“And instead I discovered that the person I should have been questioning was myself.”
Tears formed in Fiona’s eyes.
“I spoke with Helena.”
He paused.
“And I listened from the hallway last night.”
Fiona went pale.
“You heard us.”
“Yes.”
Her suitcase slipped from her hand.
“I heard you say this house stopped feeling like home.”
He swallowed.
“And that you planned to leave today.”
Fiona looked at the floor.
“I’m not trying to destroy your life.”
“But you were ready to leave it.”
“I need space.”
Damian’s face tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me how badly you were hurting?”
Fiona finally looked at him.
“I did.”
Those two words stopped him.
She reminded him.
The dinner where she asked him to put away his phone and he spent the entire meal replying to work emails.
The Sunday she wanted to take a walk and he went to the office.
The night she tried to tell him what Brenda had been saying.
He had replied,
“I don’t want drama between you and my sister.”
Then there had been another evening.
Fiona had whispered,
“Sometimes I don’t know where I belong in your life anymore.”
And Damian, still staring at his phone, had said,
“Don’t think like that. This whole mansion belongs to you.”
To Damian, it had sounded reassuring.
To Fiona, it proved he hadn’t listened at all.
“After that, I stopped trying.”
She wiped her face.
“You were always exhausted. I thought loving you meant making your life easier.”
“You were never a burden.”
“No.”
She gave him a sad smile.
“But I started behaving like one.”
She listed the ways she had made herself smaller.
She stopped attending formal dinners.
Stopped wearing expensive dresses because they felt like costumes.
Stopped asking for his time.
Because she was tired of hearing one word.
Tomorrow.
Damian closed his eyes.
Tomorrow.
Dinner tomorrow.
Conversation tomorrow.
Vacation tomorrow.
Rest tomorrow.
Listening tomorrow.
He had spent so much time building a better future that he nearly destroyed everything that mattered in the present.
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