“Okay.”
“Unless you weren’t talking about sleep,” she said.
“I was.”
“Yeah, I figured. Maybe tomorrow night?”
“Sure.”
But it wouldn’t be tomorrow night. It wouldn’t be ever again. Some friends were never meant to be lovers. They both knew it, and they didn’t have to say it.
No one likes living with a stranger.
“See you tomorrow, boss,” Maggie said.
Stride nodded. “Night, Mags.”
Alison and Michael lay next to each other in the dark, loosely holding hands. Evan slept peacefully on a roll-out bed in the hotel room, but the two of them were awake and silent. They’d been silent with each other for hours. She knew they had a long journey back, and she had no idea if they would get there. She didn’t even know how to begin.
“Can you ever forgive me?” she murmured at last.
Michael waited a long time to reply, but then he said, “Don’t do this to yourself now.”
She knew what he really meant: don’t do this to me now. Don’t make me choose. I don’t know if I can ever trust you again. You allowed yourself to believe something terrible and untrue. You lost faith in me.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“We both have things to be sorry about. I was ready to—” He stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing. Not now.”
“Please.”
Michael rolled over on his side. She could barely see his eyes. “I was ready to ask for a divorce. I was ready to cheat on you. I was ready to give up.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now I know it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me. We were both victims.”
He was right, but she wondered if that really changed anything. If someone killed you, or if you killed yourself, you were still dead. She opened her mouth to say more — to beg, to pray, to seek answers — but he put a finger at her lips and whispered, “Don’t talk.”
He was right about that, too. They wouldn’t solve anything in the darkness. Not now. Not yet.
Their two warm bodies molded against each other. It was strange and yet familiar to have him in her bed again after weeks apart. He was awake beside her for a long time, but eventually, she heard his breathing change and knew that he had fallen asleep. She wished she could sleep herself, but her eyes remained wide open. There were no ants. There was no spitting devil. Even so, she found herself staring blindly through the darkness at the ceiling of the hotel room, listening to the footsteps of innocent strangers moving above her.