“Thank you,” she said evenly. “It’s delicious.” 00
He left for the kitchen whistling something cheerful, and Kiana remained sitting there, staring out the bedroom window at the gray apartment buildings and the faint outline of downtown in the distance.
Outside, a fine October drizzle was falling—gray and tiresome, just like the anxiety growing in her chest.
At work that day in the small construction company’s accounting office on the edge of their midwestern city, she tried to focus on the numbers.
Accounting had always been a refuge for people who didn’t want to think too much about life. Columns, spreadsheets, reconciliation reports—the main thing was not to get distracted.
But her thoughts kept buzzing around her head like persistent flies.
Darius was acting strange.
Not just strange—suspicious.
He’d become overly attentive, overly caring in ways that felt completely unnatural.
It was more unsettling than if he’d simply been rude or hostile.
On Friday, he bought her flowers—a big bouquet of white and yellow blooms wrapped in crinkly cellophane, supposedly “just because.”
Kiana took the bouquet, thanked him politely, and went to find a vase in the kitchen cabinet.
Her hands were shaking slightly.
In their five years of marriage, Darius had only bought her flowers twice—once on her birthday and occasionally on Mother’s Day, though even that had been inconsistent at best.
“Do you like them?” he asked, peeking into the kitchen.
“Very much,” she replied, trimming the stems carefully with scissors. “They’re beautiful.”
He stood in the doorway with his hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets, looking at her as if he wanted to say something important, but he didn’t.
He just nodded and walked into the living room.
Kiana set the vase on the windowsill and wiped her damp hands on a dish towel.
Something was brewing. She felt it in her skin, her nerves, that ancient female instinct that never lied.
By evening, Darius started asking questions.
They were sitting in the small eat-in kitchen. She was warming up leftover dinner while he scrolled mindlessly on his phone.
Suddenly, without looking up from the screen, he said casually, “Hey, how much have you saved up for the renovation?”
Kiana froze with the ladle suspended in her hand.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. You wanted to redo the kitchen, right? Do you have enough money for it?”
She slowly ladled soup into their bowls, taking her time.
“Yes. I have enough.”
“You sure? Maybe it’s better to save a little more. Don’t rush into it.”
