I Took Off My Bandages And Saw My Husband Kiss My Best‑Friend

"Welcome home, babe."

Liam pushed the front door open with his hip and waved me inside like a game show host. The house smelled like lemon cleaner and fresh paint.

"You painted?" I asked.

"The hallway. Thought you'd want something bright to look at." He grinned. "Surprise."

The hallway used to be soft gray. Now it was yellow. Loud, sunny yellow.

Chloe's favorite color.

"It's great," I said.

He kissed my cheek and carried my bag upstairs, whistling. Off-key. Liam had always been tone-deaf. At our wedding, the DJ had begged him to stop singing along.

I filed that away and followed him up.

---

For the first week, I played the perfect wife.

I made coffee. I laughed at his jokes. I asked about work. Liam stayed home for exactly three nights. On the fourth, he loosened his tie at dinner and checked his phone under the table.

"Client thing tonight," he said. "Might run late."

"How late?"

"Don't wait up." He was already standing. "You need your rest, right?"

"Right."

He came back at two in the morning. I lay still, eyes shut, while he slid into bed. Vanilla rolled off his shirt in a sweet, heavy cloud.

The next night, it was a "team dinner." The night after, "drinks with the guys."

Every time, vanilla.

---

Chloe started dropping by in the afternoons.

"I brought muffins!" She breezed into the kitchen on Thursday without knocking. She'd stopped knocking somewhere in the second week. "Blueberry. Your favorite."

"Lemon is my favorite."

"Oh." Her smile wobbled. "Since when?"

"Since always, Chlo."

"Huh. I could've sworn—" She set the box down and glanced toward the stairs. "Is Liam around?"

"He's at work."

"Right. Of course." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I just meant, you know, so he could have some too."

"He hates blueberries."

"No, he doesn't." The words left her mouth fast. Then her face went pink. "I mean—doesn't everyone like blueberries?"

I picked up a muffin and took a slow bite. "Apparently."

She left twenty minutes later. Her coffee mug sat on the counter with a red lipstick print on the rim. I washed it twice and still felt it on my fingers.

---

At night, I couldn't sleep. So I went back to the dark.

I lay in bed and walked through every hospital night I could remember. And the more I walked, the more things didn't fit.

The hand that held mine had calluses on the palm. Rough ridges at the base of the fingers.

Liam's hands were smooth. He got manicures. He joked about it.

The voice had read to me. Long chapters. A mystery novel with a detective named Harrow.

Liam hadn't finished a book since college. He said reading out loud made him feel like a kindergarten teacher.

And the song. That low, soft hum. Perfectly in tune.

My stomach turned over.

"Liam?" I whispered on Saturday morning. He was scrolling through his phone beside me. "Can I ask you something?"

"Mm."

"That song you hummed to me. In the hospital. What was it called?"

His thumb froze on the screen.

"What song?"

"The one you hummed every night. To help me sleep."

He set the phone down. Smiled. "Babe, I hummed a lot of stuff. I was half-dead from no sleep."

"Hum it now."

"What?"

"Just a few notes. I want to hear it."

He laughed, but it came out short and sharp. "You know I can't carry a tune to save my life."

"You did in the hospital."

The room went quiet.

"Wren." He sat up and rubbed his face. "You were on a ton of meds. Half the time you didn't know what day it was. Maybe you dreamed some of it."

"Maybe," I said.

He kissed my shoulder and got out of bed. In the bathroom, the water ran for a long time.

I stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks.

I did not dream the calluses.

---

Jasper came by on Sunday.

He stood on the porch holding a paper bag and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. His knuckles were white on the handle.

"Hey," he said. "I was in the area."

"You live forty minutes away."

He studied his shoes. "Big area."

I almost laughed. I stepped aside. "Come in."

He set the bag on the kitchen counter. Inside were lemon muffins. Not blueberry. Lemon.

I stared at them for a long second.

"How did you know?"

He shrugged, but his ears turned red. "Lucky guess."

"Nobody guesses lemon."

"Wren." He rubbed the back of his neck. "How are your eyes?"

"Fine. Changing the subject is very smooth, by the way."

His mouth twitched. Then it went flat again. "Is he treating you okay?"

"He paints hallways Chloe's favorite color and comes home smelling like her shampoo. So, sure. Five stars."

Jasper's hand curled into a fist on the counter. He looked out the window. "You should leave him."

"And go where?"

He didn't answer.

I poured him coffee. He took it without sugar. I noticed his hands as he lifted the mug. Broad. Scarred across the knuckles.

Calluses on the palms.

My heart started to pound. "Do you work with your hands, Jasper?"

He set the mug down too fast. Coffee sloshed over the rim. "I build boats. On weekends. You know that."

"I didn't know that."

"Liam never mentioned it?"

"Liam never mentions you at all."

That landed somewhere. His jaw shifted, side to side, like he was grinding the words down before they got out.

"Jasper," I said quietly. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

He looked at me. Really looked, for the first time since he walked in. His gray eyes were raw, red at the edges. Like he hadn't slept either.

"Wren, I—"

His phone buzzed on the counter. The screen lit up.

Liam.

He stared at it. He didn't pick up. He didn't move at all.

"Answer it," I said.

"No." He shoved the phone into his pocket and grabbed his jacket. "I should go."

"You just got here."

"I know." At the door he stopped, one hand on the frame, his back to me. His shoulders rose and fell. "Eat the muffins, okay? You're too thin."

"Jasper."

"Bye, Wren."

The door shut behind him.

I stood in the yellow hallway and listened to his footsteps on the gravel. Slow. Heavy.

Then, faint through the glass, something else.

A low hum. Soft. Perfectly in tune.

The song from the dark.