In stark contrast is how little pain he shows and I don’t miss how he hasn’t budged. He hasn’t made a single move to come to me. So I stay planted in my seat as well.

I know why he doesn’t deny it, and it’s because it’s true. Years of just the two of us have shown me who he is and I know he’s not a liar, but he’s lying to me now. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. “It’s been weeks, hasn’t it?” I say, forcing out the words from between clenched teeth. This morning I couldn’t talk without screaming. Without slamming my fists into the table, making it shake and causing a glass of water to fall and shatter on the hardwood floors.

I reached my breaking point when he looked me in the eye and told me there was nothing to that picture. I refuse to listen when he lies; not when he does such a horrible job of it.

“Stop it, Kat,” Evan commands firmly and his voice is harsh and unforgiving, like I’m the one in the wrong.

“Oh, I see,” I respond, raising a brow and feeling a sick smile tug at my lips. “You can cheat, you can lie, but I should be quiet and give you a kiss on the way out to go do whatever you want to do?”

“Don’t do this,” he says with a rawness that makes my heart clench.

“Then tell me what happened. I know something did.” He’s been distant, even cold toward me ever since he came home.

A moment passes and I lose my composure again, bared to him in every way as I wait for an answer. But I don’t get the one thing I need. The truth. Or a believable lie.

“I have to go,” is all he says as he gathers his luggage. Slinging a black duffle bag over one shoulder, gripping a suitcase with his other hand, he adds, “I love you.”

He says the words without looking at me.

I love you.

It hurts so damn much because he knows I love him. He knows it and he throws the words back at me like it doesn’t matter that he’s risking it all.

“If you won’t tell me the truth,” I say lowly as I stare at the table, pushing out the words and feeling each one slice open the cut in my heart that much deeper, “then don’t bother coming back.” My throat tightens and my lungs refuse to fill as silence is all that answers me.

There’s only a slight hesitation, a small creaking sound as he adjusts his grip on the luggage. That’s all I get. That’s it. The creak of the floorboards that’s barely heard over my racing heart.