If I Were Her

Chapter 11

Vivian sat at the kitchen table, fingers tracing the edge of her mug without ever lifting it. The room was quiet, too quiet, but not in the comforting way—it pressed against her like a weight. She had woken to an empty bed again, the sheets still warm on one side, the other cold and hollow. Another night gone, another night she had tried not to notice, tried not to name what she already knew.

For years, she had told herself it was work. Late meetings, unexpected emergencies, trips that came without warning. But after losing one of their children, the truth lingered behind her ribs, heavy and insistent: it wasn’t work. She had suspected it for so long that every absent hour etched itself into memory—the hurried texts that didn’t sound like him, the faint smell of someone else clinging to his shirts, the quiet in the house that pressed down differently when he wasn’t there. Still, she had refused to say it out loud, refused to let her mind settle on the reality. Perhaps if she held back, if she waited, he might turn back toward her, might do right by her—or maybe this was her way of punishing herself for a loss she could never forgive.

And then the front door clicked. She stiffened, heart lurching, her breath caught somewhere between hope and dread. He was home.

He stepped in with the same measured gait he always had, as if nothing had changed. “Hey,” he said, voice even, neutral. His hand brushed her cheek—not lingering, not soft—and pressed a kiss there that carried no warmth, no recognition beyond obligation. Vivian felt the chill seep straight through her skin.

She forced herself to smile, a small tilt of her lips that felt like armor. But inside, a storm raged.

He walked past her without another word, shoulders straight, eyes forward, like the night he hadn’t come home hadn’t happened, like the nights before that hadn’t added up into a pattern she had quietly learned to name. And yet, here she was, sitting in the same kitchen, facing the same cold kitchen tiles, the same hollow mug.

She let the silence stretch, letting the unspoken truth fill the space between them. Her heart thudded with the weight of it—the betrayals she couldn’t prove, the love that had been eroded piece by piece, the exhaustion of pretending. For years, she had hoped it was a phase, a misunderstanding, a mistake that would end. But every night it repeated itself, a quiet, cruel rhythm. She did not name it fully, not yet. Maybe if she waited, he would see what he had lost. Maybe he could still do right. Or maybe she would bear the weight of her grief and her guilt quietly, punishing herself for a loss that had no forgiveness.

Vivian leaned her forehead against her palm and closed her eyes. The truth was sharp, cutting through the layers of denial she had built around herself. She had known it all along. And yet tonight, she would not confront it fully. She would hold the fragile hope that he could turn, that she could survive this, that some form of penance might still be hers to bear.

—————————-

Ava stormed into the faculty building, her phone still vibrating angrily in her hand. The smell of disinfectant and chalk dust hit her immediately, and students in crisp lab coats moved around, carrying textbooks that looked almost bigger than her bag. She caught glimpses of microscopes and chemical charts taped to walls, but she barely registered any of it—too consumed with anger to be amazed.

Her phone vibrated again. She jabbed at the screen, the call dropping—then immediately redialing. Voicemail. Again.

“Ethan!” she shouted, her voice cracking through the hallway. “Pick up!”

Students slowed. Some stopped outright. The echo of her voice bounced off lockers and concrete walls, too loud, too public, too much.

“I’ve been calling you all night!” she continued, pacing now, phone clenched like proof. “All night!”

A hand touched her arm.

“Oh for God’s sake Ava, you can’t just burst into —” Iris’s voice was quiet, careful.

Ava spun on her. “Shut it, ” she snapped. “For once, just one day try not to be the main character .”

A ripple went through the hallway. Heads turned. Someone whispered. Someone else stared.

The resemblance landed all at once.

“Wait… are they—”

“Twins?”

Ava barely registered it.

Ethan appeared at the end of the hall, phone in his hand.

“There you are,” Ava said sharply, relief and anger colliding. “Your phone was right there. You had it. And you didn’t answer.”

He stopped a few feet away, exhaustion written all over him. “Ava—couldn’t you put it together? If I didn’t answer one call—or the other hundred—you think maybe I didn’t want to talk? Maybe I just… wasn’t in the mood.”

The words hit harder than he meant them to.

Ava laughed, short and disbelieving. “Wow. So that’s it? You just disappear and expect me to guess?”

He exhaled, jaw tightening. “I didn’t disappear. I needed space.”

She took a step closer, voice lowering, sharper now. “You know what’s funny?” she said. “People would die for me if I gave them half the chances I give you. Repeatedly.”

The hallway went silent.

Ethan’s expression changed—not anger. Something quieter. Final.

He turned away.

“Aren’t you even going to say anything?” Ava called after him.

He kept walking.

“Stop walking dammit..If you walk away from me now,” she said, her voice breaking through the silence, “it’s over. Do you hear me? It’s over between us.”

He didn’t turn back.

—————————

Iris felt the sting of Ava’s words linger in her own chest, like secondhand damage. She watched Ethan disappear down the hall, then glanced back at her sister—still rigid, still burning waited till Ava walked away .

And then she followed him.

She didn’t know why. Maybe because she understood what it felt like to be walked away from. Or maybe because something in his shoulders looked too heavy to carry alone.

She caught up to him outside, where the noise softened into wind and distant voices. He slowed when he heard her steps.

“What do you want? You shouldn’t be here,” he said gently, not turning around.

“I know,” Iris replied. “I just… wanted to..I really don’t know”

They walked for a moment in silence.

Then she said, “For what it’s worth, squirrels don’t seem to care about relationship ultimatums.”

He glanced at her, surprised—and then laughed. Just a little. “Is that their official stance?”

“Definitely,” she nodded. “I think.”

A squirrel darted across the path as if on cue.

Ethan shook his head, smiling despite himself. “Figures.”

The tension eased—not gone, but lighter. Manageable.

“I’m the twin who steals the spotlight” she added, after a beat. “In case the hallway didn’t make it obvious.”

“Oh come on, she didn’t mean that ” he said, hiding a surprised chuckle. “You were just there…to snap at .”

She smiled. “Occupational hazard.”

They kept walking, side by side

Pretending he didn’t just end things publicly with his girlfriend and that she wasn’t running after and making jokes with her sisters ex of two minutes

Just existing in a moment that didn’t demand too much from either of them.

And somehow, that was enough.