LOVING IN ANXIETY

Title: Loving in Anxiety Prologue: Loving in Anxiety Marriage is often painted as a glorious union, a perfect harmony of hearts beating in synchrony. But beneath the surface of wedding bells and honeymoon selfies, some unions carry secrets—deep, dangerous secrets. Iris and Alex were no exception. They were a new couple, barely six months into their marital journey. On the outside, they seemed ideal: Iris, a bright-eyed literature teacher with a poetic soul and a laugh that could melt ice; Alex, a reserved software developer whose calm demeanor drew people to him like moths to a flame. But behind their picture-perfect lives, something dark brewed. Alex had a secret. A secret that could shatter everything. Iris had a suspicion. A suspicion that, if proven true, could tear her heart in two. Their love was real. But so was the anxiety that danced silently between their kisses, lingered in their long silences, and screamed in their separate dreams at night. This is their story—a tale of love, laughter, betrayal, forgiveness, and a secret that would test the very foundation of their vows. --- Chapter One: The Breakfast Burn Iris’s Monday began like most of her mornings did lately—with a fight against the toaster. The tiny, chrome-plated device blinked back at her innocently, as if it hadn’t just produced a charred slice of what was once cinnamon-raisin bread. “Seriously?” Iris frowned, waving away a curl of smoke. She opened the kitchen window and held the offending toast out the frame. A neighbor’s cat blinked up at her from the fence, unimpressed. “Third time this week,” she muttered. “The toaster clearly has a vendetta. Maybe it’s trying to tell me I shouldn’t be a wife who cooks.” Alex strolled in, still half-dressed in his work-from-home uniform—business shirt up top, pajama bottoms down below. He eyed the toast with a smirk. “Is it that time again?” he said, opening the fridge for orange juice. “Do I need to stage an intervention?” “It’s toast,” Iris said dramatically. “How does someone mess up toast?” “You have many talents, love. Toast isn’t one of them.” She gasped and threw a tea towel at him. “That’s betrayal, Alexander.” “I prefer to think of it as a gentle truth.” Their morning banter was the daily glue in their routine. Iris loved these moments—the quiet intimacy of breakfast, the way their conversations meandered from nonsense to philosophy in minutes. But even as she laughed, she noticed something. Alex’s phone buzzed on the counter. He snatched it up quickly before she could even glance at the screen. Iris frowned. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” “Doing what?” he asked, pouring himself coffee. “Guarding your phone like it’s a dragon’s egg.” He raised an eyebrow. “It’s work. You know how they are—always panicking over server logs.” “Even on Sunday nights?” she said, crossing her arms. “You were gone for almost an hour. I thought you were just taking out the trash.” Alex paused. His fingers tightened around the coffee mug. “You’re suspicious.” “Should I be?” There was a moment. Just a second. A flicker in his eyes—uncertainty? Fear? She couldn’t tell. Then he smiled, the same calm, disarming smile that had made her fall for him in the first place. “If I were up to anything, would I really be dumb enough to leave a trail of burnt toast behind?” Iris laughed despite herself, but the question hung between them, unanswered. She watched as Alex sat at his desk in the corner of their small apartment, his laptop open, his expression all business. His fingers tapped quickly on the keyboard, his coffee untouched. Iris turned back to the stove, started on a new piece of toast, and tried not to think about the knot forming in her stomach. --- Chapter Two: The Suspicion Deepens Tuesday felt off. The sun was shining, her students were cooperative, and she even got a free coffee when the barista messed up someone else’s order—but Iris couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She walked through the halls of the high school where she taught English literature, distracted. A student asked her a question about Shakespeare, and she gave a response that mixed Hamlet with Macbeth. They laughed. She didn’t. During lunch, she texted Alex: You good? He replied within seconds: Yeah, just slammed with code reviews. Love you. Quick. Too quick. Iris stared at her phone, thumbs hovering above the screen. Finally, she typed: Can we talk tonight? I’ve been feeling... weird. He read it but didn’t respond. Her stomach sank. And so, after school, she drove straight to her best friend’s apartment. Tasha answered the door with a face mask on and a slice of pizza in hand. “You look like you just found out you’re in a reality TV show.” “I might be,” Iris said, brushing past her. “One of those dramatic ones where the sweet guy ends up being a robot or a Russian spy.” Tasha followed her into the living room. “Okay, sit. Spill.” Iris paced. “Alex is hiding something. I know it. His phone is always locked now. He makes weird calls. Disappears at night. And he lied about a meeting on Sunday—he wasn’t even on his work Slack.” Tasha raised a brow. “You checked his Slack?” “I’m not proud,” Iris said. “But yes. Desperate times.” “Yikes.” Tasha sighed. “Okay. You want to do this the crazy way or the legal way?” Iris blinked. “Are there options beyond that?” “Well, we could talk to him. Or…” she grinned mischievously. “We could follow him.” “I was afraid you’d say that.” Tasha pointed her pizza at her. “Then you came to the right girl.” By nightfall, the plan was set. They’d wait until Alex left for his evening “walk”—which he’d recently started taking under the guise of “clearing his mind”—and they’d tail him. Tasha borrowed her cousin’s car. Iris wore a hoodie and sunglasses like a parody of a movie spy. “Are we really doing this?” Iris asked as they parked two blocks from her own apartment. “Girl,” Tasha said, starting the engine. “We’re doing this harder than a Netflix reboot.” When Alex left the building and turned the corner on foot, the chase began. What they discovered that night changed everything. Chapter Three: The Alley of Truths Tasha’s cousin’s beat-up Corolla crawled behind Alex as he walked through a quiet street lined with trees and closed boutiques. It was around 9 p.m., and the town had already started to wind down. Iris crouched in the passenger seat like she was auditioning for a role in a spy movie. “Where’s he even going? This is nowhere near his gym.” “Maybe he’s meeting his mistress in an artisanal cheese shop,” Tasha muttered, chewing gum like a detective. “Not helping.” Alex finally stopped in front of a narrow alley. He looked around, then ducked in. Tasha pulled over quickly, and the two women jumped out. Iris’s heart pounded like it might burst. “Okay, okay, let’s not jump to conclusions.” They tiptoed to the alley entrance. What they saw wasn’t what they expected. Alex was standing with a woman. But not a glamorous, mysterious type. She was older, maybe in her mid-50s, with silver-streaked hair and tired eyes. She looked more like a worried aunt than a mistress. And she was crying. “I just need more time,” Alex was saying. “I promise I’ll get the money.” Money? The woman clutched his arm. “Alex, he said he’d come for me if it wasn’t settled. You know what he’s capable of.” “I’ll handle it. Just stay low. Please. Don’t go back there.” The woman nodded, tears running down her cheeks. She squeezed Alex’s hand. “You’re all I’ve got left.” Then she turned and disappeared into the alley’s darkness. Alex stood there for a while, rubbing his temples, before walking back toward the street. Iris and Tasha ducked behind a dumpster, breathless. “Well,” Tasha whispered, “that was not a mistress.” “No,” Iris whispered back. “But I think I just found a secret brother. Or a mob connection. Or both.” They watched as Alex disappeared down the street, unaware of the spies in his shadow. --- Chapter Three (continued): Trust Fractured Back in the apartment, Iris sat on the couch pretending to read, while Alex came in whistling like he’d just taken a stroll through a tulip field. “Good walk?” she asked without looking up. “Yeah. Cleared my head. You okay?” She looked at him now, searching his face. “You ever going to tell me what’s really going on?” Alex froze. Then he smiled carefully. “What do you mean?” She set the book down. “Let’s skip the dance. I followed you tonight.” His expression changed in a flash—from calm to alarmed. “You… what?” “I saw you with that woman. The one who’s terrified. The one you promised money to. Who is she, Alex?” He sat down heavily on the armchair across from her. For a moment, he said nothing. Then: “She’s my mother.” Iris blinked. “What?” “I’ve never told you about her because… because I’ve been ashamed. She left when I was ten. Got mixed up in bad things. Dangerous people. I thought she was gone for good. But she showed up three months ago, running from a man who’s been threatening her. She begged me not to tell anyone.” Iris stared. “So the secret meetings… the money…” “I’ve been trying to pay off her debt. Quietly. I didn’t want to drag you into it.” She leaned back, stunned. The walls she’d built, the accusations she’d nearly voiced—they all began to crumble. But new questions rose in their place. “And what happens if this man doesn’t go away?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I’m not letting him touch her again. Or you.” The room was silent. Only the ticking of their wall clock filled the air. Finally, Iris whispered, “You should have told me.” Alex nodded. “I know.” But trust, once cracked, doesn’t heal overnight. That night, they slept in the same bed, but with a space of silence between them as wide as the truth that had once lived there. Chapter Four: The Ghosts of Past and Present Morning broke softly, with golden sunlight spilling across the apartment floor like a peace offering. But peace was in short supply. Iris sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee, her eyes red from a night of poor sleep. Across from her, Alex looked just as haggard. Neither of them spoke for a while, the silence not quite tense, but not gentle either. “So what now?” she finally asked, not looking up. Alex exhaled. “I honestly don’t know.” Iris turned her mug in her hands. “You know what’s funny? I thought you were cheating on me. I had all these dramatic scenarios in my head. It never occurred to me that your mom was alive.” Alex looked at her then, surprised. “You thought I was cheating?” “I followed you in sunglasses and a hoodie. What do you think?” she said flatly. He cracked a smile despite himself. “Was it at least a good disguise?” “I looked like a raccoon trying to buy drugs.” They laughed softly together, the tension loosening just enough. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Alex said, more seriously. “I didn’t know how. I’ve been handling things alone for so long, I forgot I don’t have to anymore.” “Maybe,” Iris said, her voice gentle. “But it doesn’t work unless we trust each other. Secrets just rot the foundation. No matter how noble.” He reached for her hand, and this time, she didn’t pull away. --- The next week passed with awkward reconnection. Iris tried to focus on her classes, while Alex doubled down on freelance gigs to scrounge together more money for his mother’s debt. Tasha checked in daily, still somewhat annoyed that the mission didn’t end in a dramatic confrontation. “You owe me,” she said on the phone. “I bought decoy wigs and everything.” “Save them,” Iris replied. “We might still need them.” They might, indeed. Because the man Alex’s mother feared—the debt collector named Royce—made his presence known. --- Chapter Four (continued): Royce Appears It happened on a Thursday. Alex was working late when the buzzer rang. Iris was grading papers, distracted, and answered without thinking. A man stepped into the hallway of their apartment floor. He was tall, with a snake’s smile and eyes too calm. “Evening,” he said. Iris blinked. “Can I help you?” He tilted his head. “You must be Iris.” Her spine straightened. “And you are?” “Royce. Just wanted a quick chat with your husband.” Alex appeared in the doorway then, and the look on his face turned the air to ice. “Get out,” he said. Royce smiled wider. “Relax, I’m just visiting. Thought I’d remind you that timelines matter. Don’t want your lovely wife getting involved in this unpleasant business.” Iris stepped closer to Alex, heart hammering. “You’re threatening us,” she said. Royce shrugged. “I’m warning you. There’s a difference. It’s the polite thing to do.” Alex moved fast, grabbing Royce by the collar and pushing him back toward the stairs. “Touch her and I swear—” Royce raised his hands in mock surrender. “I get it, I get it. Husband of the year. Just don’t miss your next payment.” He vanished down the stairwell, leaving a cold dread in his wake. --- Chapter Four (continued): A Plan of Their Own That night, Iris and Alex sat side by side, the danger now real and looming. “We have to do something,” she said. “I’m trying,” Alex said, his jaw tight. “But he’s asking for thirty grand. I’ve got barely four.” Iris looked at him. “What if we stop reacting and start fighting back?” Alex looked skeptical. “What do you mean?” “I mean… what if we find something to use against him? Everyone’s got dirt. Maybe he’s not as clean as he looks.” Alex blinked. “You want to investigate him now?” “I’ve got a friend at the community paper. And Tasha has a cousin who works at city hall. We can dig. We will dig.” Alex stared at her for a long moment, then slowly smiled. “I married a spy.” “No,” Iris said, grinning back. “You married a woman who’s done being scared.” And so Operation Royce began. --- Chapter Four (continued): The Investigation Begins Tasha was delighted. “Finally,” she said, dropping three file folders onto Iris’s dining table. “We’re doing something juicy. I feel like I’m in ‘How to Get Away with Murder.’” “Less murder,” Iris said. “More ‘How to Take Down a Sleazebag.’” They pored over what little they had: Royce’s arrest records (mostly sealed), rumors of shady business ventures, and a confirmed link to a bankrupt security firm with unresolved embezzlement cases. “Bingo,” Tasha whispered. “If we can prove he’s laundering money or blackmailing people—” “We can go to the cops,” Iris finished. Alex joined them, reluctantly at first, then fully engaged. He dug through online databases, found connections to offshore accounts, and traced a few suspicious properties. The more they learned, the uglier it got. Royce wasn’t just a collector. He was a predator. And he’d made a mistake threatening Iris. --- By the end of the week, they had enough for a case file. Anonymous tips were sent to journalists and the police. A city council member received an envelope with hard evidence of Royce’s misdeeds. An old victim came forward. Then, Royce vanished. No goodbye, no warning. Just gone. A detective confirmed he was wanted for questioning. His apartment was cleared out overnight. The danger dissolved like fog under sunlight. But the journey left its scars. Iris and Alex stood on their balcony the next evening, watching the streetlights flicker on. “You still mad at me?” Alex asked. Iris didn’t answer right away. Then: “No. Just... tired. Of secrets. Of fear.” He reached for her hand. “Me too.” She squeezed it. “Then let’s stop hiding. From each other. From the past.” “Agreed.” They stood in silence, letting the city breathe around them. And for the first time in weeks, Iris felt like they were breathing together. Chapter Five: The Weight of Normal It was over. Royce was gone, the threat dissolved, and life had the audacity to return to something like normal. But normal wasn’t what it used to be. For weeks, Iris and Alex moved through their days cautiously, like they were trying on life after trauma for size. They spoke more. They listened better. And yet, something lingered—an invisible scar only they could feel. One afternoon, as Iris graded final essays, she looked up and found Alex watching her. He wasn’t smiling. Just… observing. “What?” she asked. He hesitated. “You look peaceful.” She smirked. “I’m trying to decide whether this student meant to write ‘revolution’ or ‘revelation.’ It’s neither peaceful nor grammatical.” He walked over and kissed the top of her head. “Still. You seem more like you.” She paused. “Maybe I am.” Later that night, they ordered Indian food, spilled mango lassi on the rug, and laughed so hard Iris wheezed. It felt like them—before the secrets, before Royce, before everything went sideways. But in the quiet that followed, as they lay together, Iris whispered, “Do you think it’s ever really over?” Alex didn’t lie. “I think it’s sleeping. For now.” --- Chapter Five (continued): A New Beginning or an Echo? Tasha barged into the apartment one Saturday morning carrying a folder and a donut box. “I bring sugary offerings and forbidden knowledge,” she announced. Iris blinked. “What now?” She slapped the folder down on the table. “Your mystery man Royce? He might be gone, but someone else has picked up his torch.” Alex groaned. “We just got rid of the last torch.” “Yeah, well, fire spreads,” Tasha said. “Meet Lena Carroway. Royce’s silent partner. She was laundering money through the same security firm.” Iris stared at the woman’s photo. Lena looked more like a wine blogger than a criminal. “She’s worse than Royce,” Tasha added. “Smarter. Cleaner. And according to one of my sources—vindictive.” Alex rubbed his temples. “So we exposed a sociopath and inherited a mastermind?” “Basically,” Tasha said. Iris closed the folder slowly. “So what do we do?” Tasha smiled. “We do what we always do. We dig.” --- Chapter Five (continued): Trouble in Disguise Lena Carroway made her first move quietly. A letter addressed to Alex arrived without a return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper: "Play dead, or watch your life unravel." No name. No threat. Just implication. Alex burned the letter. “We can’t let her scare us,” Iris said. “I’m not scared,” Alex replied. “I’m furious.” But fear wasn’t gone. It just changed shape. --- Over the next few days, they noticed things. Emails from strange addresses. A man parked across their building too often. Tasha’s car keyed after a visit. “We need to move,” Iris whispered late one night. “We need to disappear.” Alex turned to her. “Or we fight back. Again.” She met his eyes. “Even if it means risking everything?” He held her gaze. “Especially then.” They kissed like people who didn’t know what tomorrow looked like. --- Chapter Five (continued): Turning the Tables They gathered again—Alex, Iris, Tasha, and Tasha’s journalism contact, Malik. He was wiry, brilliant, and smelled vaguely of cinnamon. “Lena Carroway,” he said, tapping the photo. “She runs clean fronts, but I’ve heard whispers. Offshore accounts. Surveillance-for-hire. If you want to take her down, it won’t be like Royce. You’ll need proof. Public. Undeniable.” Tasha grinned. “That’s where I come in.” “What are you thinking?” Iris asked. “A trap,” Tasha replied. “We bait her. Record her. Expose her.” Alex looked skeptical. “You think she’ll fall for it?” Tasha leaned back. “She won’t see me coming.” And so another plan was born. Bigger. Riskier. And maybe their last. --- Chapter Six: The Bait and the Trap The plan wasn’t elegant. It was risky, rushed, and possibly illegal in three states. But it was theirs. Tasha went undercover as a real estate developer looking to hire surveillance for a controversial project. Malik posed as her assistant. The goal: draw Lena Carroway out with a lucrative offer, and catch her admitting to illegal practices. “Will she even show?” Iris asked, nerves raw. Tasha grinned. “She’ll come. She’s too greedy not to.” --- They met at a boutique hotel lounge, all velvet and vintage glass. Tasha wore a power suit that could have felled lesser mortals. Malik hid recording devices in a briefcase and buttonhole mic. Lena arrived fifteen minutes late, stylish in gray silk, cool as frost. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re ambitious,” she said to Tasha. “I’m impatient,” Tasha replied. “You come highly recommended.” As they talked, Lena grew more open—relaxing into Tasha’s charisma. She spoke in euphemisms, but the implications were damning. “Privacy is negotiable,” she said. “Sometimes what people don’t know keeps projects alive.” Malik sent a subtle signal: they had it. But Lena wasn’t stupid. Halfway through the meeting, she leaned in and whispered, “Tell your friends watching: if this is a setup, I’ll bury every last one of you.” --- Chapter Six (continued): Backlash Within hours, the consequences began. Malik’s apartment was broken into. Nothing stolen, but everything disturbed. Iris received a cryptic text: Careful who you marry. Some debts are eternal. Tasha’s laptop was remotely wiped. “She’s cleaning house,” Malik said. “She knows we’re coming.” “We still have the audio,” Alex reminded them. “For now,” Malik said. “But you’d better release it soon. Or not at all.” --- Chapter Six (continued): The Release Iris and Alex debated through the night. Release the evidence now and draw Lena’s full fury? Or wait, gather more, and risk losing everything? By morning, the choice was made. Malik contacted his editor. The story would drop at midnight. Audio included. Names named. No going back. They waited together, anxious, crowded into Iris and Alex’s living room. At 12:01 a.m., the article went live. --- Chapter Six (continued): Fallout The reaction was instant. The site crashed from traffic. Lena’s name trended globally. Reporters camped outside her firm. Whistleblowers emerged. Police reopened cases. And Lena? “Vanished,” Malik said two days later. “No trace. Like she was never here.” It should’ve been a win. But Alex paced the apartment like a hunted man. “She won’t stay gone,” he muttered. “People like her don’t run. They reload.” Still, the pressure lifted. For the first time in months, Iris and Alex slept soundly. --- Chapter Six (continued): Aftermath Weeks passed. The semester ended. Iris earned a teaching award. Alex’s freelance work boomed. They hosted dinner parties. Watched bad movies. Took long walks in parks where no one followed them. One night, as they lay in bed, Iris whispered, “We’re okay now, right?” Alex wrapped his arms around her. “I think so. Or getting there.” A beat. “Would you do it again?” she asked. “Which part?” “All of it. The secrets. The fights. The danger.” He kissed her forehead. “If it brought me back to you? Every time.” --- The past still echoed. But in their laughter, their strength, and the love rebuilt from ashes, there was something more powerful than fear. Chapter Seven: A New Dawn, or a Lingering Shadow? The air felt different. Not in the metaphorical sense—but the literal sense. The season had shifted, and it was clear in the way the city felt beneath Iris and Alex’s feet. Summer was finally loosening its grip, and the cool bite of autumn brought with it a sense of change. But change, for Iris and Alex, was now a heavy, familiar word. It had been a few months since the fall of Lena Carroway, and in many ways, their lives had returned to what they would call normal. Alex was still freelance writing, Iris was still teaching her students about classic literature, but there was a difference. There was a weight of caution. They had both changed. What was once thought of as mundane now had an edge. Nothing would ever feel the same. Their apartment was quieter now. The unspoken fear that had once loomed like an invisible force had faded, but it never fully left. Even as they sat together at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, there was a heaviness in the air. Neither of them spoke it aloud, but they both knew. “I’m thinking about the future,” Alex said one morning as Iris skimmed through an academic journal. She looked up, surprised by the sudden shift in the conversation. “The future?” He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what it looks like, but it’s coming. We don’t know if we’ll ever be completely out from under all of this.” Iris set down the journal, her brow furrowing. “I thought we were done. I thought... I thought Lena was the last of it.” “I hope so,” Alex said quietly, “but I’m not sure. What happens when someone else takes her place? What happens if we get stuck in another cycle?” Iris sighed. “I don’t want that. I want a life with you. A real life. No more secrets. No more hiding.” He reached across the table, his hand brushing hers. “Me too. But I think we have to keep moving. Keep... planning. Just in case.” “I agree,” she replied. “We can’t live in constant fear, but we can’t ignore reality either.” They sat in silence for a moment before Alex smiled. “Maybe I’m getting old and paranoid.” Iris chuckled. “Maybe.” There was a lightness in her voice, but there was something deeper there, a glimmer of concern she tried to hide. Because what if the fight wasn’t over? What if there was more lurking just beyond the horizon? --- Chapter Seven : The Calm Before the Storm? For the first time in months, Alex felt restless. He had long stopped pacing through the apartment, but now it was as if something invisible had crawled into the corners of his mind, uninvited. He stared out the window one evening as the world continued its fast-paced rhythm below. “I think we need to go somewhere,” he said suddenly. “I don’t know... somewhere we can’t be found.” Iris turned to him, concern shadowing her face. “Alex—” “No, hear me out. A place we can really just... disappear for a while. No phones, no emails. Just you and me. For real.” She was quiet, thinking. The idea was tempting, especially with all that had happened—the chaos, the secrets, the dangers. The idea of getting away from it all, of leaving the noise behind, seemed like a dream. “I’d like that,” Iris finally said. “But we have to be careful. Even if we get away for a while, it doesn’t mean the danger is gone.” He nodded, understanding. “I know. But it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Just to stop running for a bit.” Iris smiled softly. “I think it would be nice. But we can’t ignore what’s out there.” The weight of their past hung heavy in the room, but it didn’t suffocate them. Not anymore. They had faced the shadows together, survived the worst of it. There was still a long road ahead, but they had each other. -- Chapter Seven : Unseen Threats Life continued to flow, in its complex and unpredictable way. Alex and Iris made tentative steps toward healing.