Chapter 10 - The Phone Would Not Stop Lighting Up
I had made it until Tuesday morning without looking.
The guest apartment stayed dim even at ten. I'd pulled the blackout shade down over the sliding door and left my phone face-down on the kitchen counter since Sunday night. The doctor's rest plan gave me a reason to say no to everything. No news, no gala tags, no check-ins. I'd slept in short stretches and eaten toast standing up because sitting at the table felt too permanent.
Then there was a knock. Two soft taps I already knew.
She let herself in with the spare key I'd given her at the hospital. She had a paper grocery bag in one arm and her phone in her hand, and she didn't say good morning the way she usually did. She just looked at me and set the bag on the counter.
"You've been avoiding your phone," she said.
"I've been resting," I said.
She nodded toward my belly. "How are you feeling?"
"Better. Quieter." I rubbed my side where the tightness had eased. "Mason texted last night. I didn't answer."
She didn't push that. She pulled a carton of eggs out of the bag and put it in the fridge, slow, like she was buying time. Then she held up her phone.
"People started sending me their pictures," she said. "From Saturday."
My stomach dropped before my mind caught up. "I don't want to see them."
"I know." She set the phone down but left the screen on. "But you should. Not the public ones. The ones from tables near the dance floor."
I sat down on the couch because my legs felt unsteady. She came and sat beside me, not too close. The apartment smelled like old coffee and the lemon cleaner the building used. Light leaked in around the edges of the shade.
She opened the first photo. The ballroom looked warmer in pictures than it had felt. Chandeliers blurred into gold. In the lower right, Mason's back, his tux jacket pulling at the shoulders. A woman in a dark green dress with her hand on his arm, laughing up at him.
"I don't know her," I said.
"That's Vanessa Hale," she said quietly. "Her husband sits on the foundation board. They tabled near us."
She swiped. Second photo, timestamped 8:47 p.m. in the corner. Same dress, same hand, now on the dance floor. Mason's hand low on her back. Behind them, out of focus, I could see myself. My light gown. My hand on my belly. Standing alone by the marble column.
I stared at that blurred shape of me. "Keep going."
The third photo was from a different angle. Someone had caught them mid-turn. Her head tilted back. His mouth close to her ear like he was telling her something funny. Time stamp 9:12. The fourth was 9:31. Same song set, according to the woman who sent it. She'd written, *They danced three in a row, so cute!*
My breathing went shallow. I put my hand flat against my chest to steady it, and my diamond ring caught the dull light from the shade.
"There's video, too," she said. "Just fifteen seconds. Do you want it?"
I shook my head, then changed my mind. "Yes."
She played it without sound at first. The floor crowded, Mason and Vanessa moving easily together while other couples shifted around them. He didn't look around once. He didn't look toward the column where I'd been.
"Turn the sound on," I said.
She did. Laughter, clinking glasses, the tail end of a slow song and the band leader saying something about the next dance. Nothing unusual. That was what made it worse. It was just a normal gala night for everyone else.
She locked the phone and set it face-down on the coffee table between us. For a minute neither of us spoke. My hands were shaking a little, so I tucked them under my thighs.
"How long?" I asked.
"From what people sent, off and on from eight-thirty to almost ten," she said. "I didn't time every song. But it wasn't one dance, Emily."
I thought about standing by that column with my hand on my belly, watching the chandeliers blur. I thought about saying, *If I ever become someone you don't recognize, leave me.* At the time it had felt like fear talking. Now it felt like I'd seen something clearly before I had proof.
"He knew I was standing there," I said.
She didn't argue. "I think he did."
I picked up her phone again and looked at the 9:31 photo. Vanessa's hand, Mason's posture, the space between them that wasn't really space at all. And me in the back, a pale shape nobody had meant to photograph.
"I wasn't making it up," I said, and my voice cracked on the last word.
"No," she said. "You weren't."
She reached over and covered my hand—not to take the ring, just to hold it still. Her fingers were cool. "What do you want to do with these?"
"Nothing tonight," I said. "I don't want to post anything. I don't want to send them to him and start a fight over text."
She nodded. "Good. Rest first."
I handed the phone back. My chest ached in that tight, tired way the nurse had warned me about, so I leaned back and breathed the way they'd taught me. In for four, out for six. She counted quietly with me until it passed.
"Leave them with me?" I asked.
She hesitated, then forwarded the album to my phone. My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter, lighting up the dim kitchen. Once, then again.
I didn't get up to look yet. I just sat there with the knowledge settling heavy and final: while I had stood alone trying not to cry, he had stayed on that floor. Song after song. That was the timeline. That was what happened.
"Thank you for showing me," I said.
May you like
She stood and started putting the groceries away so I wouldn't have to. I watched her move around the small kitchen, her shimmering gala dress long gone, now just a gray cardigan and slacks. Same worried eyes.
I kept seeing that blurred figure by the column. Me, waiting to be noticed.
