At 5:30 a.m., my wife shook me awake so hard my teeth clicked.
I opened my eyes to darkness and her silhouette hovering over me. The bedroom was still night-cold, the kind of cold that sinks into your bones even under a comforter. Outside, rain tapped the window like impatient fingers. Somewhere down the street a dog barked once and then gave up.
Jessica’s face drifted into the sliver of streetlight leaking through the blinds.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her cheeks were wet. She looked like she’d been crying for hours and losing.
“Brandon,” she whispered, and my name sounded like a confession. “Don’t look at your phone today. Just give it to me. Please.”
We’d been married nine years. Nine years of quiet rituals: her bare feet on my calves under the couch blanket, the way she always stole my hoodies and left mascara on the collar, the Sunday pancakes that turned into arguments about whether we should repaint the living room gray or beige. Nine years of her laughing at my dad jokes and me pretending I didn’t like how she tucked her cold hands under my shirt in winter.
I knew her in every version of herself.
Angry.
Happy.
Tired.
But I’d never heard her like this.
This was terror. Pure, raw, animal terror.
“Jess… what are you talking about?” My voice was thick with sleep. I squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand, then at her face again. “It’s not even six.”
She grabbed my wrist. Her nails bit into my skin.
“Brandon, I’m begging you. Just trust me. Give me your phone and don’t turn on your computer today. Don’t check anything. Just one day. Please.”
The desperation in her voice yanked me awake faster than caffeine.
I pushed myself upright and stared at her like she’d stepped out of a nightmare and into our bed.
Her mascara from yesterday was smeared in dark rivers down her cheeks. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when I went to bed around eleven—the cardigan she called her “soft armor,” the black leggings she insisted counted as pants. Her hair was pulled into a messy knot, but loose strands stuck to her wet face.
“Have you been awake all night?”
She didn’t answer. She just kept staring at me, blinking too fast, like she was trying to keep herself from shattering.
“Jessica,” I said, and my throat turned dry. “What the hell is going on?”
Her lips trembled.
“You’re going to hate me by noon,” she whispered.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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