POV: Lena
The phone call with Ryan had been a mistake. His voice—rough, pained, telling me he was leaving town—had cracked something open inside me that I couldn’t close again. I’d hung up crying, staring at the dark ceiling while Ethan slept beside me. Or pretended to. The silence between us had grown heavier every day since the fight, even as he tried to fix things with flowers and date nights that felt forced.
Now, two days later, we sat at the kitchen table after the kids were in bed. The same table where we’d made all those rules. Ethan’s eyes were tired, shadowed. He’d barely touched his coffee. I couldn’t keep pretending anymore.
“I need to tell you something,” I whispered, my hands twisting in my lap. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. “I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since…
