The knock comes at midnight. Not the soft tap of someone who's uncertain, or the sharp rap of someone who's angry. This is the sound of someone collapsing against wood, a body hitting the door hard enough that I hear it from the kitchen where I'm standing with my phone in one hand and Ryan's last text message burning holes in my eyes. *Still at the hospital. Don't wait up.* The third night this week. I set the phone down and move through the dark living room, my bare feet silent on the hardwood. Through the frosted glass panel beside the door, I can make out a shape—someone slumped against the frame, one arm braced like they're trying to stay upright. My hand freezes on the deadbolt. We live on a quiet street in a neighborhood where people lock their doors and mind their business. Nobody just shows up at midnight. Nobody except— I unlock the door and pull it open. Elliot Thorne falls forward into my hallway. I catch him on instinct, my hands finding his shoulders, and for a moment I'm twenty-three again and he's stumbling into my college apartment after a shift at the bar, laughing about something stupid one of the regulars said. But that was eight years ago, and the man I'm holding now isn't laughing. His face is a mess of bruises, one eye swollen completely shut, the other barely open. There's dried blood at his temple and fresh blood seeping through a bandage wrapped around his head. He's wearing a hospital gown under a jacket that isn't his—too big, borrowed, wrong. "Natalie." His voice comes out cracked, desperate. "I didn't know where else to go." I should ask what happened. I should ask why he's here, at my house, when we haven't spoken in three years. I should ask a lot of things. Instead I loop his arm over my shoulders and half-drag him inside, kicking the door shut behind us. "Can you see?" I ask. "Barely." He leans heavily against me, his weight familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. "Car accident. They said—temporary, maybe permanent, they don't know yet. Released me tonight but I can't—I couldn't go back to my place alone." I guide him toward the stairs, moving slowly. His feet find each step like he's learning to walk again. The guest bathroom is on the second floor, far enough from the master bedroom that Ryan won't hear us if he comes home early. If he comes home at all. "Sit," I tell Elliot, lowering him onto the closed toilet lid. He slumps forward, elbows on his knees, breathing hard. I kneel in front of the cabinet under the sink and pull out the first aid kit—the good one, the one I bought after Ryan started coming home with scraped knuckles he wouldn't explain. When I turn back, Elliot is looking at me with his one functional eye. Even half-blind and beaten, he sees too much. "You're wearing your ring," he says quietly. I am. White gold band, small diamond, the ring Ryan slid onto my finger four years ago in a ceremony where Elliot's name was never mentioned and his absence was a presence all its own. "Of course I am." "He doesn't deserve you." I wet a clean cloth and press it to the cut above his eyebrow, maybe harder than necessary. Elliot winces but doesn't pull away. "You don't get to say that to me," I tell him. "Not anymore. Not after—" The front door opens downstairs. I freeze, cloth still pressed to Elliot's face, my heart slamming against my ribs. Ryan's footsteps move through the entryway, slow and deliberate. He's home early. He's never home early. "Natalie?" His voice carries up the stairs, and there's something in it I don't recognize. Not anger. Not concern. Something else. I pull back from Elliot and stand, moving to the bathroom doorway. From here I can see down the stairs to where Ryan stands in the foyer, still wearing his jacket. He's looking up at me, and his expression is— Wrong. Everything about it is wrong. "We need to talk," Ryan says. Behind him, the guest house door opens. Sophia steps out—Sophia, the fragile woman my husband moved into our property three months ago, the one who needed medical care, the one I've been bringing meals to like some kind of fool. She moves to Ryan's side and places her hand on his arm with the casual intimacy of someone who has every right to touch him. Ryan doesn't move away. "I should have told you sooner," he says, and his eyes are still on mine, steady and unapologetic. "Sophia isn't just someone I'm helping. She was my first girlfriend. The one before you, before everything. I made her a promise a long time ago that I'd always protect her." The cloth drops from my hand. "And I'm keeping it," Ryan finishes.