CHAPTER 125 — Awkward Silence

CHAPTER 125 — Awkward Silence

Lisa's POV

The voice is still talking on the other line, and I am seeing stars.

My grip tightens on the phone and I squeeze harder until my knuckles turn white. Words cascade over me in waves — so clinical, so matter-of-fact, so devastating. Each syllable strikes me like a blow to the body, and I can't process them quickly enough. I can't process what I'm hearing.

"I... I don't..." It's a strangled voice I'm saying with which very little of my own the voice is left.

The other person speaks again from the other end of the line — and I likely should respond, and it almost certainly is a response — but I am at a loss for words. I can't find anything but that ice water shock that's coursing rapidly through my chest.

"I need to -" 

Footsteps on the stairs.
Leo. 

Oh God, Leo is coming down the stairs.

"I can’t talk right now," I cut in, anxiety keeping me from breathing. My eyes dart towards the doorway as I hear him getting closer. “I’ll... I’ll call back.”

I finish the call.

My hand shakes as I bring down the phone holding it, watching as the screen turns off. 

“Lisa?”

I almost drop the phone. 

Leo is standing in the doorway. He seems at ease, at peace, content. His eyes shone with excitement and there was a smile on his face.

His eyes fall on me and the smile he is wearing slightly falters. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

I push my face into something that will presumably look like normal.

"Who was on the phone?" He approaches, concern beginning to fleetingline his face.

"No one." That lie is bitter in my mouth. "Wrong number."

I lay my cellphone on the counter face down, as if I could somehow obscure the evidence of the call that just destroyed my world. "Just... hungry. Like you said, let’s eat.”

I make my way around him toward the table, not really looking him in the eyes. He knows when I look at him straight on that something’s wrong. He'll push and I'll crumble, and I just can't - I just can't do this right now.

Can’t process what I just heard.

I can’t face what that means.

"Lisa." His hand encapsulates my wrist gently and halts me. "Talk to me. What’s happening?"

"Nothing’s happening." I yank my arm free, maybe a little too harshly, then regret it 
immediately when I see the quickening of pain in his eyes. "I'm fine. Really. Let’s just eat before it all gets cold."

He doesn't seem convinced, but he drops it. 

Like a trace of another Lisa, one who lived thirty minutes ago, one who was happy and looking forward to a nice evening.

That Lisa is gone now.

Leo serves himself, stealing the occasional glance at me with barely veiled concern. "This looks great," he tries. “You really outdid yourself.”

"Thanks," I say, it coming as second nature, as I scoop some rice over on my plate without really looking at it.

He eats a bit of chicken and grunts appreciatively. "It’s wonderful."

"Good."

The word falls flat between us.

So we eat in silence. Or rather, leo is eating and I'm shovelling food around my plate, chopping chicken into diminutive fragments without actually putting any in my mouth. My stomach is heaving too much to think about eating. Every time I attempt to eat, I hear that voice on the phone again, those words that I can´t stop hearing.

The candle near us flutters, throwing undulating shadows, which are more pleasing to the eye than the night ought to ever inspire. 

“Lisa.” Leo sets his fork down, the noise jarring in the silence. “Please. Talk to me. There is clearly something wrong."

“I said I’m all right.” But on the last word, my voice breaks, giving me away.

“You have hardly eaten anything. You won’t even look at me. You've been acting strange ever since that call."

“It was a misdial,” I protest, finally looking him in the eye. “Can we just drop it?”

He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I see the war playing out across his fFace—the desire to push versus the desire to give me space. 

Finally, he nods slowly. "Okay. If you say so."

But the worry doesn’t leave his eyes.

We go back to eating, but now the silence feels laden, suffocating. I can feel all the unsaid things we are carrying around land in the space between our plates.

"How's the meeting?" I add suddenly, desperately trying to fill the space with some banal topic, something that would be familiar in the life I’d had before that call. 

Leo looks up, surprised. “It was… fine. Long. Tedious.” He pauses. “Do you really want to hear about it?”

“Yeah,” I say.“Tell me.”

So he does. 

My mind is miles away, circling around that phone call like a vulture.

“And then Jenkins said something about—Lisa, are you listening to me?”

I blink, realizing I’ve been staring at my plate for who knows how long. “Sorry. Yes. Jenkins said something.”

Leo sets down his wine glass with deliberate care. “Lisa. Please. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” That word has become automatic now, a reflex. “I'm just tired.”

“You’re not tired. You’re upset. And you won’t tell me why.” There’s a thread of frustration in his voice now, mixed with hurt. “I thought we were past this. Past keeping things from each other.”

Guilt “We are. I’m not—”

“You are.” He leans forward. “Something happened during that phone call. Something that’s clearly bothering you. And you won't tell me what it is.”

“Because it’s nothing!” There is a slight rise in my voice, defensively. “It was a wrong number. Could we just please let it go?”

His face relaxes ever so slightly. “You’re not ruining dinner. I’m just concerned about you.”

"Don't be. I'm fine."

But we both know I’m not.

We eat with almost no conversation; the only sounds are the clinks of silverware on plates and the occasional sip of wine. The candle burns down steadily between us, the wax accumulating in a pool at the bottom.

Every few minutes I can feel Leo’s eyes on me, as he studies me, trying to understand what is wrong. And yet every time I duck his stare, fix my gaze on my food and pretend to eat despite al not really consume any of it.

The chicken that was so good in testing now tastes like sawdust in my mouth. The vegetables could be cardboard for all I know. The wine tastes bitter now, too.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Leo asks quietly as I push the last of the rice around my plate.

“Not much to talk about.”

“Lisa—”

“Leo, please.” I set my fork down, at last meeting his gaze. “I just...I need to think a bit. Can you give me that?” 

Angus is watching me and I catch the moment when he makes the decision to dismiss it—for now. “Okay. But I’m here. When you want to talk, I’m here.”

“I know,” I say in a whisper. “Thank you!”

In silence, we empty the table together. He washes and I dry, but our easy, familiar rhythm is now unsure and awkward. We don’t even brush hands the way we used to. We don’t swipe kisses between tasks. We’re just working like robots, completing the job.

The plates that seemed so full of promise this morning — the trappings of the life we share, the happiness of our little domestic arrangement — are now like relics of some other existence.

When we’re done, Leo turns to me, hesitating. “Movie? Or should we just get some sleep?”

Just the thought of lying down in that bed — the bed that I made with such care this morning, the bed we’ll be crumpling up together in the evening — is enough to make my stomach flip. I can’t. Not with this weight on my chest, not with that phone call reverberating in my head.

“Actually,” I tell him, “I think I need to get some air. Maybe a walk?”

“I'll come with you.”

“No.” The word is too harsh, I soften it “I just need some… time alone. To clear my head.”

Pain flashed across his features,.“Okay. If that’s what you need.”

“It is.” I take a step closer, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “I won’t be long. An hour, maybe.”

“Take your time,” he says quietly. 

But I can see it in his eyes—the confusion, the worry, the feeling of being shut out. And it kills me. - To hurt him, to push him away when all he – wants to do is help.

But his questions are more than I can take right now.

I don’t want to look at the worry I know will be in his eyes when I say the truth to him.
Don’t want to look at either.

So, jacket and phone in hand – oh, that betraying phone that delivered this news in the middle of our perfect evening!—I make for the door.

“Lisa?” Leo’s voice halts me at the door.

I turn back.

He stood in the center of the kitchen, looking lost and anxious and heartbreakingly worried. “I love you."

The cool night air brushes against my face and I know I’m crying. I hurry, not really knowing where I’m going, just knowing that I have to get moving. Need to think. Need to get my mind around what I‘ve just heard on that phone call. 

My phone vibrates in my pocket—likely Leo texting to check on me—but I can’t look at it at the moment.

I don't run, I don't stop to wipe my tears, I just walk with a crying face listening the words of that call in my mind again and again.

And I try to figure out what in the hell I'm supposed to do now.