05 The Woman in the Walls
888 Words
The morning sun filtered in through the white curtains like it didn’t know any better. Soft. Golden. Deceiving. It made everything look beautiful, clean countertops, a plate of buttered toast, steam curling from the kettle. A home pretending to be a marriage.
Eve cracked two eggs into the pan, their sizzle loud in the silence. She didn’t look toward the doorway, but she didn’t have to.
She felt him before she heard him. The floor creaked. The air shifted.
Ryan was here.
She plated the eggs just as he stepped into the kitchen. His presence filled the room like a wall, impenetrable, cool, suffocating. His damp hair was combed neatly, his shirt pressed sharp at the collar. He carried himself with the same polish he did everywhere: immaculate, untouchable, like he’d been born knowing how to look powerful, even when hollowed out inside.
“Morning,” she said softly, offering a quiet smile.
He didn’t answer.
He poured himself coffee, black, his movements precise. Not a glance toward her. Not even at the plate she set on the table.
“I made you breakfast,” she tried again, sliding it toward him with care.
Still nothing.
She sat across from him, fingers folding neatly in her lap as he sipped his coffee. Her heartbeat drummed against her ribs, but her voice stayed steady.
“You sleep okay?”
“Fine,” he said, eyes on the cup. One word, clipped, stripped of meaning.
“The weather’s nice today,” she tried again. “Maybe we could, ”
“I don’t have time for small talk,” he cut her off. Not cruel, just cold. As if warmth were an indulgence he refused.
Her smile fell. She lowered her gaze. “Right. Of course.”
He reached for a slice of toast, didn’t sit, just stood near the door while glancing at his watch. She hated how familiar this ritual had become: her trying, him dismissing. A cycle so ingrained it no longer needed effort.
“You’ll be late,” she murmured.
“I’m never late.” He slid into his blazer with practiced ease.
Her mouth opened before she could stop herself. A question, a plea, something she didn’t plan. “Ryan…”
He turned slightly, not enough to face her. Just enough to acknowledge. “What?”
She hesitated. The words withered on her tongue. “Nothing. Have a good day.”
fucked
He left. The door clicked shut.
Eve braced her hands against the table, her knuckles white. The eggs sat untouched, the coffee cooling beside an empty chair. Her throat burned, but she forced herself to swallow the ache.
Today was his birthday.
He hadn’t mentioned it. Of course he hadn’t. But she knew. She always knew.
Every year she tried. A quiet dinner, his favorite scotch, a small gift chosen carefully, not to win him, not to soften him, just to remind him that someone still saw him. That someone still cared.
This year was no different. A black leather-bound journal, monogrammed with his initials, sat wrapped in a box on the counter. Waiting.
At the diner that afternoon, Eve moved like a ghost in the kitchen. Chopping, stirring, plating, her body on autopilot. Customers came and went, the clatter of dishes blending with murmured orders and the hiss of steam. She smiled faintly at co-workers when they passed, never giving away the heaviness she carried.
When the rush died, she slipped into the back office and pulled out her phone. She scrolled aimlessly, her thumb moving across the glass, more out of habit than interest.
Then her screen froze.
A photo.
Ryan.
Her breath stopped.
He stood in the center of the frame, flanked by two women. Kimberly, his sister, beaming with pride, her arm hooked tightly around his. And on his other side, Luan, draped in red silk, her hand on his forearm, her smile tilted toward him like she belonged there.
The caption beneath cut deeper than any insult Ryan had ever thrown at her.
“Happy Birthday!! Today we celebrate the youngest CEO in Bexlin City, celebrating his thirtieth birthday with his sister and the love of his life. Why didn’t Ryan Ashbrook settle down with the lovely Luan Wallace?”
The love of his life.
Eve stared until her vision blurred. The pressure behind her eyes threatened to split her skull. She pressed the phone to her lips, muffling the sob that clawed up her throat.
It wasn’t the affair that broke her. There was no proof of one. It was the omission.
Three years married, and her name wasn’t even a footnote. No ring in public. No events together. No acknowledgement that she existed.
Maybe that was why he never took her out. Not once in three years had he walked into a restaurant with her on his arm. Not to a gallery. Not to a dinner. Not even to his own birthday celebration.
She was a secret. A placeholder hidden behind mansion walls, tucked away so the world could keep imagining Ryan Ashbrook belonged to Luan.
Her hands trembled as she set the phone down. She inhaled once, twice, slow and sharp, then pushed herself up from the chair.
He had erased her. Not just from his life, but from his story.
And she had let him.
- Writer
