CHAPTER 135 — THE SPACE BETWEEN

CHAPTER 135 — THE SPACE BETWEEN

Lisa's POV

Day three is the exact same as day two.
On day four it's the same as day three.
Leo and I have settled into a rhythm. A terrible soul-crushing routine that’s like living with a civil stranger instead of the man I love.

He gets up early and showers in guest bathroom. He makes the breakfast that I sometimes eat, sometimes don’t. We trade a few pleasantries—“Good morning.” “Did you sleep?” “Have a good day.”-in tones that are carefully neutral, carefully managed.

And then he goes to work without kissing me goodbye.

That's the thing that kills me the most. The lack of that little motion that was as natural as taking a breath. Before leaving, he would kiss have kissed me every morning for months. Sometimes fast and rogue, sometimes slow and lingering, but each and every time, always, always.

It's just not here anymore. Just a nod, maybe a “See you later,” and then he’s gone.

He gets home late all the time. Sometimes I think he’s just staying at work a little longer so he doesn’t have to be here with me. By now he has usually eaten alone, the food that I made for us sitting cold and lonely on the stove. 

“Dinner is in case you want some!” I always say.

“I already ate,” he says.

Then he takes off straight to the guest room and I don’t see him till the next day.
We live under the same roof but in totally different worlds. 



It is now day five and I make my move: I am going to lose my mind without some noise, some words, something.

I’ve been edging away from him, breathing space, honoring his wish for distance. But the space is killing me. We need to talk—really talk—about how we move forward now.

That night, I stay up for him, on the couch in the living room, lights on, a blunt message that I’m not going to sleep until we’ve talked.

Is he really late getting home, around 9 PM? 

Before he retires upstairs I say “We need to talk.”

He lowers his briefcase slowly. "Okay."

"Will you sit? Please?"

He hesitates, then comes over to the armchair in front of me. Not the couch where we’d curl up, together. the armchair. “Maximum distance while still technically in the same room.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” I say, my voice quivering just a little. "This…whathaveyou is. Living together, but not really being together. I want to know where we are."

"I told you I need time—"

"I know. And I’m giving you time. But it's been five days, Leo. Five days of you scarcely glancing at me. Five days sleeping in two different rooms. Five days of thinking I'm being punished.

His jaw clenches. "I‘m not punishing you." 

"Then what is this?" I motion between us. " ‘Cause it sounds like punishment. It sounds like you've already decided we're done but you're just… prolonging it.”

"That’s not what I’m saying." He rakes his hand through his hair. "I'm trying to figure this out, Lisa. Trying to work out how I feel."

"And? How do you feel?"

For a long moment, he's silent, looking at his hands. "Hurt. Betrayed. Confused."

Each word cuts into my heart. "I know. And I'm so so sorry—"

"I know you are." He looks up at me. "But saying sorry doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t take away the fact that you lied to me for a week. That you met with your ex-husband behind my back. That you kept secrets.”

"I made a mistake—"

"A mistake is entitled to be left out of your life. This wasn’t a mistake, Lisa. This was a choice. Choice after choice, every day after day, to keep lying to me.”

Tears fall down my face. "I know. You’re right. I was wrong, and I have no excuse. I just… don’t know how to make this right.”

"Maybe you can’t fix it." His voice is soft, almost gentle, making it worse in some way. “Maybe some things aren’t fixable.”

A fear clutching me in the chest. "Are you telling me it’s over between us?" 

"I don’t know what I’m saying." He is now pacing, back turned to me, at the window. "I love you. Nothing about that has changed."

"We can fix this. Together. I'll do whatever it takes—"

"You keep saying that!" He twirls and for the first time since that awful night, I see something real flash across his face. "But what does that represent? What does ‘whatever it takes’ really mean?"

"I don’t know," I say. "Therapy? Counseling? Just... time? Tell me what you need and I’ll do it."

"I need you to have never lied to me in the first place." His voice cracks. "But I can’t have that, can I? Because it’s already happened. The trust is already broken."

“So that’s it?” I say, raising my voice. “One mistake and we’re done? “After all we’ve been through? After all we’ve created?”

"It's not one mistake Lisa, You do not understand. It’s a week of mistakes. A week of actively choosing to lie to me every day. "

"Because I didn't know how to tell you!" 

"Then you should have figured it out!" He’s shouting now! "You should have trusted me enough to come to me the second he called. But you didn’t. You went it alone, you made decisions alone, you lied about it. You managed it on your own.," she sighed," and then you lied about it."

"I was trying to protect you—” 

“I don’t need you to protect me!” His voice booms in the room. ”I need you to be straight with me."

“I do trust you—”

“You do not,” he says.“If you believed in me, you would have informed me about Andre from the very beginning. You would have let me help you find your way through it. But you just barred me the door.”

I'm crying fully now, sobs rattling my whole body. I'm sorry sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I could go back and do it differently—”

“But you can’t” He’s not yelling anymore. 
His voice was flat, hopeless. “We none of us can travel back in time to alter the decisions that we made. We just have to live with the consequences.”

“So what are the consequences?” I dab at my face. “Are you leaving me?”

“I don’t know.” It seems to hurt him to admit it. “I don’t want to, but I don’t know if I’m able to stay either.”

The words float between us, them just the type of weighty ending that should lie between us. “I need more time,” he says. “I’m not yet ready to make any decisions.”

“How much more time?”

“I don't know, Lisa!” He’s frustrated, and it shows. “I can't give you a timeline. I can’t tell you when I’ll wake up and just trust you again. I just need... space. Time to think.” 

"Okay," I whisper, but it's not really okay. As if every day apart is another day of dying.

He turns toward the stairway, and I know he’s going back to the guest room.
“Leo?” I shout, my voice is tinny.

He stops, and does not look back.
“Do you still love me?”

The silence lasts for so long that I believe he will not respond. Then, quietly: “Yes.”

"With that, we can go through anything. Everything love can provide is enough—”

"Love’s not enough without trust. And I don’t have both right now.”



Sunlight filters through the windows and I can hear Leo pacing upstairs. I look at my phone: 7:15 AM. Later than usual. I must have been more tired than I realized.

“Morning," he says without looking at me.

"Morning."

And now we're back to this. The polite distance. The cautious neutrality. I still want to bring up last night’s conversation, want to press for more answers, but just looking at the set of his shoulders tells me he’s shutting down again. 

Being vulnerable last night cost him something, and now he’s gone back inside his walls.
"I'm making eggs," I say, as I head to the stove. "Do you want some?"

"Sure. Thank you."

We eat in silence. I watch him from across the table and keep track of everything—the dark circles under his eyes that imply he’s not sleeping much, too, the way he periodically clenches his jaw as if holding back words, and even now, sitting, the measured distance he keeps.

He is done before I am and brings his plate to the sink.

At the door. "I'll be home late again tonight. Do not wait up.”

"Okay."

He reaches for the doorknob and I can’t help myself.
"Leo?"

He stops with his hand on the doorknob but doesn’t turn around. "Yeah?”

"I love you.”

His shoulders tense. When I think he is not going to answer, I say,", Then, so quietly I almost Miss this: "I know."

Not “I love you too.” Just “I know.”

He opens the door and walks out, and I stand there staring at where he was, my heart shattering all over again.



The days just keep blurring together. 

Sixth day. Seventh day. Eighth day.
All of them, exactly the same as the other. Leo is late coming home, we speak in very few words, and he vanishes into the guest room. We might as well be condo-mates, or eclectic house-sharers in an urban jungle.

I try different approaches. I leave him notes scattered in the house - in his briefcase, on his pillow, on the bathroom mirror. Short and simple.’ “Thinking of you.” “I miss your smile.” “Please come back to me.”

They are never mentioned by him.

I make fancy dinners every night, even though he hardly eats them. I’m cleaning compulsively to make our house perfect, as if a clean house will somehow heal what’s broken between us.
Nothing takes.

I text him sometimes during the day. Nothing heavy, nothing about us. Just little things. "Hope your meeting went well." “Saw this and thought of you.” Efforts to cling to somethread of contact.

His answers are brief but polite. “Thanks.” “Okay.” “I’m busy, talk to you later.”
We're drifting apart, and I don’t know how to stop it.



I’m nine days in when I just can’t hold it anymore. I’m in our bedroom--my bedroom now, I suppose--going through the closet to find something to put on when I find one of Leo's shirts. The blue button-down he wore on our first official date. The one I used to sneak out of bed and slide into that Sheryl stole, the one I used to take and wear around the house because it smelled like him.

I take it off the hanger and bring it to my face, inhaling his scent. He had all the evidence in the world that I wanted to be with him, I just wasn't strong enough to keep my side of the bargain.9ImageI was suddenly sobbing, twining my arms around his shirt for dear life, and we were surrounded by every inch of the life we'd made together.

There are photos on the dresser — us laughing at the beach, kissing at a friend's wedding, napping on the couch. His books (on the night stand). His watch in the dish he always left it in. His cologne on the bathroom counter.

All these fragments of him, of us, and still he might as well be light years away. I crumple to the floor still clutching his shirt, and I allow myself to break down.

How did we get here? How does one week, one awful, dumb week of lying, destroy everything we worked for all these months? I have no idea how long I am sitting there crying. It was long enough that my head is pounding and my throat is sore. 

I don't want Leo to see me like this. We don’t need to throw guilt into everything else he’s feeling.

But I am on my way out of the bedroom and already he’s halfway up the stairs. He glances at me, notices my puffy red eyes and the tear marks on my face and a momentary expression passes over his face.

“Are you okay?” he asks, the first genuine question he’s asked me in days.

"I'm fine," I lie. He analyzes me for one more moment, and I see turmoil within his eyes. Part of him wants to come to me, part of him wants to console me. But the wounded, the betrayed part, can’t let him.

“Okay ” he says finally. “Goodnight, Lisa .”

“Goodnight .”

He goes into the guest room, and I am left in the hallway, alone once more.

Nine days of this.
Nine days of waiting.

Nine days of slowly wasting away while the man I love is a mere twenty feet away, but could just as well be on another planet.

But I'm not sure how much longer I can make it.