"Hold still, Mrs. Brennan. Last layer."

Dr. Okafor's fingers moved near my temple. The gauze peeled away, strip by strip, and cool air touched skin that hadn't felt light in six weeks.

Six weeks since the crash.

Six weeks of nothing but black.

"Keep your eyes closed until I say so," he warned. "The light will sting."

"I don't care if it stings." My voice came out thin and eager. "Is he here? Is Liam here?"

A pause. Somewhere to my left, a chair creaked.

"Your husband is in the room," the doctor said.

I bit my lip to keep from grinning like an idiot. All those nights, I'd pictured this moment. Liam's face. His crooked smile. The tiny scar on his chin from a college hockey game.

The first thing I would see in this new life would be him.

"Okay, Wren. Slowly now. Open."

I opened.

White. Then gold. Then a blur of shapes swimming in a haze, like looking up from the bottom of a pool. I blinked hard, and tears ran down my cheeks.

"That's normal," Dr. Okafor murmured. "Give it a second."

The haze sharpened. A face took form, close to mine.

Dark hair. Gray eyes. A jaw shadowed with stubble, as if he hadn't slept in days.

Not Liam.

"Jasper?"

Jasper Cole. My husband's best friend since they were nine years old. The man who stood beside Liam at our wedding and barely said ten words to me all night.

He swallowed. "Hey, Wren. Can you see me?"

"I—yes." Something hollow opened under my ribs. "Where's Liam?"

Jasper didn't answer.

He didn't have to. His shoulders shifted, and over them, I saw the window.

Floor-to-ceiling glass. Late afternoon sun.

And my husband, pressed against it, his hand buried in a woman's red hair. Kissing her like he was starving.

I knew that hair. I'd braided it at sleepovers when we were twelve.

Chloe Marsh. My best friend.

The heart monitor beside me jumped. Beep. Beep-beep-beep.

The sound broke them apart.

Chloe stumbled back first, wiping her mouth with the heel of her hand. Liam turned. For one second, his face was naked, guilty, scared.

Then it closed like a door.

"Wren!" He crossed the room in three long strides. "Baby, you can see? Oh my God, you can see!"

He reached for my hand. I watched his fingers wrap around mine, and I felt nothing. No warmth. Just skin.

"What was that?" I asked.

"What was what?"

"Liam."

He laughed. Actually laughed. "Okay, I know how that looked. Chloe was crying. She's been a wreck about you for weeks. I was just—comforting her. It got weird for a second. Emotions were high. That's all."

"Comforting her," I repeated.

"Wren, honey." Chloe hovered behind him, twisting the strap of her purse. Her lipstick was smeared at one corner. "It's not what you think. I swear. We were both so scared you'd never—"

"Never see again," I said.

She flinched.

Dr. Okafor cleared his throat. "I'll give you all a few minutes. Mrs. Brennan, call the nurse if your eyes start to ache." He left fast, the way people leave a house that's about to catch fire.

The door clicked shut.

Liam squeezed my hand tighter. "Look at me. Please. Do you really think I'd do that to you? After everything?"

After everything.

The words dragged me backward.

The first night after the accident, when I woke up screaming and couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. A hand found mine in the dark. Steady. Warm. A voice, low and rough from exhaustion: "I'm here. You're okay. Breathe with me."

The nights after that. Someone reading to me when the pain meds wore off. Someone cutting my food into small pieces so I wouldn't have to ask. Someone humming an old song under his breath until I fell asleep.

Liam. It had to be Liam.

I'd held onto that voice like a rope over a cliff.

"Wren?" Liam's thumb stroked my knuckles. "Say something."

I stared at his face. The face I'd been dying to see.

He looked tired. But it was the wrong kind of tired. Not the kind from sitting by a hospital bed. The kind from late nights somewhere else.

Something hot and ugly rose in my throat. I wanted to rip the IV out of my arm and throw the water pitcher at his head. I wanted to scream at Chloe until the windows cracked.

Instead, I smiled.

"I'm just tired," I said. "My head hurts."

Liam's whole body loosened. "Of course it does. God, of course. You've been through hell."

"Yeah," I said. "I have."

Chloe stepped closer, her eyes shiny. "Can I hug you? I've missed you so much."

I let her. Her perfume filled my nose, sweet vanilla. The same perfume that clung to Liam's collar.

"I missed you too," I whispered into her shoulder.

She pulled back, beaming with relief. Liam kissed my forehead. His lips were dry.

"I'll grab you some real food," he said. "None of that hospital Jell-O. Chloe, come help me carry stuff."

"Sure!" Chloe grabbed her coat a little too fast.

At the door, Liam glanced back. "Love you, babe."

"Love you," I answered.

The door swung closed behind them.

The silence afterward was so loud my ears rang.

My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the blanket and stared at the ceiling until the tiles blurred again. Not from the surgery this time.

"You're not tired."

I turned my head.

Jasper hadn't moved. He stood at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed, his gray eyes fixed on me. I'd forgotten he was there.

"Excuse me?"

"You're not tired," he said quietly. "You're furious. Why didn't you say anything?"

"What was I supposed to say?" My voice cracked down the middle. "Congratulations? I hope you two are very happy?"

"The truth."

"The truth is that I've been blind for six weeks, Jasper. I have no job right now, no car, and the man who sat with me every single night while I fell apart just had his tongue down my best friend's throat." I laughed, and it came out wrong, too high. "So forgive me if I need a minute to figure out my next move."

His jaw went tight.

"Every single night," he echoed.

"Yes. Every night." I wiped my face with the back of my wrist. "He held my hand. He read to me. He hummed that stupid song until I slept. I know it sounds pathetic, but that was the only thing that kept me sane in here."

Jasper looked away. Out the window, at the exact spot where Liam had kissed her.

"Wren," he started.

Then he stopped.

"What?"

He opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat moved like he was swallowing something sharp.

"Nothing," he said finally. "Get some rest."

He picked up his jacket from the chair beside my bed. The chair that had creaked when the doctor said my husband was in the room.

As he leaned past me to grab it, I caught his scent.

Cedar soap. Clean and faint.

My heart stopped cold.

Because Liam had always worn expensive cologne, the sharp citrus kind.

But every night in the dark, the hand that held mine had smelled exactly like cedar.

"Welcome home, babe."

Liam pushed the front door open with his hip and waved me inside like a game show host. The house smelled like lemon cleaner and fresh paint.

"You painted?" I asked.

"The hallway. Thought you'd want something bright to look at." He grinned. "Surprise."

The hallway used to be soft gray. Now it was yellow. Loud, sunny yellow.

Chloe's favorite color.

"It's great," I said.

He kissed my cheek and carried my bag upstairs, whistling. Off-key. Liam had always been tone-deaf. At our wedding, the DJ had begged him to stop singing along.

I filed that away and followed him up.

---

For the first week, I played the perfect wife.

I made coffee. I laughed at his jokes. I asked about work. Liam stayed home for exactly three nights. On the fourth, he loosened his tie at dinner and checked his phone under the table.

"Client thing tonight," he said. "Might run late."

"How late?"

"Don't wait up." He was already standing. "You need your rest, right?"

"Right."

He came back at two in the morning. I lay still, eyes shut, while he slid into bed. Vanilla rolled off his shirt in a sweet, heavy cloud.

The next night, it was a "team dinner." The night after, "drinks with the guys."

Every time, vanilla.

---

Chloe started dropping by in the afternoons.

"I brought muffins!" She breezed into the kitchen on Thursday without knocking. She'd stopped knocking somewhere in the second week. "Blueberry. Your favorite."

"Lemon is my favorite."

"Oh." Her smile wobbled. "Since when?"

"Since always, Chlo."

"Huh. I could've sworn—" She set the box down and glanced toward the stairs. "Is Liam around?"

"He's at work."

"Right. Of course." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "I just meant, you know, so he could have some too."

"He hates blueberries."

"No, he doesn't." The words left her mouth fast. Then her face went pink. "I mean—doesn't everyone like blueberries?"

I picked up a muffin and took a slow bite. "Apparently."

She left twenty minutes later. Her coffee mug sat on the counter with a red lipstick print on the rim. I washed it twice and still felt it on my fingers.

---

At night, I couldn't sleep. So I went back to the dark.

I lay in bed and walked through every hospital night I could remember. And the more I walked, the more things didn't fit.

The hand that held mine had calluses on the palm. Rough ridges at the base of the fingers.

Liam's hands were smooth. He got manicures. He joked about it.

The voice had read to me. Long chapters. A mystery novel with a detective named Harrow.

Liam hadn't finished a book since college. He said reading out loud made him feel like a kindergarten teacher.

And the song. That low, soft hum. Perfectly in tune.

My stomach turned over.

"Liam?" I whispered on Saturday morning. He was scrolling through his phone beside me. "Can I ask you something?"

"Mm."

"That song you hummed to me. In the hospital. What was it called?"

His thumb froze on the screen.

"What song?"

"The one you hummed every night. To help me sleep."

He set the phone down. Smiled. "Babe, I hummed a lot of stuff. I was half-dead from no sleep."

"Hum it now."

"What?"

"Just a few notes. I want to hear it."

He laughed, but it came out short and sharp. "You know I can't carry a tune to save my life."

"You did in the hospital."

The room went quiet.

"Wren." He sat up and rubbed his face. "You were on a ton of meds. Half the time you didn't know what day it was. Maybe you dreamed some of it."

"Maybe," I said.

He kissed my shoulder and got out of bed. In the bathroom, the water ran for a long time.

I stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks.

I did not dream the calluses.

---

Jasper came by on Sunday.

He stood on the porch holding a paper bag and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. His knuckles were white on the handle.

"Hey," he said. "I was in the area."

"You live forty minutes away."

He studied his shoes. "Big area."

I almost laughed. I stepped aside. "Come in."

He set the bag on the kitchen counter. Inside were lemon muffins. Not blueberry. Lemon.

I stared at them for a long second.

"How did you know?"

He shrugged, but his ears turned red. "Lucky guess."

"Nobody guesses lemon."

"Wren." He rubbed the back of his neck. "How are your eyes?"

"Fine. Changing the subject is very smooth, by the way."

His mouth twitched. Then it went flat again. "Is he treating you okay?"

"He paints hallways Chloe's favorite color and comes home smelling like her shampoo. So, sure. Five stars."

Jasper's hand curled into a fist on the counter. He looked out the window. "You should leave him."

"And go where?"

He didn't answer.

I poured him coffee. He took it without sugar. I noticed his hands as he lifted the mug. Broad. Scarred across the knuckles.

Calluses on the palms.

My heart started to pound. "Do you work with your hands, Jasper?"

He set the mug down too fast. Coffee sloshed over the rim. "I build boats. On weekends. You know that."

"I didn't know that."

"Liam never mentioned it?"

"Liam never mentions you at all."

That landed somewhere. His jaw shifted, side to side, like he was grinding the words down before they got out.

"Jasper," I said quietly. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

He looked at me. Really looked, for the first time since he walked in. His gray eyes were raw, red at the edges. Like he hadn't slept either.

"Wren, I—"

His phone buzzed on the counter. The screen lit up.

Liam.

He stared at it. He didn't pick up. He didn't move at all.

"Answer it," I said.

"No." He shoved the phone into his pocket and grabbed his jacket. "I should go."

"You just got here."

"I know." At the door he stopped, one hand on the frame, his back to me. His shoulders rose and fell. "Eat the muffins, okay? You're too thin."

"Jasper."

"Bye, Wren."

The door shut behind him.

I stood in the yellow hallway and listened to his footsteps on the gravel. Slow. Heavy.

Then, faint through the glass, something else.

A low hum. Soft. Perfectly in tune.

The song from the dark.

The song followed me to bed that night.

I lay next to Liam and listened to him snore. Off-key, even in his sleep.

By morning, I'd made up my mind. Nobody was going to hand me the truth. I'd have to go get it myself.

---

"Babe, have you seen my hand cream?"

Liam stood at the bathroom sink, holding up an empty tube. Citrus and sandalwood. Forty dollars a bottle. He'd been using the same brand since we met.

"Under the sink," I said.

He crouched, found it, and rubbed a dot between his palms. The sharp orange smell filled the room.

In the hospital, the hands that held mine had smelled like oatmeal. Plain. Cheap. The kind of drugstore cream you buy for cracked skin, not for show.

"Did you ever switch brands?" I asked. "While I was in the hospital?"

He laughed into the mirror. "Why would I switch? This stuff is perfect."

"No reason."

I leaned on the doorframe and watched him knot his tie. "Do you remember the night I told you about Grandma June?"

His fingers paused on the silk. "Grandma June?"

"The night I couldn't stop crying. I told you I never visited her at the end. That I was too scared to see her sick. I said I'd never forgiven myself."

He met my eyes in the mirror. Something flickered there. Then he smiled.

"Sure. Yeah. Of course I remember."

"What did you say back?"

"Wren, it's seven in the morning."

"What did you say back, Liam?"

He turned around. His smile stayed, but his eyes went flat. "I said it wasn't your fault. Isn't that what anyone would say?"

It wasn't what the voice had said.

The voice had said, *Fear isn't the same thing as not loving someone. She knew. Trust me, she knew.* Then it told me about the father who'd died while the boy was away at summer camp. How he still dreamed about the phone ringing.

Liam's father was alive. He lived in Arizona and golfed four days a week.

"Right," I said. "That's what you said."

He kissed my forehead on his way out. The citrus burned my nose.

---

St. Augustine's records office sat on the basement level, next to the laundry. The clerk had glasses on a beaded chain and a name tag that said DOLORES.

"Visitor logs for the fourth floor," I said. "Room 412. The six weeks I was a patient."

She typed. Frowned. Typed again.

"Mrs. Brennan, there's a note on your file."

"What kind of note?"

"Your husband called this morning." She turned the screen so I couldn't see it. "He asked that no records be released without his written consent. He said you've been experiencing some confusion after your surgery."

My face went hot. "I'm the patient. I don't need his consent."

"Technically, no." Dolores folded her hands. "But he said you might come in. And he said if you did, I should call him."

"Did you?"

She looked at the phone on her desk. Then back at me. "Not yet."

"Please don't."

"Honey, I've worked here twenty-two years. I know what a man sounds like when he's scared." She lowered her voice. "Visitor logs are paper on the fourth floor. Ask for the night charge nurse. Tessa. She'll be on in an hour."

---

I waited in the cafeteria and drank coffee I didn't taste.

My phone buzzed at 6:40. *Liam*.

"Hey, babe. Where are you?"

"Out."

"Out where? I came home early. Thought we could get dinner."

"You never come home early."

A pause. Too long. "I'm trying to be better. Isn't that what you want?"

"I'm at the pharmacy," I said.

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?"

"I'll pick you up."

"I'll take a cab."

I hung up before he could answer. My hands were wet around the cup.

---

Tessa was small and fast, with silver hoops and a voice like gravel. She recognized me before I said a word.

"Room 412!" She grabbed both my hands. "Look at you. Eyes open. Does it feel strange, seeing everything?"

"Very." I swallowed. "Tessa, I need to know who sat with me at night."

Her face changed. Just a little. "Why are you asking me that?"

"Because my husband says it was him."

She pulled me behind the nurses' station and opened a binder thick with signatures. Her finger slid down the pages.

"Visiting hours end at eight," she said. "After that, family has to sign in at this desk."

I leaned over the binder. Day after day of names. *L. Brennan, 2:15 p.m. L. Brennan, 3:40 p.m.* Short visits. Twenty minutes. Thirty.

Then the night lines. Every single night, the same handwriting. Small. Square. Pressed so hard it dented the paper.

Just one letter. *J.*

"Who is J?" I asked.

"Wren!"

I spun around.

Liam was striding down the hallway, still in his suit. His hair was messy, like he'd been shoving his hands through it.

"Dolores called you," I said.

"Of course she called me. You told me you were at a pharmacy." He grabbed my elbow. Not hard. Not gentle either. "What are you doing?"

"Checking the logs."

"Why?"

"Because you only signed in during the day, Liam."

He glanced at the binder. Then at Tessa. Then back at me. When he spoke, his voice was smooth again.

"The night entrance doesn't log anyone. I came in through the ER side so I wouldn't wake the whole floor. Right?" He turned to Tessa. "Right?"

Tessa crossed her arms. "There's no night entrance to this floor, Mr. Brennan."

His grip on my elbow tightened.

"Okay. Fine. Sometimes I signed my initial wrong. I was exhausted. *J*, *L*, whatever, I was half-asleep." He tugged me toward the elevator. "Babe, come on. This is embarrassing. You're upset, you're not thinking straight—"

"Stop saying I'm confused." I yanked my arm free. "I'm not confused. I remember everything."

"You remember a fantasy."

"I remember calluses, Liam."

He stared at me. His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

His phone rang in his pocket. He checked the screen, and his whole face shifted. Softer. Guiltier.

I didn't need to see the name. I knew.

"I have to take this." He stepped back toward the elevator. "Stay here. Don't move. We're going home together."

He turned away and lowered his voice. "Hey. No, I'm with her. I know. I know. Give me ten minutes."

I watched his back. The suit I'd picked out for him. The shoulders I used to lean on.

Somewhere inside me, something cracked all the way through.

Tessa touched my arm. When I looked at her, her eyes were wet.

"I wasn't sure I should say anything," she whispered. "You were so out of it. And he made me promise."

"Who made you promise?"

She glanced at Liam, still murmuring into his phone. Then she leaned close.

"Honey, the man who sat with you every night never once said he was your husband."