“You’re blowing this up,” he says. “One slap.”
“One slap last night,” you answer.
His eyes cut to yours.
That is the first moment he seems genuinely unsettled. Because now the room is no longer just about what happened in the kitchen at 11:30 p.m. It is about the history he assumed would stay safely blurred. The shove into the laundry room two summers ago. The fingers digging into your arm so hard they left marks beneath your cardigan before Thanksgiving. The wrist he twisted because you took his keys after he’d been drinking. Each event lived alone before, separated by apologies and enough time to let doubt do its work. Spoken aloud, they begin to collect.
Michael’s voice gets very quiet.
“How many times?”
You keep your eyes on Daniel when you answer.
“Enough.”
He mutters a curse and stands so fast the chair legs scrape the tile.
