Page 141 of Say My Name

“I know.”

“Are you angry?”

Anger would give her something to defend herself against. It would let her use my anger as proof that wanting a man always ends with him demanding a price.

I won’t give her that lie.

“No,” I say. “I’m not angry.”

The answer devastates her. I see it in the way her shoulders drop and her careful control finally breaks across her face.

I open the door.

“The deal is done.”

CHAPTER 19

Elena

The worst part is Dominic leaving without getting angry.

Anger would give me something to push against. If he’d raised his voice or slammed the door, I could call him unreasonable. Impatient. A man who agreed to one thing and decided seven months later that I owed him another.

He does none of that.

He tells me he understands. Then he says the deal is done and walks out.

I stand in my entryway long after the elevator carries him away, replaying the last few minutes, hunting for the exact moment I could have rewritten the ending.

The dining room looks exactly as it did when he was here. His water glass sits beside mine. The laptop is closed between our chairs, hiding the spreadsheet that started the argument. In the kitchen, the dishwasher remains half-loaded because Dominic never finished proving he knows where my plates belong.

I grab my phone from the counter and open our messages.

Come back.

I type it, stare at the words, then delete them.

I’m sorry.

Delete.

You were right.

My thumb hovers over the send button, but that isn’t enough either.

Dominic didn’t leave because he wanted to win an argument. He left because I showed him a future where he gets a custody schedule instead of a place beside me, then defended it with terms we wrote before I wanted him enough to lie about ovulating. Before seven months of dinners, appointments, and waking up in his arms.

I knew what he was asking tonight.

He asked where we existed in my future, and I answered as though he were challenging a contract instead of asking me to choose him.

I return to the table and open the laptop.

The spreadsheet fills the screen. Two addresses. Separate nurseries. Proposed schedules broken into stages and contingencies.

Every practical detail is handled.

I never made a column for what happens when Dominic stays for dinner because I want him there. I didn’t account for his clothes in my closet, his food in my refrigerator, or the fact that my condo has felt more like ours every week.