Seeing each other anew
That afternoon Victor was let out of the office early. He usually got home at seven, hearing the sizzle of something on the stove and the faint perfume of his wifes fragrance mingling with the aroma of dinner. Today his boss had taken ill, so the meeting ended at four. Victor stood before his flats front door in Camden, feeling the awkwardness of an actor who walks onstage a beat too early.
He slipped the key into the lock. The tumblers clicked louder than expected. On the coat rack in the hallway hung a strangers cashmere jacket, expensive and soft, hanging where Victors own coat always rested.
A restrained, lowbrowed laugh drifted from the living roomher laugh, velvetsmooth, the one Victor had always claimed as his private treasure. Then a male voice, indistinct but unmistakably confident and domestic, answered.
Victors feet seemed rooted to the oak parquet he and Evelyn had chosen together, debating the exact shade of walnut. In the hallway mirror he saw his own pallid face, his suit creased from endless boardrooms. He felt like an intruder in his own home.
He moved toward the sound, shoes still onan outright breach of their house rules. Each step reverberated in his temples. The livingroom door was ajar.
On the sofa sat Evelyn, in the teal dressing gown hed given her for her birthday, her legs tucked underneath her in that intimate, familiar way. Beside her, a man in his forties lounged in pricey suede moccasins without socksa detail that gnawed at Victor more than anything else. His shirt hung open at the collar, a glass of red wine cradled in his hand.
On the coffee table stood the same crystal vase, a family heirloom, its contents a scattering of pistachio shells. The scene was one of absolute, cozy intimacynot passion, not a sudden fling, but a mundane, domestic betrayal that cut deeper than any storm.
They both turned at once. Evelyn flinched, wine sloshing onto her gown, a dark stain blooming across the light fabric. Her eyes widened, not with horror but with a panicked bewilderment, like a child caught redhanded.
The stranger placed his glass down with a slow, almost lazy gesture. No fear or embarrassment crossed his face, only a thin annoyance, as if someone had interrupted him at the climax of his favourite programme.
Victor Evelyn began, her voice breaking.
He didnt listen. His gaze flicked from the strangers moccasinsso comfortably wornthat could have simply trod across the hallway, to his own dusty shoes. Two pairs of footwear in one space, two worlds that should never have collided.
I suppose Ill be off, the stranger said, rising with a pace that seemed indecently relaxed for the situation. He stepped toward Victor, looked at him not with superiority but with the curiosity of a museum visitor examining an exhibit, gave a brief nod and drifted toward the hallway.
Victor stayed frozen. He heard the jacket being slipped on, heard the lock click. The door shut.
Silence, heavy and echoing, settled between the ticking of the clock, the scent of wine, expensive mens cologne, and betrayal. Evelyn clutched herself at the shoulders, whispering fragmentsyou dont understand, its not what you think, we were just talkingas if they were trying to pass through thick glass. They meant nothing.
Victor approached the coffee table, lifted the strangers glass. It carried an alien perfume. He stared at the wine stain on Evelyns gown, at the pistachio shells, at the unfinished bottle.
He didnt shout. He didnt scream. Instead a single, allconsuming feeling rose: utter revulsiontoward the house, the sofa, the gown, the scent, and himself.
He set the glass down, turned, and walked back toward the hallway.
Where are you going? Evelyns voice trembled, edged with terror.
Victor stopped at the mirror, looked at his reflectiona man who had just vanished.
I cant stay here, he said, low and crystal clear. Not while the air still smells of strangers.
He left the flat, descended the stairs, and sat on the bench outside his block. He fished out his phone, only to see the battery dead.
He stared at the windows of his flat, at the comforting glow hed once loved, and waited for the foreign perfume, the foreign moccasins, the life hed known to dissipate. He didnt know what lay ahead, only that there was no turning back to the version of his world that existed before four oclock.
He remained on the cold bench, time slipping by in a different rhythm. Every second burned with stark clarity. A shadow flickered across his flats windowEvelyn, looking in. He turned away.
Minutesor perhaps an hourlater the blocks entrance opened. She emerged, no gown, just jeans and a jumper, a blanket in her arms.
She crossed the road slowly, sat beside him, leaving only a halfpersons space between them, and handed him the blanket.
Take it, youll catch a chill, she offered.
No, thanks, he replied without looking up.
Its Artem, Evelyn whispered, eyes fixed on the pavement. Weve known each other three months. He runs the café opposite my gym.
Victor listened, head still turned away. The name, the jobmere set dressing for the real collapse: his world didnt crumble in an explosion, but in a quiet, everyday click.
Im not making excuses, Evelyns voice wavered. But you youve been a ghost this past year. Youd come home, eat, watch the news, then drift off. You stopped seeing me. And he he saw.
Seen? Victor finally turned, his throat raw from silence. He saw you drinking from my wine glasses? He saw you scattering pistachio shells on my table? Thats what he saw?
She pressed her lips together, tears welling, but she refused to let them fall.
Im not asking for forgiveness. Im not asking us to forget instantly. I just didnt know how else to reach you. It seems only by becoming a monster did I become the person you finally noticed again.
Im sitting here, Victor began slowly, choosing his words, and Im sickened. Im sickened by the foreign perfume in our home, by his moccasins, but most of all Im sickened that you could do this to me.
He shrugged, his back aching from cold and stillness.
I wont go back today, he said. I cant. I cant step into a flat where every corner reminds me of this day breathe that air.
Where will you go? Evelyn asked, genuine animal fear in her tone, the terror of final loss.
To a hotel. Somewhere to sleep.
She nodded.
Do you want me to stay with a friend? Leave you alone in the flat?
He shook his head.
It wont change what happened inside. The house needs to be aired out, Evelyn. Maybe it even needs to be sold.
She gasped, as if struck. That house had been their shared dream, their fortress.
Victor rose from the bench, movements sluggish, weary.
Tomorrow, he said, well say nothing. The day after, the same. We both need silence, apart. Then well see if theres anything left worth saying.
He turned and walked down the street, not looking back. He didnt know where he was headed, or whether hed ever return. He only knew that the life before this evening was over, and for the first time in years he was about to step into complete unknown, not as a husband or a halfofacouple, but simply as a man exhausted and in pain. And paradoxically, that pain made him feel alive again.
The city felt foreign. Streetlamps cast harsh shadows on the pavement, easy to get lost in. Victor slipped into the nearest hostelnot to save money, but to disappear, to dissolve into a bland room scented with bleach and strangers lives.
The room resembled a hospital ward: white walls, a narrow bed, a plastic chair. He perched on the edge, and silence struck his ears. No creak of floorboards, no hum of the fridge, no breath of his wife behind himonly the roar in his head and a weight in his chest.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, set it on the charger the receptionist had kindly offered. The screen lit up with notificationscolleagues, work chats, adverts. An ordinary evening for an ordinary person, as if nothing had happened. That mundane normalcy was unbearable.
He sent a brief text to his boss: Ill. Wont be in for a couple of days. No lies. He felt poisoned.
He stripped, stepped into the shower. The water was almost boiling, yet he felt no temperature. He stood there, head bowed, watching the spray wash away the days grime. Then he looked up into the cracked mirror above the sink, seeing his own reflectiontired, rumpled, alien. Was this the man Evelyn had seen today? Was this who hed been all these months?
He slipped under the blankets, turned out the light. Darkness offered no peace. In his mind flickered a reel of cursed slides: the jacket on the rack, the wine stain on the gown, the sockless moccasins, and the cruelest lineYou stopped seeing me.
He tossed and turned, searching for comfort that never came. A thought, initially dismissed, kept crawling back like a persistent insect: what if his own detachment, his emotional laziness, had pushed Evelyn into those arms, those moccasins? Not to excuse her, not to absolve her, but to understand.
Evelyn didnt sleep. She roamed the flat like a phantom, arms folded behind her back. She stopped by the sofa, the wine stain now a brown, ugly mark. She crumpled the gown and flung it into the bin.
She approached the table, lifted the glass Artem had used, stared at it long, then carried it to the kitchen and smashed it against the sink. Crystal shattered with a ringing scream. It felt a little lighter.
She cleared every trace of the other man: tossed the pistachios, poured out the remaining wine, wiped the table, swept up the shards. Yet his cologne lingered in the curtains, in the upholstery, everywhere. It was as pervasive as shame, twisted into a strange, crooked sense of release. Lies became truth. Pain became tangible.
She sank onto the floor, curled around her knees, and finally let herself weepquietly, without sobs. Tears ran down her cheeks, salty and bitter. She cried not just for the hurt shed caused Victor, but for the collapse of the illusion theyd both painstakingly built over yearsthe fairytale marriage.
She knew she was at fault. Victor might not have paid her any mind, might not have been as tender as she wanted, but the mistake was hers.
Morning found Victor shattered. He ordered a coffee from the corner café and sat by the window, watching the city wake. His phone buzzed. Evelyn.
Dont call, just text if youre okay.
He stared at the message. Simple, human, devoid of hysteria or demands. Care, the kind hed stopped noticing.
He didnt reply. Hed vowed to keep silent. Yet for the first time that day, the anger and revulsion inside him gave way to a sliver of something elsecuriosity, not hope, not optimism, but a faint, uneasy interest.
What if, beyond this nightmare, beyond the pain, they could finally see each other anew? Not as enemies, but as two exhausted, solitary souls whod once loved and perhaps lost their way?
He finished his coffee, set the cup down. Days of silence lay ahead, then a conversation. Perhaps the terror wasnt the talk itself, but the thought that nothing would ever change.
They no longer believed in fairy tales. Their love was not perfect; it was wounded and hardwon. Yet in the moment everything collapsed, they glimpsed in the fragments not only hatred but a chancea chance to rebuild themselves, not as they once were, but as who they might become. Because the strongest love isnt the one that never falls, but the one that finds the strength to rise from the ash.
