Chapter 2

April Acevedo POV:

My hand trembled, but my voice was steady. It was an old trick I' d mastered, compartmentalizing the body' s betrayal from the mind' s resolve. The air in the room grew thick, heavy with the silence that followed the irrefutable truth displayed on my phone screen.

Harman didn' t deny it. He couldn' t. He just stood there, his gaze fixed on the image, the charismatic politician finally at a loss for words.

"She..." he began, his voice a rough, unfamiliar rasp. "It started after the fundraiser at the gallery."

The words hung in the air, each one a small, sharp betrayal. He spoke of her not with shame, but with a strange, almost wistful nostalgia.

"She was so out of her depth, you know? Clumsy. Spilled a glass of champagne on Councilman Davies. I had to smooth it over."

He made it sound like a burden, but I could hear the subtext. He had been her hero, her savior. While I was running the numbers, negotiating with donors, and building his empire, he was basking in the glow of a young woman's simple adoration.

"It was a tough time," he continued, finally looking away from the phone and over my shoulder, as if the past were a more comfortable place to be. "The press was hammering us on the zoning variance. You were... tense."

The way he said the word 'tense' was an accusation.

"She would just sit with me. After everyone left. Not even talking, just... being there."

The air conditioner kicked on, and a blast of cold air washed over me. I wrapped my arms around myself, but the chill was coming from within. Harman walked over to the bar cart and lit a cigarette, a habit he only indulged in when he felt the walls closing in. The smoke curled around his head, a hazy shield.

"She' s not like you, April," he said, the words partially obscured by a plume of grey smoke. "She' s not... complicated."

He took another drag, the tip of the cigarette glowing like a malevolent eye in the dimming light.

"She's simple. She' s like... sunlight. She doesn' t question everything. She doesn' t have these... moods."

There it was. The blame, expertly shifted from his shoulders to mine. My grief over my brother, my anxiety, the emotional toll of the life I had built for him-it was all re-packaged as "moods." As a burden.

"I' m under so much pressure," he said, his voice taking on a weary, self-pitying tone. "This campaign, the city council, the constant scrutiny. It' s a crushing weight, April."

He looked at me then, his eyes pleading for an understanding I was no longer capable of giving. "And I come home, and you' re always wound so tight. It' s like adding another hundred pounds to my back."

He slumped into an armchair, the very picture of a man wronged by the world, by his own ambition, by his difficult wife. I watched him, my heart a dead, heavy stone in my chest. The man I had loved, the man I had created, was a stranger.

"So, you want a divorce?" The question slipped out, flat and devoid of emotion.

His head snapped up, his eyes wide with something that looked like alarm. "No! God, no, April. That' s not what I want."

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, the cigarette dangling from his fingers. "Don't you see? She's just... an escape. A place I can go to breathe, so I can come back here. So I can keep being the man you need me to be."

He looked at me, his expression earnest, as if he had just presented the most logical, reasonable explanation in the world.

"I need her," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "so that I can keep loving you."

The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the statement hit me like a physical blow. A choked, hysterical laugh escaped my lips. "So I should thank you? I should thank this girl for fucking my husband so he can tolerate coming home to me?"

"Don't be crude," he snapped, his patience finally breaking. He stood up, pacing in front of the window. "I' ve been patient with you, April. For years. Patient with your grief, your meltdowns."

He turned to face me, his face a mask of disgust. "You have no idea how ugly you are when you lose control. This. This is what I' m talking about."

He gestured vaguely at my face, at the tears I hadn' t realized were streaming down my cheeks. "This is why I can't breathe."

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