My Asexual Husband Slept with His Best Friend for 8 Years Chapter 05

My Asexual Husband Slept with His Best Friend for 8 Years Chapter 05 Blood and Silence

Sebastian stayed at the hospital until Serena’s knee was stitched, the tetanus shot administered, pain meds swallowed. He perched on the edge of her bed, smoothing her hair back while she drifted off.

Everything was handled. He should have felt relieved.

Instead, something tight and sour twisted in his chest. Something irrational.

Not worry. Not guilt. Something worse-gnawing at his insides like rust on a blade.

His hand found his phone before his brain caught up. No notifications.

That was wrong. By now, Chloe always texted. Always. “Did you eat?” “What time are you home?” “Should I keep dinner warm?”

Not tonight.

He scrolled back. Their message thread stared back at him. The last bubble-two weeks ago:

“Cold tonight. Take a jacket with you. Love you.”

Her message sat in the chat like a stone thrown into a well.

His fingers moved across the keyboard-“How’s your face?” “Did you make it out okay?” “Did you go to the hospital?”

Then he backspaced it all.

What the hell was he doing? Chloe was fine. She was always fine. Tough as nails. A little pool water never killed anyone.

Besides, she pushed Serena first. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

He repeated it to himself like a mantra.

But the panic didn’t care about his logic. It kept climbing his throat like something alive, something with

claws.

He stood. Paced the length of the room-five steps, pivot, five steps back. Sat down. Stood up again.

His brain kept circling the drain of that moment-

Chloe lying bloody in the shattered glass by the pool’s edge, her face cut open, glass glittering in her hair, blood and Merlot pooling beneath her cheek. His boot, her ribs, the splash. The water closed over her head. And through it all, her eyes, fixed on him, never closing, never wavering.

He’d never seen Chloe look at him like that.

There was no rage in that look. No tears. No desperate, aching love.

Just emptiness. Like he was no one Like he meant nothing.

A chill crept down his spine.

No. She loves me. She’s always loved me, even when I don’t deserve it. But that look-no. There was no love in it. None.

I must’ve imagined it. Had to be.

He kept unlocking the phone without realizing it.

Picked it up again. Couldn’t do it. Set it back down.

“Sebastian…?” Serena’s voice, drowsy and small in the dark.

He was at her bedside before she finished the syllable, leaning over her.

“I’m right here, baby. You’re okay. Just rest.”

She nuzzled into the pillow with a contented hum, and he waited until her breathing deepened before collapsing back into the chair.

Unlocking. Scrolling to her name. Locking. Setting it down. Doing it again. Chloe’s name on the lock screen like a wound he couldn’t stop pressing.

I should text Chloe. Just a quick You good? Nothing major. Just to make the panic stop.

What the hell would I even say?

Hey, sorry I smashed your face in and left you to drown, but Serena needed me, so… we cool?

The panic surged, sharp and acidic.

He shoved himself to his feet and stalked to the window.

Three a.m.

The city sprawled out below him-dark, silent, dead. Like the whole world had packed up and gone home. and he was the last man standing in an empty room.

He could still see her-the way she’d looked in college, before the rings, before Serena, before any of it. Bright. Untouchable. Like sunlight with a pulse.

When had she started looking so tired, so worn down, like she’d aged a decade in the span of a few years?

He could pinpoint it-the moment he told himself he had to be there for Serena, the moment he convinced himself Chloe would understand, the moment the all started.

But what was he supposed to do? Serena was sick. She needed him. They grew up together, for Christ’s sake-he couldn’t just abandon her because he’d fallen for someone else.

He couldn’t finish the thought.

His chest felt like someone had poured wet concrete into it, hardening with every breath.

He grabbed his phone and hit Chloe’s number before he could talk himself out of it-his thumb shaking.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.

Then voicemail.

Again.

Still nothing.

The shaking started in his hands. Then his arms. Then the rest of him.

She’s fine. She has to be. Her phone’s just dead. She’s just asleep. She’s just—

He swallowed the thought whole.

By four a.m., the panic had him by the throat. It was no longer something he could reason with, no longer something he could outwait. It was a living thing, and it wanted him on his feet.

He bolted from the room. Threw himself into the first cab he could flag down. “Drive. Fast. Just-drive.”

He called her again. And again. No answer. Not once.

The cab screeched to a stop. Sebastian practically fell out onto the pavement. The courtyard was empty. Abandoned.

Broken glass everywhere. Wine stains dried into the concrete like rust. And blood-so much fucking blood -smeared across the stone, trailing toward the pool.

The water was black-red, viscous, littered with shards of glass and God knows what else.

She wasn’t there.

His whole body went still, his eyes darting from corner to corner. “Chloe!” His voice cracked. “CHLOE!”

Nothing. Just his echo bouncing off the walls.

His phone buzzed in his hand. The screen lit up with a bank alert. “A deposit of $50,000,000.00 has been posted to your account ending in 6284.”

A second later, another message. From Chloe. “Divorce finalized. Assets transferred. We are done. Forever.” The phone slipped through his fingers and lay there on the concrete with a thud, still lit up with Chloe’s

name.

She actually fucking left.