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"Oh, it's probably because of a hair tie, honey," she said. "Let me go see Lena. I'll be right back."
I nodded, but something just didn't add up. I've never seen a tie leave such wide marks. Or such deep ones. And the worst part?
A container of colorful hair ties on a dressing table | Source: Midjourney
They didn't fade. Not for days. I kept looking, checking when she wasn't paying attention, and they were still there, but fainter. A dull, stubborn imprint.
So one evening I made a choice.
I picked Lena up from school and took her to my mom's, telling her she was going to have a great sleepover. I told her we'd planned everything at the last minute, and Mom didn't ask any questions. She never asks questions.
A smiling little girl with a backpack | Source: Midjourney
Then I drove to Nara's office.
The building was almost empty. Just a cleaning crew dragging mops through the silent hallways and the security guard at the entrance, who smiled and waved me through the turnstile when I said, "I'm Nara's husband."
“I know, Jonathan!” he said. “We met at the company picnic, remember?”
That smile haunted me for some reason, as if it knew something I didn't. Or maybe I was just looking for signs where there weren't any.
A smiling security guard | Source: Midjourney
As I headed down the hallway, the air changed. Fluorescent lights buzzed above me, dim but persistent, and my footsteps echoed louder than they should have. Everything seemed off, too clean, too quiet.
That kind of silence that doesn't calm you down, but tells you that something is... wrong .
Like a doctor's office before bad news.
Then I heard it. Laughter.
A man walking down an office corridor | Source: Midjourney
Soft, muffled, then followed by a low hum of conversation. It was coming from down the hall. Nara's office. The blinds were drawn, which immediately struck me: she hated enclosed spaces.
"They make me feel caged, Jon," she had said. "I need high ceilings and open floors!"
I slowed down, my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was pressing against my throat.
Close-up of a smiling woman | Source: Midjourney
I knocked. Nothing. I tried the handle. It was locked.
Then I heard her voice behind the door, muffled but unmistakably my wife's.
"Who's there?" she asked.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I stood there, my hand frozen to the metal handle, staring at it as if it could turn back time.
A man standing in front of an office door | Source: Midjourney
Finally, the lock clicked. The door creaked open.
And there she was.
Nara.
Wide eyes. Pale face. The kind of expression you give to someone you weren't expecting and maybe didn't want to... see.
A pensive woman standing in an office doorway | Source: Midjourney
Behind her, two colleagues stood awkwardly, Sanjay and Amira, I think. Papers and charts were scattered across the table, a laptop still projecting data onto the wall.
She turned to them and said, her voice tight.
“Guys… can we wrap this up tomorrow morning?”
They nodded wordlessly and slipped past me.
There was only us left.
Paperwork on a desk | Source: Midjourney
I took a step inside.
The door closed behind me, muffled by the finale, and suddenly the silence seemed unbearable.
I was very aware of my own breathing, the noise it made in the silence, as if it didn't belong in the room.
The glow of the projector casts faint graphs onto the walls, charts, acronyms for wellness measures I don't recognize. One of the graphs was red, then changed to green. It's the kind of display Nara could explain in ten seconds.
Close-up of a man standing in an office | Source: Midjourney
I stared at him as if he might confess something to me if I looked at him long enough.
My wife returned to the table, slowly, as if her legs had forgotten how to move naturally. She gathered some loose papers into a pile, but her hands were shaking.
Not much, just enough for me to see.
"There's orange chicken here, Jon," she said. "Sanjay ordered it."
A food container on a desk | Source: Midjourney
"I'm not hungry, Nara," I said. "I just wanted to... know more."
