Page 18 of Battle Scars

I climb the stairs and knock on the door of her room but get no response. I knock harder but… nothing.

“Adrienne,” I shout. “Open this door right now.”

I hear the water turn off and her soft footfalls before the door flies open.

“What’s going on?” she asks. Her eyes are red like she’s been crying.

Fuck, Manny was right. She was crying because of me.

I’m a dick, for sure, but I don’t know what to do to fix this. Macy was always the one to tell me how I fucked up and what to do to fix it, but she was my wife and this woman is just a client.

“You’ve been in there for over an hour.” I grasp for some reasonable explanation. “I was worried.”

“Well”—she takes a deep breath that makes her full, firm tits defy the bounds of her plush towel—“as you can see, I’m fine.”

“I’m not sure you are.”

“The room at the end of the hall is the guest room,” she says, changing the subject.

“I found it.” I want to reach out to comfort her while she stands here trying to be strong. But she’s still all alone in the world while it’s falling apart around her. That’s not my place.

“I’m sure you’ll be comfortable there.”

“Yeah,” I reply quietly.

“I’ll… uh…” she stammers, her courage flagging. “See you in the morning.”

“All right.”

The door shuts in my face and fuck me if the sight of her tears and lush body doesn’t have my dick harder than it’s been in years. Even worse than that is the way my long dead heart clenches in my chest.

NINE

CHANGE

Adrienne

Sometime after dawn this morning, I stumbled out of bed and found my way down to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Although, I couldn’t be entirely sure that at this juncture coffee would do the trick.

Nevertheless, I tried.

I pour a cup and make my way back upstairs, narrowly missing running into Gabe.

Jesus. He moves like a cat. When I left my room, the door to the guest room was closed. Now, here he is, standing in the hallway and scowling at me.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I didn’t see you.”

“Man my size,” he says, “hard to miss. I’m starting to doubt your self-preservation instincts.”

I look up at him, startled. Is he making a joke? Weird. I didn’t think robots could manage that… although Alexa is pretty funny. The other day she told me a banging knock-knock joke. Also, I realize that it’s weird that my closest relationship is basically a computer and a speaker.

“Sure… uh… yeah,” I ramble, trying to get my words to work. “I’ll get right on that.”

And I swear his lips twitch like he thinks I’m being funny. It’s like I woke up this morning in some alternate timeline. Is this the Mandela effect? Am I going to find out we’ve been spelling the title of bear books wrong for decades and Shaq wasn’t in Space Jam.

“Yeah, babe,” he says. “Best get on that.”

“Uh-huh.” And then I turn on my heel and make my way back to my bedroom to get dressed for the day. The whole way down the hall, I don’t look back because I’m afraid of what I’ll see… like aliens or AI taking over the world one refrigerator at a time. And why do they need wi-fi all of a sudden?