Chapter 2

I sat in the car for twenty minutes before Callum finally came outside.

Through the windshield, I watched him say goodbye to our friends on the front steps. Brielle followed behind him, wearing his coat.

It was the charcoal-gray coat I had given him last Christmas.

She pulled the collar tighter and said something to him. Callum bent his head to listen, his expression gentle. He didn't look remotely shaken by the fact that he had just hurt his wife.

I looked away only when Brielle wrapped her arms around him.

The passenger door opened, letting a gust of cold air into the car. Callum climbed in, carrying the scent of alcohol and Brielle's usual perfume.

"You just walked out?"

He didn't sound worried.

He sounded annoyed.

I started the car. "I assumed you weren't ready to end that dance."

"Here we go again." He leaned back and closed his eyes wearily. "Tessa, it was just a performance."

Neither of us spoke on the drive home.

I suddenly remembered how Callum used to rest his hand on my knee whenever we went to a party. Even when we weren't talking, that small gesture made me feel as though we were still on the same side.

Tonight, he kept his arms folded across his chest.

I didn't turn on the lights when we got home.

The darkness hid our wedding photos. It also hid the faint tracks my endless practicing had left on the living room rug.

I stood in the entryway and said the words I had rehearsed all the way home.

"We're changing instructors."

Callum paused in the middle of taking off his shoes.

"We already paid for the lessons."

"I don't care about the money."

"Brielle is the best instructor there."

I looked at him. "She makes me sit on the sidelines while she practices my anniversary dance with my husband."

"Because you can't keep up."

The moment the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize how cruel they sounded.

But he didn't apologize.

He merely softened his voice and told me I took everything too personally. Dancing required chemistry, he said, and chemistry came with practice.

"Then practice with me."

Callum was silent for several seconds.

"I can't. Not right now."

"Why not?"

He avoided my eyes and set his keys on the console table. "Brielle entered us in the studio's amateur couples competition next month."

For a moment, I thought I had misheard him.

"You and her?"

"It's just a student showcase. She said having a concrete goal would help me improve faster. That way, I'll be a better partner for you at the anniversary party."

He said it as if entering a couples competition with another woman were somehow a gift he was giving his wife.

"So you're competing to the song I chose?"

"We already know the routine. There's no point changing the music now."

I stared at him as the pain in my chest slowly settled into something cold.

Three months ago, "we" had meant Callum and me.

Now he and another woman had entered a competition, chosen my anniversary song, and poured all that supposed effort into a dance together.

I was the last person to know.

Yet the moment I objected, I became the one ruining everything.

"Drop out," I said.

Callum's expression hardened.

"The competition is almost here. I'm not going to throw away months of Brielle's hard work just because you suddenly decided you're upset."

His phone lit up.

I hadn't meant to look, but the picture was right there in front of me. It showed an empty dance studio, the setting sun spilling across the hardwood floor. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary landscape photo.

Then I saw the mirror.

In the reflection, Brielle stood behind Callum with both arms around his waist and her chin resting on his shoulder.

Callum was holding up the phone, a faint smile on his lips.

He had never been photographing the studio.

He had been photographing them.

"Why is that your lock screen?"

Callum picked up his phone and glanced at it. He didn't look remotely nervous.

"It's a good picture."

"So what? Do you make every good picture your lock screen?"

"Dancing involves physical contact." He shoved the phone into his pocket. "If you're going to interrogate me over one photograph, am I supposed to ask your permission before I do anything from now on?"

I listened as he sidestepped my question and turned his secrecy into proof that I was controlling him.

Callum headed upstairs, then stopped halfway.

"I have practice again tomorrow night. Don't wait up."

The bedroom door closed, leaving me alone in the dark.

A little while later, I opened his closet, intending to take out his coat and have it cleaned.

Then I remembered it was still wrapped around Brielle's shoulders.

All she had taken was a coat.

But I could already feel her forcing her way into my life.