David woke to a sky scraped clean of clouds, pale and bright.
He pulled on his sneakers and set off to work with the easy rhythm he'd built over the past few weeks, his breath ghosting in front of him.
The city moved around him — buses exhaling at curbsides, shops rattling open, dogs tugging on leashes — but he floated above it all.
Unbothered.
Separate.
Free.
Work was the same low-grade hum of tension it had been for months, but David moved through it untouched.
Todd barely glanced at him in the hallway. David caught sight of him later, laughing with a cluster of coworkers by the vending machines — quick, sharp laughter that made the back of David’s neck prickle.
He shook it off.
Everyone was stressed.
Everyone was clawing for their own corner of the sinking ship.
It wasn’t about him.
He had bigger things to hold onto now.
The message came just after lunch.
David was back at his desk, sipping lukewarm coffee, half-reading an email, when his phone buzzed.
From his wife.
"We need to talk tonight."
Nothing else.
David stared at the screen, a cold bead of something threading itself through his chest.
No emoji. No softening. No hint.
Just a hard, heavy line.
He put the phone face-down on the desk and tried to finish the email he was reading. Tried to pretend his hands weren’t trembling slightly on the keyboard.
It didn’t work.
The walk home felt longer than usual. The world had sharpened somehow — the cracks in the pavement seemed deeper, the wind colder. Every car that passed sounded louder. Every glance from a stranger felt weighted, suspicious.
David climbed the front steps with a leaden heart, pausing for a moment before opening the door.
Inside, the house was quiet.
The kids were sprawled on the living room floor with homework and coloring books. The TV murmured low in the background.
His wife was in the kitchen, standing by the counter, her phone clenched tightly in her hand.
She didn’t say anything when he walked in.
Just turned the screen toward him like a blade.
A text message.
An unknown number.
No name.
No history.
"I'm sorry to do this. I had a short fling with David a few weeks ago. I didn't know he was married. I thought you should hear it from me before you hear it somewhere else. I'm so sorry."
David felt the blood drain from his face.
"No," he said automatically. Too fast. Too loud.
His wife just stared at him, eyes hollow, brittle.
"I swear," he said, stepping forward. "I swear to God, I don't know who this is. This isn't—"
He stopped, because even to his own ears, the words sounded empty.
She said nothing.
Just turned the phone off and placed it gently on the counter like something poisonous.
The silence between them bloomed wide and thick, swallowing the whole room.
David stood there for a long moment, hands useless at his sides, before backing away slowly, retreating to the living room, to the couch, to nowhere.
Later, when the kids were in bed and the house had folded itself into that dense, heavy stillness of late night, David sat alone at the kitchen table, staring at the dark window.
He thought of Todd, of the cold looks, the laughter in the breakroom. Could it have been him? Was he getting revenge for the extra workload?
The thoughts spiraled tight and fast.
And then David fastened onto a conviction: this WAS Todd's doing.