š“ HE SAID IT WAS FOR āWORKā ā WHY IS CARMENāS BRACELET ON HIS NIGHTSTAND?
I laughed and threw his keys on the counter, but it felt hollow, like the sound a dropped seashell makes.
The air in our bedroom is thick with the cloying sweetness of the potpourri my mom gave us, and itās making my stomach churn. I picked up the stupid bracelet, this delicate little gold thing that glinted in the afternoon sun. I know Carmen. We worked together last summer. “It’s nothing,” he’d probably say.
“Did you even notice I got a haircut?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light when he walked in. He didnāt answer, just started unbuttoning his shirt, the familiar snap-snap-snap echoing way too loud in the suddenly silent room. He always looks at me when I get a haircut. Always.
He finally turned, caught my eye, and the words caught in my throat. His eyes are bloodshot, and he smells like cheap whiskey. It’s not like him. He never drinks. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the bracelet in my hand, and his voice cracked.
š Full story continued in the comments…
His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “That?” he repeated, his voice still rough. “Where did you find that?”
I held it up, the small chain glinting. “On your nightstand. Right here.” I tapped the surface. “Funny, isn’t it? Considering it belongs to Carmen. The Carmen I worked with last summer. The Carmen I saw you talking to last week at the coffee shop, when you said you were ‘at work’.” The words tumbled out, sharper than I intended, fueled by the churning in my stomach.
He flinched as if Iād slapped him, looking suddenly paler under the flush of cheap whiskey. He didn’t immediately deny it was hers. He just stood there, running a hand through his already messy hair, avoiding my gaze. The silence stretched, thick and heavy, broken only by the distant drone of traffic outside.
“Okay, look,” he finally started, his voice low. “It’s… it’s not what you think.”
My laugh was bitter this time. “Oh, really? Because right now, it looks an awful lot like you’re lying to me about where you were, smelling of alcohol, and you have another woman’s bracelet on your nightstand. What else am I supposed to think?”
He finally met my eyes, and the pain in them was palpable, eclipsing the exhaustion and the slight haze of drink. “Carmen… she was in trouble,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “Personal trouble. Really bad. She called me. She didn’t know who else to call. It was… chaotic. I had to meet her. I didn’t want you to worry, or… I don’t know. It was stupid. I just said I was working late.”
He stepped closer, reaching a hesitant hand towards me, then dropping it. “That bracelet… it must have come off. I was helping her. Getting her somewhere safe. It was messy, stressful. I had a drink afterward, yeah. A couple. Just to… settle my nerves. I haven’t done that in years, you know that. I didn’t even see when she lost it. I just… found it later, in my pocket, or maybe it was on the floor of the car? I don’t even remember. I got back and must have just put it there and crashed.”
He looked utterly miserable, his usual composed self replaced by this strained, anxious stranger. He didn’t plead or make excuses beyond the initial rush of explanation. He just stood there, letting the weight of his words hang in the air.
I looked at the bracelet in my hand, then at him. The story sounded… plausible. Horribly plausible, explaining the state he was in, the uncharacteristic drinking, the distraction that made him miss my haircut. But it also explained the lie, the secrecy, the undeniable fact that he had been with Carmen, helping her through some crisis he hadn’t told me about.
My anger hadn’t vanished, but it had twisted into something else ā a cold knot of fear and hurt. Fear for what kind of trouble Carmen was in, hurt that he felt he had to lie to me, even with a seemingly valid reason.
“You lied to me,” I said softly, the bitterness returning, sharper this time. “You went through something like that, and you lied to me.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I know,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say. I didn’t know how to tell you. It was complicated, sensitive…”
I didn’t interrupt. I just stood there, the delicate gold bracelet a heavy weight in my palm. It wasn’t about Carmen anymore, not really. It was about the space the lie had created between us in the last few hours, a space filled with secrets and unspoken anxieties. The air still smelled of potpourri and cheap whiskey, but now, it also smelled of doubt. I didn’t throw the bracelet away, or back at him. I just held it, looking at the man I thought I knew, and wondered how much more I didn’t see, even when he was standing right in front of me. The conversation wasn’t over; it had just barely begun.