Chapter Six: The Call
732 Words
I should have gone inside.
Marcus deserved his privacy.
Whatever the phone call was about had nothing to do with me.
So why was I still standing in the driveway, keys clutched in my hand, watching him pace across the yard like the weight of the world had suddenly settled on his shoulders?
I told myself I would — that whatever Marcus's phone call was about wasn't my business, that I had no right to stand in the driveway straining to hear a conversation clearly meant to stay private. I told myself all of that and stood there anyway, keys forgotten in my hand, watching him pace the far end of the yard with his back to me.
"—not going to happen again, I've told you that." A pause. "No. That's not — Diane, I can't do this right now."
Diane.
The name landed strange in my chest, heavier than it should have for someone I'd never heard mentioned once in six years of holidays and dinners and every ordinary day in between. Marcus didn't talk about his past. I'd always assumed there wasn't much to talk about — a man who'd built an entire identity out of never wanting the things everyone else wanted didn't exactly have an ex-fiancée sitting in his back pocket.
Apparently I'd assumed wrong.
He hung up before I could hear anything else, and when he turned around and found me still standing by the door, something closed over his face fast — not annoyance, exactly. More like a door quietly shutting before anyone could see what was on the other side of it.
"You're still out here," he said.
"I was about to go in."
"Right." He shoved the phone into his pocket like it had personally wronged him. "Sorry about that."
"You don't have to apologize."
"I know." He said it too fast, the way people do when they're trying to end a conversation rather than have one. "Long day. I think I'm going to turn in early."
It was six-thirty.
I let it go anyway, because pushing felt like a door I didn't have permission to open, no matter how badly I wanted to. "Okay."
He was almost past me, almost through the front door, when I heard myself say it.
"Marcus."
He stopped.
"Whoever Diane is." I kept my voice light, like it cost me nothing to ask. "I hope you're okay."
For a long moment he didn't say anything at all. Just stood there with his hand on the doorframe, looking at me like I'd said something he wasn't prepared for.
He let out a slow breath.
"She's no one," he said at last.
"Just someone from a life that's already over.”
"Ancient history doesn't usually call twice in one week.”
His eyes narrowed slightly — not angry, more like he was recalculating something. "How do you know it's twice?"
I hadn't known, actually. I'd guessed, and gotten it right, and now I'd revealed exactly how closely I'd been paying attention to a man I had no business paying that much attention to.
"Lucky guess," I said.
He studied me a moment longer, and I had the distinct, uncomfortable sense that he could see straight through the lie — not just this one, but the bigger one underneath it, the one I'd been telling for six years.
"Get some dinner," he said instead of calling me on any of it. "There's leftovers in the fridge."
Then he was gone, up the stairs, his office door clicking shut behind him.
I stood alone in the kitchen long after he'd disappeared upstairs.
The house suddenly felt much bigger than it had that morning.
Quieter.
Lonelier.
I opened the refrigerator, stared at the leftovers without seeing them, then closed the door again.
My appetite had vanished.
Diane.
One name.
One phone call.
And suddenly I realized there were entire chapters of Marcus Whitfield's life I knew nothing about.
Maybe I had never known him as well as I'd convinced myself I did.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was Priya.
Priya: So... how's living with the man you're definitely not in love with? 👀
Despite everything, I laughed.
Then my eyes drifted toward the staircase.
The light beneath Marcus's office door was still on.
I typed back slowly.
"I think I've just realized I don't know him at all.”
- Writer
