoothing down his shirt with hands. Auden followed, her purse feeling heavier than it should. She had felt like she'd been holding her breath for nearly an hour. Her throat ached from speaking for two people while her husband sat there like a beautiful, broken mannequin who'd forgotten he was supposed to be alive.

She could've killed him at that moment. Part of her wanted to grab him by those perfectly pressed shoulders and shake him until something – anything – fell out. It would've been so much simpler than sitting there, performing the exhausting pantomime of a marriage while he checked out entirely.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Dr. Bergman walked them to the door, her hand briefly touching Auden's shoulder in a gesture of support. A simply, shitty life preserver thrown to a drowning woman. "Same time Thursday?"

"Yes," Auden replied, because someone had to. Cillian was already moving toward the stairs, his footsteps silent in the waiting room.

Outside, the sky was the color of old pewter, heavy clouds pressing down like a lid on a pot about to boil over. The air felt moist, uncomfortably humid despite the season.

"That was productive," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as they stood beside their separate cars.

Cillian pulled his keys from his pocket, the metal barely catching the dull late-afternoon light. He didn't look at her when he spoke. "You got what you wanted. I showed up."

The casual cruelty of it hit her like a slap. She actually stepped back, her heel catching on the asphalt. As if her request had somehow been unreasonable. As if this were just another burden she'd loaded onto his shoulders when really, all she'd asked for was a husband who remembered he was married.

"Showing up means actually participating." Her hands were shaking now, keys cutting into her palm where she gripped them. "It means more than just warming a chair with your body."

He looked at her then – really looked – and for a split second she saw something flicker behind his eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it came, snuffed out like a candle, replaced by something flat and unreachable as winter ground.

"I don't have anything else to give you, Aud." His voice was barely above a whisper, but it might as well have been a scream. "This is what's left."

He got into his car and drove away, leaving her standing in the parking lot with the taste of disappointment bitter on her tongue and the weight of the gray sky pressing down on her shoulders like a shroud.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Wednesday afternoon brought a brief respite from the November drizzle, though the sky remained grey. The gallery had been quiet — the kind of dreary day that kept people indoors — and Auden and Brigid mutually agreed to close up early before the next downpour hit.

They'd grabbed a quick bite at the pub around the corner, sharing a plate of fish and chips and nursing pints of Guinness while rain drummed against the windows. Now Auden lit a cigarette as they walked back to Brigid's flat, her mind still struggling with her heart.

"You're thinking very loudly over there," Brigid remarked, bumping her shoulder.

Auden exhaled, the smoke dissipating quickly in the damp air. "You know me. Always thinking."

The pavement stretched ahead of them, darkened by earlier rain and slick with fallen leaves turned to mush. Puddles had gathered where the curb dipped, reflecting the sky and the Victorian streetlamps just beginning to flicker on. Brigid stepped carefully around them in her good boots, while Auden walked straight through, water seeping into her shoes without seeming to notice.

"It's Cillian," Auden said finally, taking another drag. The admittance felt dry against her vocal cords from sitting in her throat all afternoon.

"I figured." Brigid glanced sideways at her, noting the way Auden's free hand was worrying at the hem of her jumper. "The therapy session?"

Auden nodded, flicking ash onto the wet pavement where it dissolved instantly. They paused at the corner, waiting for a delivery van to rumble past, its headlights cutting through the early dusk. The driver didn't acknowledge them — city indifference — but a cyclist in hi-vis gear rang his bell in greeting as he pedaled by.

"He just... shut down completely. Like, more than usual." Auden attempted a nonchalant shrug. "I kept waiting for him to say something, anything. But he just stared at his hands and gave these one-word answers until she called it quits."

They turned onto a quieter residential street lined with red-brick terraces, their front gardens small and neat behind low walls. Most of the houses had their curtains drawn already against the oncoming night, warm yellow light spilling from windows. The air smelled of coal fires and wet earth.

Brigid was quiet for a few steps, her expression thoughtful. She knew that look on Auden's face.

"You're doing it again," Brigid said softly.

"Doing what?"

"Tearing yourself apart trying to figure out how to fix someone who isn't doing the work to fix himself."

Auden stopped walking so abruptly that Brigid had to backtrack a few steps. The cigarette burned, forgotten between her fingers.

"Look," Brigid began, already frowning. "I've watched you exhaust yourself trying to solve Cillian for years now. You walk on eggshells around his moods, you enable his behavior by making excuses for it, and you lie awake at night analyzing every word he does or doesn't say."

A thin mist was beginning to rise from the pavement, and somewhere nearby a church bell chimed the half-hour. The sound echoed off the narrow streets.

"But what's he doing?" Brigid continued, shoving her hands into her coat pockets. "What actual effort is Cillian putting in to save himself? To save your relationship?"

Auden's throat worked soundlessly. She dropped the cigarette and crushed it under her toe, the small violence of the gesture betraying her frustration.

"I love him," she replied.

"I know you do." Brigid tilted her head, eyeing her between strands of red hair caught in the wind. "But you can't want this more than he does. You can't want your relationship to work more than he does."

"So what are you saying?" Auden asked, though her voice suggested she already knew.

Brigid started walking again, slower this time. "I'm saying maybe it's time to stop setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Especially when they're not even trying to light their own match."

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Thursday morning, Auden had stared at her phone for fifteen minutes before switching it off entirely. Dr. Bergman's appointment reminder sat unread in her messages, and she'd felt a strange lightness in her chest as she walked to work.

The day had passed quietly. She'd reorganized the back room, updated their inventory spreadsheet, booked movers for Morrison's paintings, and sold two small watercolors to a German tourist who paid in cash. Normal things. Ordinary things. She hadn't checked her phone once.

Now, sitting on Brigid's couch with a mug of tea growing cold between her palms, she kept glancing at the black screen of her mobile where she'd left it face-down on the coffee table. The silence she had been met with all day felt heavier than she'd anticipated.

"He hasn't texted," she noted, not looking up from the phone.

Brigid glanced over from where she was stirring something fragrant in her bowl — curry, from the smell of it. "Would you have wanted him to?"

"I don't know." Auden tucked her legs beneath her, pulling the throw blanket higher. "Maybe. Just to ask where I was, or if I was alright, or..." She trailed off, the words hanging in the warm air of Brigid's living room.

"Or to show that he noticed you weren't there."

"Yeah." The admission came out small, almost desperate. "I keep thinking I should feel guilty," Auden admitted, finally sipping her tea. "But I don't. Is that terrible?"

Her friend slurped the yellow contents on her spoon and shrugged. "It's honest."

The buzzer rang then, loud and unexpected against the quietness. Brigid looked up from her bowl, spoon suspended in midair.

"Expecting someone?" Auden asked.

"No." Brigid groaned, casting her dinner aside and getting to her feet. She answered the door, and the sight of Aiden on their doorstep made her freeze, one hand still gripping the doorknob, her cheeks flushing pink in a way that had nothing to do with the cold air that hit her.

"Oh," she breathed, then seemed to remember herself. "Aiden. Hi."

"Hey, Brigid." His smile was easy, confident in the way that came naturally to men who had never been told they were too much or not enough. "Is Auden around?"

At the sound of her brother's voice, Auden appeared behind Brigid. At twenty-seven, Aiden still carried himself with the loose-limbed grace of someone who had never quite grown out of the belief that the world was designed to accommodate him. His dark hair was longer than their mother approved of, curling just behind his ears, and his eyes – the same green as Auden's – held a the lingering mischief that all youngest siblings seemed to bare.

"What are you doing here?" Auden asked, though she was already moving toward him with a smile.

"Can't a guy visit his sister?" He pulled her into a hug that smelled like cologne and the faint sweetness of whatever craft beer he'd been drinking. "Besides, I was at a pub nearby. Thought I'd check in."

Brigid stepped aside to let him in, her wide eyes tracking his movements with a flushed face. Auden caught the look and filed it away for later examination.

They settled in the kitchen, Aiden straddling one of the bar stools like he was mounting a horse, while Brigid busied herself making tea, focusing intently with the task that required little. Auden watched her friend and wondered if she was imagining the way Brigid's hands trembled slightly when she reached for a spare mug.

"How's Cillian?" The question came out before Auden could stop it.

Brigid snorted but Aiden's expression didn't change, though something shifted behind his eyes — a flicker of knowledge quickly smoothed over. "He's fine. Same as always, you know Cillian." He placed his elbows onto the counter, feigning casualness. "Keeps to himself mostly."

The non-answer felt deliberate, and Auden found herself studying her brother's face for tells she'd learned to read over the years. The slight tightness around his eyes, the way his fingers drummed once before going still.

"Is he eating?" she pressed, hating how the question revealed the depth of her concern. "Taking care of himself?"

"I mean, Mom mentioned he's been struggling a bit." Aiden accepted the mug of tea from Brigid with a smile that made her duck her head, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. "But honestly? I think having her there has been really good for him."

Something cold settled in Auden's stomach. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know Mom. She's always been better at the whole domestic goddess thing than you were." He said it, without malice, though it hurt just the same. "And she actually likes doing it – the cooking, the cleaning, making sure Cat gets to school with her lunch packed and her school uniform ironed. It's weird, but it's almost like you're there, except Mom actually enjoys all that stuff."

Auden felt herself set her mug down with more force than necessary, tea sloshing over the rim and onto the counter. Brigid, who was now leaning against the stove, let her eyes move between the siblings, sensing a shift.

"What's that supposed mean?" Auden asked.

Aiden blinked, seeming to realize for the first time that he'd stepped into a dangerous predicament. "I just meant... I don't know. She's good at it. The whole homemaker thing. She lived for it while I was growing up. And Cillian seems less stressed now that he doesn't have to worry about all the logistics."

"Less stressed." Auden repeated the words slowly, tasting them like poison.

"Yeah, I mean, he's been able to focus on work again. He's been getting to the office earlier, staying later when he needs to. Mom handles all the Catherine stuff – picks her up from school, helps with homework, does the grocery shopping." Aiden explained, counting the list off each of his fingers. "It's actually working out really well for everyone."

The kitchen fell silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. Auden felt something harden in her chest, a mixture of resentment and envy all tangled into a messy, lead ball.

All those months of fighting with Cillian about balance, about partnership, about sharing the emotional labor of their life together – and all it had taken was Emma stepping in to make it all disappear.

He hadn't had to change. He hadn't had to confront the work-life balance that had slowly strangled their marriage. He hadn't had to learn to see the invisible labor that kept their family functioning, because Emma had simply picked up where Auden left off, smoothing over all the rough edges with a snap of her fingers.

"Aud?" Aiden's voice carried a note of concern now, as if he was finally registering the expression on her sister's face. "You okay?"

She forced a smile, "Fine. Just tired."

But she wasn't fine. She was furious – not at Emma, not even entirely at Cillian, but at the whole system that had allowed her to believe the problem was her inability to juggle everything gracefully. She had spent an entire week torturing herself over sleeping with Conner, months over the guilt of constantly failing as a mother, an entire lifetime over being the kind of woman who couldn't handle what she had asked for.

And all along, the machine had simply found a new operator. One who smiled while she did it.

The doorbell rang again, though Auden hardly comprehended it. Brigid practically leapt up to answer it, clearly grateful for the interruption. Auden could hear muffled voices in the hallway, then Brigid's higher pitch saying something she couldn't quite make out.

"Auden?" she called from the front door, her voice carrying a note of confusion. "There's someone here for you."

Auden exchanged a glance with Aiden, who shot her the same perplexed look that she was sure she was wearing. They both made their way to the front door, where Brigid stood with barely concealed bewilderment next to a man Auden recognized with a jolt of panic.

Conner Morrison stood on their doorstep, looking perfectly composed despite the obvious awkwardness of the situation. He wore a navy wool coat over dark jeans, his mousy hair caught against the dying light.

"Is this a bad time?"

Auden, who hadn't realize her mouth was hanging open, clamped her jaw shut. "Kind of."

Aiden's hand flew out, "Aiden Johnson. Auden's brother."

Conner cocked an eyebrow, his mouth curling as he took the man's hand. "Conner Morrison."

But as Aiden shook his hand, Auden caught the way her brother's eyes were alert and curious and slightly confused. "Are you...?"

"A friend of your sister's." Conner's smile never wavered, but his eyes found Auden's. "I was hoping to catch up with her, actually. We've been working together on appraising some pieces from my father's collection."

The explanation was smooth, professional, and completely reasonable. It was also, Auden realized with growing dread, not entirely a lie. But the way Conner's gaze lingered on her face, the subtle intimacy in his tone when he said her name – these were details that she was sure Aiden noticed.

"I tried calling," Conner continued, directing this to Auden with just enough emphasis to make it clear he wasn't talking about business calls. "But you haven't been answering your phone."

Because she had been avoiding exactly this situation. Because seeing his name on her screen had sent her into spirals of guilt and desire that she wasn't equipped to handle. Because every time she thought about their night together, she felt like doing it again.

"I've been busy," she answered.

"I'm sure." His smile suggested he understood exactly what kind of busy she'd been. "Perhaps we could grab coffee sometime in the morning? Finish discussing my father's piece?"

Aiden's head swiveled between them like he was watching a tennis match, his expression growing more suspicious by the second. Brigid, on the other hand, giggled like a girl watching her friend being asked out to prom.

It wasn't entirely far off.

"Actually," Aiden interjected, "why don't you come in, Conner? I'd love to hear more about this art collection."

Conner's pause was so brief it was almost imperceptible, but Auden caught it. The momentary calculation, the quick assessment of whether this was a conversation he wanted to have with an audience.

"I wouldn't want to intrude on family time."

"Oh, you're not intruding at all," Aiden reassured just as Auden inhaled to speak. Her brother stepped back and gestured toward the living room as if it were his own house, with exaggerated hospitality. "Any friend of Auden's is welcome here. Isn't that right, Aud?"

The trap was neatly set, and they all knew it. Refusing would make the situation more awkward, more suspicious. Accepting would mean subjecting whatever was happening between her and Conner to her brother's scrutiny and her best friend's increasingly obvious excitement.

"Of course," Auden heard herself say. "Come in."

Conner stepped through the doorway with familiarity, his hand settling briefly at the small of Auden's back as he moved past her into the narrow hallway. The touch was light, casual — the kind of unconscious intimacy that spoke of more than just business. His fingers lingered just long enough to guide her gently aside before dropping away as he shrugged off his jacket.

Aiden's eyes tracked the movement. A mental note filed away without comment.

"Nice place," Conner said to Brigid, already moving toward the living room. "Smells brilliant in here. What're you cooking?"

"I made curry," Brigid laughed. "But it's all gone. Sorry."

Conner settled onto the couch, with Aiden claiming the armchair with theatrical flourish, and Brigid hovering in the doorway, attempting to make herself a fly on the wall.

"So," Aiden mused. "Morrison... that name sounds familiar."

"I'm a writer," Conner explained, adjusting his pants as Auden sat next to him, ensuring a distance that spoke of nothing more than polite understanding. "Perhaps you've read some of my work?"

Aiden barely missed a beat. "Doubt it."

Auden jumped in, chuckling uncomfortably. "His dad — Wayland Morrison — was an artist. He passed away recently, so I'm helping with the estate."

"Right, the art collection." Aiden leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Must be quite valuable, to need a professional appraisal."

"Quite." Conner's smile was pleasant, giving nothing away.

"And how long have you two been working together?"

Auden could feel the conversation quickly slipping through her fingers, could see the calculation in Conner's eyes as he weighed how much truth to reveal.

"I'm going to go clean up the kitchen," Brigid announced to no one before disappearing entirely, mumbling nonsense under her breath.

"We haven't been working together long," Auden answered swiftly. "Conner contacted the gallery about two months ago."

"We're still getting to know each other," Conner added, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. 

Getting to know each other? Auden suppressed a groan - because what kind of working relationship calls for showing up at one another's places, unannounced? 

"Well," Aiden sighed, his voice carrying a note of false cheer, "I hope the professional relationship has been mutually beneficial."

Conner met his gaze steadily, his training serving him well in what was clearly becoming a territorial pissing match. "I certainly hope so," he replied smoothly. "Your sister has been incredibly..." He paused, searching for the right word. "Thorough in her work."

Auden wanted to crawl into a hole and never leave.

"Yeah," Aiden nodded slowly. "Auden is very thorough when it comes to her career."

The silence that followed stretched uncomfortably. Across from her, Aiden ran his hands through his curls, his eyes slightly narrowed as he tried to size up the man next to his eldest sibling. Conner, on the other hand, sat passively in his seat, his own attention gliding over Brigid's living room, studying the room's ambiance. 

"Anyway, I should probably get going," Conner announced when nobody said anything, rising from the couch. "I only meant to stay a few minutes, and I don't want to keep you from your family time any longer."

"Oh, you're not keeping us from anything," Aiden grinned, not moving from his chair. "Are you, Aud?"

She wanted to kill him. Slowly, creatively, in ways that would make it clear to future generations that some boundaries should never be crossed.

"Actually, yes," she jumped to her feet. "I'll walk you out. We need to discuss scheduling for next week."

"Of course you do," Aiden murmured cheekily.

Auden followed Conner toward the door, letting him step through first onto the front stoop. She glanced back into the living room where Aiden was stretched out in the armchair, his palms clasped behind his head smugly.

She caught her brother's eye and, with Conner's back safely turned, raised her middle finger in a silent, pointed gesture.

The reaction was immediate and explosive. Aiden's eyes screwed shut as he let out a roar of laughter that bounced over Brigid's walls, genuine and delighted in himself.

Conner turned at the sound, eyebrows raised. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Auden recovered quickly, but she was fighting a smile now, her earlier tension dissolving into something warmer. "Just Aiden being Aiden."

Auden followed Conner out, pulling the door closed behind her but leaving it slightly ajar. The air was crisp against her heated cheeks, and she wrapped her arms around herself as they stood on the narrow step.

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked instantly.

Conner had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "You never turned off location sharing on your phone. After you came by the house." He paused, studying her face. "I probably should have called first, but like I said, you haven't been answering."

Auden felt herself chew on the inside of her cheek. "I'm sorry."

He nodded once, his voice dropping an octave lower. "I have to confess something to you."

"Oh?"

"I've been thinking about you. Since the other night." He shuffled slightly, head turning just enough for his eyes to fall behind her. "More than I probably should have."

Auden felt heat spread over her collarbone, the memory of his hands on her skin suddenly pressing vividly to the forefront of her mind. "Conner..."

"I know. You're married. Separated, technically, but married." His eyes flicked back to her face. "I'm not asking you to leave your husband, Auden. I'm just asking you not to disappear."

The directness of it caught her off guard. She had expected awkwardness, maybe some fumbling attempt to pretend their night together hadn't happened. Instead, he was laying his cards on the table, out in the open, like a poker player declaring a busted deal.

"It's complicated," was all she could offer him.

"Then don't make it more complicated than it needs to be." He leaned forward slightly, barely concealing his smirk. "This is just us, just this. Whatever's happening with your marriage is totally separate."

"Is it though?"

"It can be." His smile broke through, persuasive in the way that Auden finally understood why he could convince people to think things his way. "I'm not interested in being your emotional support system or your path to self-discovery. I like you, Auden. I'm attracted to you. And I think we could have something good together without it having to mean more than what it is."

The honesty of it was startling. No promises of forever, no declarations of love, no attempts to position himself as her salvation from an unhappy marriage. Just the simple acknowledgment of mutual desire and the possibility of acting on it without the weight of expectation.

She wasn't used to it.

"What exactly are you proposing?" she asked, though she thought she already knew.

"I'm proposing that we see each other. When you want to, how you want to. No pressure, no demands on your time or your heart. Just..." He gestured between them, the street light catching the faint silver in his hair. "This. Whatever this is."

A month ago – hell, a week ago – the proposition would have shocked her, maybe even offended her. The idea of a relationship with clearly defined boundaries, with pleasure as its own justification, would have felt foreign to someone who had spent almost ten years trying to make love mean security, partnership, and shared trust.

But standing here now, knowing Emma's contentment and Cillian's withdrawal, the simplicity of it felt almost revolutionary. Here was a man offering her exactly what he wanted to give, asking for exactly what he wanted to receive, with no hidden expectations or unspoken resentments lurking beneath the surface.

Movement in the front window caught her eye – the barely perceptible shift of curtains, the suggestion of faces quickly pulled back from view. She glanced up to see Aiden and Brigid hastily stepping away from the glass, their teenage-like surveillance attempt hilariously obvious.

"I need to think about it," she answered, torn between embarrassment and amusement at being watched.

"Of course." His tone suggested he wasn't particularly worried about her answer, and that he'd also noticed their audience. "But don't think too long. Life's too short to spend it managing other people's feelings instead of your own."

He leaned down, pressing a brief kiss to her cheek – chaste enough to be defensible, intimate enough to make his intentions clear – before walking down the steps toward his car.

Auden stood on the stoop for a moment, watching him go, before turning back toward the door. Through the window, she could see Aiden and Brigid scrambling to look casual, Brigid suddenly very interested in her nails and Aiden examining Brigid's decor with suspicious intensity.

She pushed open the door to find them both in elaborately relaxed poses that fooled absolutely no one.

"So," Aiden hummed, not quite meeting her eyes. "That was interesting."

"It was a business meeting," Auden reiterated.

"Right." He finally looked away from a small ceramic cherub nestled on top of a fairly boring bookshelf. "Business meetings. On a Thursday night. With men who look at you like they know exactly what you look like naked."

"Aiden—"

"No, it's fine," he held up his hands as he turned to face her. "You're separated. You're an adult. You can sleep with whoever you want." He paused, his green eyes holding no judgement. "I just wish you'd been honest about it instead of pretending he was here to talk about paintings."

For the first time that week, Auden heard herself laugh.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

After Aiden left and Brigid had gone to bed with a murmured goodnight, Auden found herself alone in the living room, curled a ball on the sofa, staring at the blackened TV screen.

Tonight, Auden had been confronted with a crossroads.

Down one path lay everything she had built over eight years of marriage – a life that had required her to disappear piece by piece. Not dramatically, with overt demands to sacrifice her career or identity, but through the slow erosion that came from being the one whose duty it was to remember doctor's appointments and school events, who noticed when they were out of milk and when Catherine needed new shoes. A path that led back to Cillian, who had never once acknowledged how his choices had contributed to their breakdown, who would continue expecting her to hold all the invisible threads that kept their family functioning while he remained oblivious to the impossible weight of it all.

She had thought the problem was her inability to do it all. She had tortured herself with comparisons to other women who seemed to manage career and motherhood and marriage with the serene efficiency of swans gliding across a pond. She had never considered that the system itself might be the problem – that asking one person to hold all the invisible threads that kept a family functioning was an impossible task that no amount of organization or self-sacrifice could truly solve.

And Emma would be down that path too. Emma, who had perfected motherhood after walking away from her first attempt, who had learned exactly how to be needed by starting over instead of fixing what she'd broken. She found joy in the endless emotional labor that had drained Auden dry, moved through Cillian's moods and demands like she was born for it. Because apparently, she was – just not for Auden.

Bitterness curdled in her chest. Her mother had found her element in someone else's life, someone else's marriage, someone else's mess to clean up. She got to be the capable, nurturing woman she'd never bothered to become with her own daughter, while Cillian got the version of Emma that Auden had needed as a child and never received. And they both got to feel good about it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Down the other path was Conner Morrison and his simple offer. No promises of forever, no demands for emotional labor disguised as love. Just company and sex and the kind of freedom she had forgotten existed. The guilt that had been eating her alive since that night with him began to shift, transforming into something more useful. Something more tangible.

That path was clarity. That path was anger. That path was the simple revelation that she had been apologizing for seeking what she needed while Cillian had never once acknowledged the ways his choices had contributed to the glass house they'd shattered.

Auden stood up. Her decision had been made.

An hour later, with an overnight bag in hand, she found herself standing outside the Morrison estate and feeling entirely too good about it.

Conner answered the door himself, his sweatshirt rolled up to the elbows. The sight of her seemed to surprise and please him in equal measure, his face breaking into the kind of smile that had probably charmed its way through half the political establishments in Europe.

"Auden. This is a pleasant surprise."

"I was in the neighborhood," she said, though they both knew it was a lie. No one was ever just in this neighborhood unless they lived here or had business with someone who did.

"Come in. I was just going through more of my father's things."

His eyes dropped to the bag in her hand, and when they met hers again, his features had shifted into something darker, more knowing.

Before he could step aside, Auden dropped her bag on the doorstep and reached for him, her hands fisting in the material of his sweatshirt as she pulled him down to her. The kiss was urgent, born from nothing more than her urge for some sort of emotional release.

His response was instant — his hands threading through her hair, fingers tangling in the strands as he kissed her back. For a moment, she forget they were standing in an open doorway. Without breaking contact, his leg moved blindly, kicking her bag inside the house before pulling her with him, the door swinging shut behind them.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing harder, his forehead rested against hers, his hands still buried in her hair.

"Let me show you something upstairs."