Chapter Seven - The Fog Of Ten Years
1143 Words
Michelle sat on the edge of the bed, robe pulled tight around her, eyes fixed on the narrow c***k of light beneath the door. She hadn’t meant to leave it ajar. It felt reckless now, like an invitation she hadn’t consciously offered but hadn’t taken back either.
Footsteps lingered just beyond it.
Jeremiah.
She could picture him there without trying. Tall frame half-shadowed by the hallway light, shoulders tense, jaw set the way it always did when he was fighting himself. She used to know every version of him like second nature.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
Go lock it, her mind urged.
Instead, she stayed where she was.
A soft knock landed against the door.
Once.
Barely there.
Michelle closed her eyes briefly, then exhaled. “You don’t have to knock,” she said quietly. “It’s not locked.”
The door opened a few inches more.
Jeremiah didn’t step in.
He stayed right there, one hand resting against the doorframe, like crossing the threshold would be a line he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step over.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Not loudly. Not defensively.
Just… honestly.
Michelle’s fingers curled into the fabric of the robe. “For which part?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “All of it.”
That answer unsettled her more than she expected.
She glanced up at him, really looked at him now. Why did he look so dangerously handsome?
“You already apologized,” she said. “In the bathroom.”
“That wasn’t…” He paused, exhaled. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
Silence crept back in, heavier this time.
Michelle shifted on the bed. “Then what did you mean, Jeremiah?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation was familiar too.
Ten years ago, it had driven her crazy, seeing him on the bed with another woman.
They had never spoken about it.
She never gave him the chance to.
What was left there to say?
She saw it all.
And that day had caused her more than a broken heart.
“I shouldn’t have come down the hall,” he said finally. “I told myself I was just checking in. Making sure you were settled. But the truth is…” His jaw tightened. “I couldn’t sleep. And I knew you weren’t either.”
Her breath caught.
“Don’t,” she warned softly. “Don’t pretend you still know me.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I don’t have to pretend,” he said. “You’re terrible at hiding when you’re unsettled. Always have been.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was.”
The way he said it, quiet, weighted, made it sound like an admission rather than an argument.
Michelle stood, needing the movement, the space. She crossed the room and stopped a few feet from him, close enough to feel the heat he carried with him, far enough that she could still pretend she was in control.
“You came to apologize,” she said. “You’ve done that. You can go now.”
Jeremiah didn’t move.
“I will,” he said. “Just… let me say one thing first.”
She almost laughed. “You always say that.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth, then faded. “I know.”
Her heart stuttered at the familiarity of it.
He straightened slightly, as if bracing himself. “I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier. About having seen you before. It was thoughtless. And very immature.”
Her arms crossed over her chest. “Right. Very immature.”
“For a moment I forgot we've been apart for ten years,” he said quietly. “I thought I still had the right to look at you like that.”
The words settled between them, heavy and unexpected.
Michelle’s throat tightened. “You lost that right,” she said.
“I know.” He nodded once. “I’ve known for ten years.”
That landed harder than she wanted it to.
She turned away, staring at the window where snow pressed endlessly against the glass. “Then why are you standing here?”
“Because I never apologized properly,” he said. “And because you never really gave me the chance to explain what happened that day.”
Her fingers trembled at her sides.
“You betrayed me,” she said, her voice low. “You didn’t just cheat, Jeremiah. You shattered something in me.”
“I know,” he repeated, more hoarsely now. “But what you saw wasn't what it seemed.”
She turned back to him sharply. “I know what I saw.”
His eyes searched her face, something raw flickering there. “Yeah,” he said. “But not what you think.”
Her laugh came out brittle. “That’s a cliché.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But it’s the truth.”
She stared at him, chest rising and falling too fast.
She wanted to scream at him. To slap him again. To tell him it didn’t matter anymore.
But it did.
It mattered too much.
“You don’t get to explain yourself now,” she said, shaking her head. “Ten years later. In the middle of the night. When I’m stuck here.”
“I’m not her to ask for forgiveness,” he said quickly.
She looked at him skeptically. “Then what are you doing?”
His gaze dropped, then lifted again, steady and vulnerable in a way that made her chest ache. “Making sure you know that losing you was the greatest regret of my life.”
The air seemed to thin around them.
Michelle opened her mouth, then closed it again.
For one reckless moment, she imagined stepping forward. Letting herself lean into the truth he was offering. Letting herself ask the question that had haunted her for a decade.
Why did you do it?
Her lips parted.
And then...
“Daddy?”
The small, sleepy voice of Daisy cut through the room like a blade.
Both of them froze.
Jeremiah turned sharply toward the hallway. “Daisy?”
Everything shifted in an instant.
Jeremiah walked out of her room immediately, all tension draining from him as he crossed the space in the hallway to his daughter's room.
Michelle stood alone in the doorway long after the light from the hallway dimmed again.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
The apology echoed in her mind. The regret. The confession he hadn’t quite finished.
She closed the door slowly and leaned her forehead against it, eyes squeezed shut.
She needed to leave. Not just the room, or the house, but the gravitational pull of the man who still knew her better than she knew herself.
- Writer
