Back to Reality

The car was colder than the river.

I sat behind the wheel longer than I should have, hands resting on it like I’d forgotten what came next.

The windshield had started to fog. For a moment I watched the condensation bloom and fade with my breathing… In, out. Like the night was checking if I was still there.

Eventually I turned the key. The engine caught with a quiet shudder. The radio came on halfway through a song I didn’t recognize. A woman’s voice, soft and tired, singing about something that had already ended. I turned it off.

The road out of Riverside was mostly empty at that hour. Streetlights flickered past the windshield in long intervals. Yellow. Dark. Yellow again.

I kept expecting to see Elena walking somewhere ahead. A figure on the sidewalk. Hands in her sleeves. But the path was empty.

She’d meant what she said. She could leave. And she did. The thought followed me for miles.

At a stoplight near Maple, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. I looked… normal. That was the strange part. No one passing through that intersection would know I’d just stood ten inches away from a life I didn’t live.

The light turned green. I drove. By the time I pulled into the driveway, the house looked exactly the same as when I left. Same warm lamp in the living room window. Same faint glow from the kitchen.

I sat there another minute. Then I went inside.

The quiet hit first. Not empty. Just sleeping. 

The baby monitor still hissed softly on the counter. I walked over and looked at the screen. A grainy green image of a small shape under blankets. One arm thrown sideways.

My son had inherited Hannah’s habit of sleeping like he’d been dropped into bed from a height. I stood there watching him breathe. Something in my chest finally loosened.

Down the hallway, our bedroom door was half open. A thin strip of light spilled into the hall. Hannah was still awake. 

I pushed the door open gently. She was sitting up against the headboard with a book resting on her lap.

She looked up the second the door moved.

“You’re late,” she said.

The exact same words. My stomach did a strange, quiet turn.

“Yeah,” I said.

She slid a bookmark between the pages and closed the book.

“Everything okay?”

The question was casual. But Hannah had always been good at hearing the things people didn’t say.

I took off my jacket and hung it on the chair.

“Yeah, it’s just been a long day, happy to be home.” I said, followed by a forced semi-smile.

She studied me for a moment longer than most people would. Then she nodded once.

“Good, I am too.”

No interrogation. No suspicion. Just trust. That almost made it worse.

I changed in the bathroom and came back a minute later. She had turned off the lamp on her side of the bed.

The room was dim now, lit only by the hallway light and the soft glow of the monitor.

I slid under the covers beside her. The mattress shifted. Hannah rolled slightly toward me, half asleep already. Her hand found my arm the way it always did. Not searching. Just knowing where it belonged.

“You’re freezing,” she murmured.

“River was cold.”

She made a soft sound that might have been acknowledgment. Or sleep. Within a minute, her breathing settled into a steady rhythm.

I stared at the ceiling. In the quiet, the night at Riverside replayed in pieces. Her coat sleeves. Her voice cracking on the word something. The weight of her forehead against my chest. And that kiss on my cheek. A line drawn gently.

I turned my head. Hannah was asleep beside me. Her hand still resting on my arm. Anchored. Certain.

Outside, somewhere far off, a car passed through the street. Its headlights moved across the ceiling for a second. Then they were gone. And the house was still.