Chapter Fifteen: Flu Season
448 Words
Leia came back from the bathroom looking like she’d been wrung out and left to dry in the sun.
Her skin was flushed too bright, her eyes glassy.
A sheen of sweat clung to her forehead, strands of hair sticking awkwardly to her temples.
She smiled—
tight, tired—
like maybe if she smiled hard enough, no one would notice.
---
Owen watched her from across the yard, the rim of his beer bottle brushing his bottom lip.
Leia forced herself toward the drink table, steadying herself against it with a hand that visibly trembled.
Keeley’s mother noticed first.
“Poor thing,” she clucked to no one in particular.
“Flu’s been going around.”
Someone else nodded sagely.
“Summer bugs are the worst. They just knock you flat.”
Leia laughed weakly, a sound too thin to be real.
“Probably just something I ate,” she said.
Across the lawn, Keeley was putting on a show—
laughing too loud, gesturing too wide, holding court with a group of aging bridesmaids and future in-laws.
Her fiancé stood beside her, arm slung casually over her shoulders.
But Keeley’s eyes kept sliding to Owen.
Owen didn’t look at her.
Not once.
---
Chloe found him by the cooler, tossing another empty bottle into the recycling bin.
“Hey, Dad,” she said, bumping his shoulder lightly with hers.
He grunted a greeting, digging for another beer.
Chloe launched into small talk—
the new marketing firm she was interviewing.
He actually didn’t mind Chloe’s chatter. He adored his daughter. it was nice to hear how well she was doing.
“Is Mom okay?”
Owen shrugged, cracking the new beer open with a hiss.
Leia made her way to him slowly, carefully, as if the air itself might knock her over if she moved too fast.
She reached his side, hand brushing his sleeve like a lifeline.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Do you mind if we go home?”
---
Owen drained half his beer in one long swallow.
Crushed the can in his hand.
Tossed it into the trash with a casual flick.
"Let’s go," he said.
---
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Keeley watched them leave from across the lawn.
Fiancé’s arm draped lazily around her shoulders.
Champagne flute dangling from her fingers.
Her laugh came half a beat too late at the joke someone told.
Her smile too sharp at the corners.
He opened the car door for Leia because it was easier than watching her fumble with it.
Leia curled into the seat beside him, breathing shallow and ragged, her smile finally slipping away as the fairy lights faded into the distance.
- Writer
