Chapter 5 One Last Time
Serena's POV
I stepped back just far enough to block the doorway.
Reid was already shifting Elliot's weight toward me, clearly done with his part of the night, and I took Elliot's arm over my shoulder without a word. My eyes stayed on Reid's face the whole time — not because I had anything to say to him, but because I needed him looking at me and not past me.
The dining room was still a disaster. Broken ceramic, wine soaking into the tablecloth, the photograph knocked sideways on its stand. I wasn't about to let Elliot's assistant file that away in his memory.
"Thanks for bringing him back," I said. Steady voice. Almost warm. The kind of tone that ended conversations.
Reid gave me one last look — not unkind, just tired — and left without pushing for more. I closed the door behind him and stood there for a second with Elliot's full weight sagging against my side.
Okay. One thing at a time.
Getting him to the couch took longer than it should have. He wasn't fighting me, but he wasn't helping either — dead weight with occasional mumbled syllables that didn't add up to anything. I half-dragged him the last few feet and managed to get him down onto the cushions.
The second I let go, he listed sideways. I grabbed for him too late. He hit the floor with a dull thud, one arm flopped out at an angle.
I stood there looking at him.
I could leave him there. He'd be fine. People sleep on floors all the time.
My knees hit the carpet before I finished the thought. I got my hands under his shoulders and hauled him back up onto the couch, straightening his legs, pulling the throw blanket off the armrest and tucking it around him. He didn't stir. His breathing was slow and even, the kind of deep unconscious rhythm that meant he'd be out for hours.
I stood up and looked at the dining room.
The mess was worse under the overhead light. Shards of the serving dish fanned out across the floor, wine had soaked through the tablecloth and was dripping off the edge of the table. The anniversary card had landed face-down near the table leg, one corner soaked through. On the sideboard, the ceramic dish still held a small pile of gray ash. The wedding photo sat crooked on the shelf above, its frame knocked sideways but still upright.
I found the dustpan under the sink and got to work.
It took forty minutes. I swept up every shard, blotted the wine out of the tablecloth, tossed the ruined card without reading it. The ash I tipped into the trash. I straightened the wedding photo on the shelf and walked away without looking at it directly.
When the room looked like nothing had happened, I ran cold water over my wrists at the kitchen sink and pressed my wet fingers against my eyes. The swelling hadn't gone down much. I checked the small mirror mounted above the faucet, decided there was nothing to be done about it, and turned the light off.
He can't know I fell apart. That's the one thing.
Back in the living room, I got a clean washcloth from the bathroom and ran it under warm water. Elliot hadn't moved. I sat on the edge of the coffee table and started with his jaw — the lipstick smear, dark pink against his skin, came off in two passes. The marks on his neck were a different problem. I pressed the cloth against them anyway, not because it would change anything, just because I needed something to do with my hands.
Don't think about it. Just finish.
He made a sound partway through — low and indistinct, his head turning slightly toward me. His eyes didn't open, but his mouth moved, shaping something that might have been my name or might have been nothing at all.
"Go back to sleep," I said. "You're fine."
He went still again. I kept going.
I found a clean t-shirt and sweatpants in the hall closet — things he'd left here over the past year, never bothered to take back — and changed him out of the ruined dress shirt with the mechanical efficiency of someone who had stopped feeling things for the night. Buttons, sleeves, the whole process. When I pulled the blanket back over him and tucked it around his shoulders, something in my chest did a slow, quiet collapse.
Last time. This is the last time I do this.
Not angry. Not even sad, exactly. Just certain.
I dragged myself to the bedroom after that, still in yesterday's dress, and barely made it under the covers before exhaustion took over. The lamp stayed on. I didn't have the energy to reach for it.
Sometime in the early hours, I heard something — a dull scraping sound, uneven footsteps, the muffled thud of a shoulder hitting the doorframe. I opened my eyes just long enough to register a shape moving through the dark, the familiar outline of Elliot stumbling toward the bed. He dropped onto the mattress beside me with all the grace of a falling tree, one arm flung out, and didn't move again.
I should've said something. Asked if he was okay. Told him to go back to the couch.
I closed my eyes instead and let the dark pull me back under.
The phone woke me.
Pale morning light, lamp still burning, divorce papers on the nightstand exactly where I'd left them. The screen said Harold Ashford. I answered before the second ring.
"Serena." That warm, unhurried voice. "I hope I'm not calling too early."
"Not at all." I sat up carefully. The mattress dipped on the other side — Elliot was still there, on top of the covers, breathing deep and even, the stale trace of whiskey and something floral clinging to him. I slid off the bed and moved to the hallway.
"I hope last night's anniversary didn't make you forget about tonight," Harold said, and I could hear the smile in it — dry, deliberate. "Monthly family dinner. The estate. Don't tell me you two got so caught up celebrating that it slipped your mind."
If only he knew.
"Of course not," I said. "We'll be there."
"Seven o'clock. Main dining room." A beat, then quieter: "I mean it, Serena. It wouldn't be right without you."
I told him we were looking forward to it, performed the version of myself that still had a marriage worth showing up for, and did it well enough that he signed off sounding satisfied.
When I hung up, I stood in the hallway looking at the half-open bedroom door. Through the gap — the nightstand, the lamp, the divorce papers. Unsigned. Waiting.
Not today.
