The affair - or whatever it was - wasn't a whirlwind. It was slow, quiet. Secret lunches, lingering glances, a weekend in a borrowed cabin neither dared speak about afterward.
In those moments, they were light again. They laughed like they used to. They touched like the world was asleep and couldn't catch them.
But reality crept in like rot.
Ainsley cried in her car one morning, gripping the steering wheel, unsure who she was becoming. Calvin wrote an unsent email to his wife, trying to explain what he hadn't even explained to himself.
And still, they kept coming back to each other.
One night, lying side by side under tangled sheets and a thin summer moon, Ainsley asked, "Do you think this is real? Or are we just two lonely people clinging to something soft?"
Calvin turned to her, his brow furrowed. "It feels real."
"But is it worth it?" she whispered.
He didn't answer right away. "I think... we're worth being honest about."