Chapter 11
Evelyn did not move back into my bedroom.
I expected that.
Wanted otherwise.
Did not ask twice.
She took a guest room.
Door never locked from outside.
Windows opened.
First nights, she slept with lights on.
Then door open.
Then both.
Freedom can be frightening after captivity because choices multiply faster than the body trusts them.
She also refused wedding clothes.
Anything white made her uncomfortable.
Fair.
I moved the veil out of sight.
Not destroyed.
Not framed.
Stored until she decided.
Our relationship became awkward.
Painfully.
I still loved her.
She still loved me.
That did not mean we could resume from the morning she vanished.
One evening she asked:
“Did you hate me?”
“Yes.”
Truth.
She flinched.
“I thought you left Ethan.”
Her eyes filled.
“I hated you for that most.”
She nodded slowly.
“Did you replace me?”
“No.”
“With anyone?”
“No.”
Not romantically.
I lived.
Worked.
Raised Ethan.
Evelyn looked relieved and guilty about being relieved.
Human.
Then:
“Would you still have married me?”
“If you had walked upstairs that day?”
“Yes.”
“What about now?”
I stopped.
Important question.
Wrong answer would turn rescue into obligation.
“I don’t know.”
She stared.
Then smiled faintly.
“Good.”
Because neither did she.
That was healthier.
We needed to know each other again.
She had survived eleven months I did not witness.
I had become harder in ways she did not know.
Love remained.
Relationship had to be rebuilt.
Ethan understood none of that.
He simply began bringing her toys.
One evening he placed a toy dinosaur outside her door.
Then walked away.
Evelyn cried for ten minutes.
May you like
No one fixed it.
Some grief deserves room.
