Chapter 2

Julian didn't get home until two in the morning.

I sat in the single armchair in the living room without turning on the lights. I watched him kick off his damp shoes, open the heavy soundproof door of the guest room, and then freeze completely.

That thick steel chain sat in the center of his pure white pillow like a dead snake, pinning the cold note beneath it.

With his back to me, his shoulder muscles tensed instantly. He didn't move for a full five seconds.

Having worked as a professional foley artist for seven years, I had a pathological sensitivity to time, frequency, and rhythm.

From the moment he pushed open the door and saw the note, to the moment he took a deep breath and turned around, exactly forty-seven seconds passed.

When he finally faced me, his face was already wearing that familiar, long-suffering expression of helpless tolerance.

"Chloe, you've got it all wrong."

He walked over, crumpling the note in his palm. His voice carried a trace of exhaustion, as if he was tired of being misunderstood.

"My PTSD is real. I’ve been relying on heavy meds to suppress it these past few years. That chain is just a spare. I broke the old one during a violent episode a while ago. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you living in constant fear."

"Where is the old one?" I stared into his eyes.

He hesitated for half a second. His gaze naturally drifted down to the heavy plaster cast on my left leg.

"I threw it away. It was covered in blood. I didn't want to scare you."

Half a second isn't long.

But in my audio editing room, when we determine if an audio track has been digitally manipulated, we look for exactly that half-second delay.

"What about the night I was sweating from pain in the hospital with a broken leg?" I asked.

"Her brother Marcus died in that car crash to save my life. She’s all alone in this world now."

He walked over and knelt in front of me, reaching out to touch my leg. I pulled it back, so he let his hand rest on the armrest of the sofa instead.

"Elena has severe claustrophobia and nyctophobia. The power went out in her apartment building that night, and she had a complete panic attack. I promised Marcus I’d look after her. I couldn't just leave her to suffer."

"So you sat in the hospital chair next to my bed, wore your headphones, and whispered sweet nothings to her all night."

"I was just so tired." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his voice raspy with fatigue. "The company has been fighting for a massive tech contract lately.

I've been working fifteen-hour days for two weeks straight. You know that. I only wore the headphones because I was afraid of waking you up."

As he spoke, he naturally pulled a throw blanket from the sofa and draped it over my legs. The gesture was so practiced, so smooth, as if we were truly a devoted, loving couple who shared everything.

It was as if the heavy steel chain on his pillow was just a product of my unreasonable, dramatic jealousy.

I had cut the rusty padlock with a pair of hydraulic bolt cutters. The freshly cut metal gleamed sharply in the dim light.

His eyes swept over the severed lock, but he said nothing. He didn't even mention replacing it.

He wasn't worried I'd cut it again.

He was entirely confident that once I threw my little tantrum, the heavy moral guilt of his "savior's sister" would crush me into silence, and I wouldn't dare push any further.

That absolute confidence made me feel colder than the steel chain itself.

That night, I lay awake in the master bedroom, staring at the ceiling. I replayed every single one of the past 1,800 days of our marriage in my head.

Every night, he would shower at exactly 10:30 PM, enter the guest room at 10:50 PM, and the heavy soundproof door would shut with a dull thud, separating our worlds.

Sometimes when I got up to drink water in the middle of the night and passed his room, I could feel a very slight vibration on the doorframe.

I used to think those were the sounds of him thrashing against the wall in his nightmares.

During our second year of marriage, I had severe gastroenteritis, vomiting and purging until I went into hypovolemic shock.

He visited me at the hospital during the day, but at exactly 10:20 PM, he stood up anxiously, saying he had to go home.

His excuse was the same: he was terrified an episode would hit him in the hospital, causing him to wreck the ward and hurt me.

The other patients in my ward praised him for being so responsible. They said he was a good, disciplined husband who would rather suffer alone at home than put his wife at risk.

At the time, I even defended him, telling them his PTSD was a deep psychological wound from a decade ago that was hard to heal.

Now that I think about it, he healed remarkably well.

Over the past five years, his night terrors had never once flared up on the nights Elena needed him.

At 3:00 AM, I grabbed my crutches and knocked on the guest room door.

"Julian," I said. "My leg hurts too much to sleep. I want to stay with you tonight."

The room fell silent for a few seconds. It was so quiet I could hear the heavy thud of my own heart.

"Chloe, be good. Go back to sleep," his muffled voice came through the thick soundproof door. It was steady, devoid of any panic. "I’m not in a good state tonight. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you."

I pressed my ear against the doorframe.

Inside, there was a very faint, whispered laugh. Because of the heavy soundproofing, I couldn't make out the words, but that rising, teasing pitch was unmistakable.

That laugh was not meant for me.

The next morning, before he left for the office, I went to the laundry room to wash his discarded dress shirt as usual.

A small plastic card slipped out of his pocket.

It was a VIP loyalty card for a high-end boutique bakery. On the back, there was a cartoon bunny, and in the bottom right corner, a hand-written note: "For Elena, who is most afraid of the dark."

I held the card, standing in front of the washing machine for a long time.

Then, I carefully slid it back into his pocket, smoothing out the creased corners exactly as they were before.