Page 56 of What He Doesn't Know

No, it was my place to be her friend, to bring her happiness in any way I could.

So, that’s what I vowed to do. I would be her friend, herbestfriend, and I would sit back and let her see what it could be like to be heard again, to be loved again — the way she deserved to be.

I inhaled a long drag from my cigarette, watching the smoke filter from my mouth and out the sliding glass door.

I wished I could leave her alone. I wished I cared that she was married.

But after just one night with Cameron, there was no use pretending.

I simply didn’t care.

I wanted her, and it was clear to me that Cameron didn’t — not anymore. I didn’t know how long it would take before Charlie would wake up, before she’d see she deserved more, but I knew it didn’t matter.

I would wait for her.

I would wait forever.

Charlie

That Sunday, I woke to the sound of Jane and Edward tittering in their cage. And I should have known then that it would be a bad day.

It wasn’t that my Budgies getting anxious for me to take their cover off and welcome a new day was out of the ordinary, but on that Sunday morning, they weren’t supposed to be what woke me up. I shouldn’t have stirred to the morning sun warming the bed too much, causing me to kick the covers back and peel off my socks. Jane and Edward should have been woken up bymethat morning, not the other way around.

It was our eight-year wedding anniversary, and that meant I should have been woken up by the smell of cinnamon.

I rubbed my eyes with warm hands, letting my feet drop down over the edge of the bed. A yawn broke through me as I checked the time on the alarm clock right next to my favorite framed wedding photo of me and Cameron.

It was just past nine.

Jane and Edward were even more excited now that they heard me moving. I whistled along with their chirps as I padded over to pull their cover off, and as soon as it was gone, Jane sprang to life. She hopped from swing to swing inside the cage, feathers a blur as she chirped her good morning. Edward looked like he was as sleepy as I was.

“Good morning, my lovelies,” I sang. Their food and water was still good from the day before, though their cage needed a cleaning. I mentally added it to my to-do list for the week. Once they were both bathing in the morning sun, I inhaled a deep breath, wondering if I’d somehow missed it before.

But still, no cinnamon.

Well, it is still early. Maybe he’s just getting started,I thought, as I wrapped myself in a robe and made my way down the hall. I didn’t spot Cameron in the kitchen as I crossed over the bridge, my hand trailing the wooden rail, and he was still out of sight by the time my feet hit the bottom stair.

I checked his study first, but it was empty, and the house was suddenly entirely too quiet. Every step of my bare feet on the hardwood floors seemed to echo, every breath felt too loud. Desperate to break the silence, I flipped on the stereo in the kitchen as I entered, finding a little bit of ease as Adele slowly crooned in through the speakers.

A pot of coffee was already made, though it’d gone cold, and there was a note written on a torn off piece of notebook paper beside it.

Client called this morning — emergency with a litigation case. Ran into the office to work through it. Didn’t want to wake you. Be back for dinner. Love you.

I stared so long at Cameron’s neat handwriting on that torn off sheet of paper, the letters blurred together. Soon, the words didn’t make sense anymore — not that they had in the first place. Before I realized it, I was standing in front of the calendar hanging on our refrigerator, and I triple checked the date. I must have been wrong. I must have had the days mixed up.

But I wasn’t, and I didn’t.

It was February twenty-second.

Eight years ago today, Cameron and I were married in a small church in Pittsburgh — the same one my parents had been married at decades before. Every year on this day since then, Cameron had woken me up with one of two things: cinnamon pancakes — my favorite breakfast — or his face between my thighs —hisfavorite breakfast, as he’d always playfully reminded me.

An anchor dropped in my stomach as it dawned on me.

He forgot.

It had to be the only explanation. After all, he wouldn’t have run into the office on our wedding anniversary. He would have called someone else who could handle it — there were plenty of people there who could. And he wouldn’t have just suddenly, out of nowhere, broken a tradition he started with such excitement and love only eight years ago. Would he?

I paused.