“Work’s crazy,” he told me.
I believed him. He had always been ambitious, and between the baby and my new routine, I barely questioned it.
But I started noticing things.
His phone spent most evenings face down on the table.
Once during dinner, it buzzed. Ryan glanced at the screen, immediately stood, and walked into the hallway.
“Work?” I asked when he returned.
“Yeah. Nothing important.”
I accepted the answer because I wanted to.
Meanwhile, my body slowly changed.
At that point, I still believed that if I became the woman Ryan wanted again, our marriage would somehow return to normal.
My walks grew longer. Carrying my daughter upstairs no longer left me breathless. One morning, I caught my reflection in a shop window as I pushed the stroller.
I stopped.
For the first time in months, I liked the woman looking back at me.
Strangely, Ryan wasn’t the first person I wanted to tell.
