I sold the house Adrian and I shared.
I could not stand the kitchen.
Every glass reminded me of the drinks he prepared.
Every bottle in the bathroom made me suspicious.
So I left.
Bought a smaller place outside Bellmere.
Wide windows.
Nothing luxurious.
No history inside the walls.
For months, I avoided Evermere River entirely.
Then, one year after the crash, Noah asked me to drive with him.
We returned to the service road.
The guardrail had been replaced.
Mud covered the old tire marks.
Cars passed without knowing anything important had happened there.
We walked down toward the bank.
Noah carried flowers for Mom and Dad.
I stood where Vanessa once waited for me to disappear.
“I keep thinking I should have known.”
“About Adrian?”
“All of it.”
Noah shook his head.
“You trusted your husband.”
“He tried to kill me.”
“That makes him dangerous.”
“It doesn’t make you stupid.”
“I signed papers without reading everything.”
“That was stupid.”
I stared at him.
He smiled.
“You want honesty.”
“Apparently.”
Then his expression softened.
“But loving him wasn’t evidence against you.”
“Trusting Vanessa wasn’t evidence against you.”
“People lied.”
“That belongs to them.”
I looked at the water.
For months I had treated my own kindness like part of the crime.
As if being deceived meant I had helped deceive myself.
Maybe Noah was right.
We threw the flowers into Evermere River.
They drifted downstream.
I watched until I could no longer distinguish them from the light on the water.
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