Chapter 9

KELLAN’S POV

I sat on the very edge of my bed. The quiet of this room slammed into me like it physically was. That framed wedding photo on my nightstand seemed to mock me, Olivia and I smiling at the camera, caught in that moment, in a bald-faced lie. In the very eyes that had been on mine, the eyes in the portrait, the eyes which on the last night late had looked at me at the sight of a word, the very same dumb petition, for an unrequitable something, sprang at me afresh. I hunched forward, elbows on my es, running a hand through my hair. It was a complete bloody sham of this marriage that I detested.

The door of the room creaked open. I didn't have to raise my head and look up to see who that was. The moms can walk into a house without making a single noise, silent as a ghost. I recognized the smell of her perfume before she spoke—jasmine and something sharp, like floral arrangement liquor, which was her very own, just as her diverged and fixed hair.

She murmured it again, "Kellan,