There were no coffee cups anymore. No phone calls buzzing from Zach’s office upstairs. Just the sound of Liam’s pencil scratching faintly against paper in the living room. He wasn’t asking questions. And that, somehow, hurt worse. I carried a glass of water to him, watching his small hands trace lazy shapes in his notebook.
“Draw anything good?”
He held up the page. It was a cartoon version of the concert crowd. He’d drawn me and him, hands up in the air, smiling—before the moment everything flipped.
“Memory rewrite,” he said with a grin.
A part of me cracked open at that. Not from sadness, but from the quiet strength in his voice. That my ten-year-old, sick as he was, understood something I had spent years ignoring.
I kissed the top of his head. “You want to talk about it?” I asked gently.
He looked up, eyes tired but sharp. “Everyone at school saw the clip.”
I sat beside him. “I know.”
He pressed his lips together and carefully asked, “Did you give him the divorce papers already?”
I nodded once. “Yeah. The day after the concert.”
He exhaled like a grown man. “He texted me yesterday. Said he might come by today,” Liam added, almost like an afterthought. “But I told him not to.”
I blinked. “You did?”
Liam shrugged. “And I don’t want to see him…yet.”
“Me too.”
Liam held my hand and said, “Don't worry, Mom. I will never hurt you like what he did. I will protect you…always.”
My chest tightened at the sincerity of his voice. I had to bite the tears back to my throat.
Around noon, I took my time at the grocery store. Touched things I didn’t need. Read labels I already knew by heart. Maybe it was the illusion of control—choosing brands, checking expiry dates, when everything else in my life had rotted quietly behind my back. I was halfway through the produce aisle when I heard a familiar voice.
“Arianne?”
I turned. It was Celeste Santiago, our neighbor three blocks away—the one who throws brunches with pastel cupcakes and has a husband who only wears golf shirts. Her eyes were wide with concern. But behind it, curiosity burned like a poorly hidden candle.
“Oh my God,” she said in a hushed tone. “I wasn’t sure if I should even say anything, but… I saw that video. The concert. The… um… Kiss Cam thing.”
I smiled politely. “A lot of people did.”
She blinked, startled at how steady I was. “I just… I can’t believe he would do that. And with her? Isn’t she like… his intern or something?”