Living In A Daydream

The next few days passed in fragments. That was the strange thing about heartbreak when life refused to stop around it. It didn’t arrive dramatically every morning with violins and collapse. Sometimes it arrived through practicalities. Through half-packed overnight bags by the front door. Through nursery pickup schedules and unanswered texts and standing in the cereal aisle trying to remember whether Jesse liked the dinosaur-shaped ones or the stars this week.

Harry’s residency kept moving around him regardless. Show after show. Sold out. Critics calling it electric. Fans crying online over performances he barely remembered giving.

By now, the routine of it had become muscle memory again. Wake up. Coffee. Rehearsal notes. Wardrobe. Meet-and-greets. The roar of the crowd. Sweat and lights and adrenaline. Then afterward, the strange crash back into himself alone in a dressing room while everyone else buzzed around congratulating him on another incredible night.

He’d become frighteningly good at compartmentalising. It scared him a bit. Sadie drifted through the edges of those days like someone slowly fading from a photograph. Not intentionally cruel. Not punishing him exactly. Just… disappearing in increments. First the kisses at the end of messages vanished. Then the softness. Then even the attempts at conversation. Now mostly he just got photos of Jesse. No context. No commentary.

A blurry picture of Jesse asleep sideways on the sofa with yoghurt on his shirt. A short video of him screaming with laughter at pigeons in the park. A photo of tiny wellies abandoned upside down near Sadie’s front door. That was it. Harry would stare at the screen for a second afterward waiting instinctively for another message underneath.

He’s been asking for you all morning.

He finally ate vegetables.

or even just

Miss you.

Nothing came. So he’d reply.

Looks like he’s having fun x

Tell him I said goodnight.

And Sadie would answer.

Will do.

Okay.

Sometimes just... 👍

It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. Because technically this was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Space. Honesty stripped of performance. No pretending things were fine when they weren’t. But now every message from her felt like communication between strangers forced to coordinate logistics after a natural disaster. And underneath all of it sat the sketchbook. He still had it.

Anne had given it to him quietly the morning after the show, saying only, “Maybe keep hold of it for now.” Harry hadn’t known what to expect when he finally opened it properly later that night alone in bed. Not that.

Page after page of him. Not celebrity Harry. Not stage Harry. Human Harry. Harry asleep on planes with his mouth slightly open. Harry crouched beside Jesse tying tiny shoelaces. Harry standing in the kitchen with one hand around a coffee mug while looking out the window. Harry laughing mid-sentence, unfinished in pencil because maybe Sadie had stopped before she got to the eyes.

Some drawings were barely sketches at all. Others were so detailed they made his chest physically ache. One page was just his hands over and over again in different positions, rings and tattoos perfectly rendered from memory.

There were dates scribbled in corners sometimes. Three months ago. Last year. During tour. After Jesse was born.

Harry had sat there for almost an hour turning pages slowly, grief building in him in strange uneven waves. Because the sketchbook didn’t feel like evidence of a woman who stopped loving him. It felt like evidence of someone who maybe loved him so much she’d lost herself entirely somewhere inside it. And somehow that made the betrayal worse, not better.

The residency was ending soon. Three more shows in London, then a short break before the next leg overseas. Usually by now there would’ve been conversations about travel plans, where Jesse would stay, whether Sadie would come for part of it, whether Anne wanted to join for a few days somewhere warm and complain about hotel pillows. Their life had always existed in motion around Harry’s work. Chaotic but functioning.

Now everything sat suspended. Nobody asked directly what was happening next because nobody knew.

Harry found himself thinking about it more at night after shows when adrenaline drained away and left him too awake to sleep. He’d lie staring at the ceiling replaying therapy sessions over and over, trying to locate the point where he and Sadie had stopped speaking honestly to each other. Not arguing. Not logistics. Actual speaking.

At what point had she started disappearing inside herself without him noticing properly? At what point had he become someone she couldn’t bring things to anymore? And then, inevitably, the thought would slam back into him like it always did.

Harry, I cheated on you.

Some days he could almost hear it exactly how she’d said it. Quiet. Trembling. Like the words themselves had shocked her on the way out. The sentence still rearranged his insides every time. Because no matter how much therapy they did or explanations they circled or truths they unearthed about loneliness and control and identity, the reality underneath remained horrifyingly simple. She cheated on him. His wife looked him in the face after years together and admitted she’d crossed that line. Nothing softened that. Nothing.

And yet somehow he still found himself worrying when she took too long to answer messages. It made him feel vaguely insane.

One afternoon, two days before the final London show, Harry sat alone in the kitchen scrolling absentmindedly through setlist notes while the house stayed unusually quiet around him. Jesse was at nursery for the morning. Anne had gone back up north for a few days before returning for the final show. Rain tapped softly against the windows. His phone buzzed. Sadie. Immediately his chest tightened before he could stop it.

I’m not going to be able to make the next therapy session. Is it okay if we miss a week?

That was all. No explanation. No apology. Nothing. Harry stared at the message for a long moment.

Something about it unsettled him instantly. Not because missing one session mattered practically. Dr Bennett herself had said sometimes people needed breathing room. But the wording felt wrong somehow. Flat. Detached. Like Sadie was already halfway out the door emotionally and trying not to make noise while leaving. His thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

Why?

Deleted.

Are you okay?

Deleted that too. Finally he typed:

Yeah, okay. We can miss a week if you need.

The typing bubble appeared almost immediately. Then disappeared. Nothing came after. Harry rubbed a hand over his jaw slowly, irritation and worry tangling together again in ways he increasingly couldn’t separate. Before he could stop himself, he typed another message.

Will you be at the last show?

He stared at the sentence after sending it, immediately unsure why he’d asked. Maybe because some stubborn part of him still looked for her backstage automatically every night. Maybe because the idea of ending the London run without seeing her in the crowd suddenly felt heavier than it should have.

No response came. Five minutes passed. Ten. Eventually another message arrived. A picture of Jesse asleep in the car seat, mouth open slightly, one sock missing. No words attached. Harry stared at it for a long time. Then longer.

Something uncomfortable settled slowly beneath his ribs. Because suddenly the silence around Sadie no longer felt like punishment exactly. It felt like surrender.

Harry lasted exactly three hours after waking up before he ended up outside Sadie’s flat. He tried, genuinely, to be rational about it first.

Tried coffee. Tried the gym. Tried running through setlists with Mitch while half-listeningTried answering Jeff’s texts about afterparties and flights and tomorrow’s press. None of it worked. Because underneath everything — the sold-out residency, the praise, the exhaustion, the anger — one thought kept circling him like something frantic and trapped:

This is not how this was supposed to go.

Today was supposed to feel triumphant. The last London show. The ending of a residency they’d spoken about for months beforehand while lying in bed together, Sadie half-asleep against his chest while he rambled excitedly about staging ideas and surprise songs and what part of the city they should stay in this time. Jesse had been part of the picture too somehow. Tiny headphones backstage. Family dinners after shows. Sadie laughing at him when adrenaline kept him awake until two in the morning afterward.

He’d imagined coming offstage tonight and finding her there waiting for him. Not because things were perfect. Just because she was his wife. And now they communicated through blurry toddler photos and thumbs-up reactions like divorced strangers trying to stay civil. The whole thing suddenly felt unbearable.

So by eleven-thirty that morning, Harry was standing outside her building in a black hoodie and sunglasses despite the grey weather, one hand shoved into his pocket while his phone rang in his other hand.

Sadie answered on the fourth ring sounding breathless and tired. “Hi.”

“I’m outside.”

“Oh.” He could hear movement in the background. “I thought we agreed you were having him tomorrow after the show.”

“Sadie.”

“What?”

“I need to talk to you.”

The exhaustion in her silence travelled straight down the phone line. “Harry…”

“No, properly. We need to actually talk.”

A long pause followed. He pictured her standing somewhere inside the flat with one hand pressed against her forehead the way she did lately whenever she got overwhelmed. Finally... “Okay.”

The buzzer sounded a second later. By the time he reached her floor, his pulse was hammering hard enough to irritate him. He wasn’t even fully sure what he’d come here to say anymore. Just that he couldn’t keep existing in this half-dead version of their marriage where every real conversation happened in therapy offices while the rest of their lives dissolved quietly around it.

Sadie opened the door before he knocked. The first thing Harry felt was anger. The second was immediate guilt for it. Because she looked awful. Genuinely worn down in a way that made something protective and furious rise in him at the same time. Oversized sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder slightly, hair shoved back messily, skin pale enough that the shadows beneath her eyes looked bruised. She’d always been naturally slim, but now she looked diminished somehow, like parts of her were slowly disappearing without her noticing.

“Hi,” she said softly.

Harry stared at her for one beat too long before stepping inside. The flat was quiet except for low cartoon noises somewhere deeper in the apartment.

“Jesse awake?”

She nodded. “Watching Bluey.”

Harry swallowed hard. “Right.”

An awkward silence settled instantly between them. Sadie closed the door gently behind him and folded her arms loosely, not defensive exactly. More like she was trying to hold herself together physically.“What’s going on?” she asked carefully.

Harry laughed once under his breath and started pacing immediately, energy too sharp under his skin to stay still. “I don’t know anymore, honestly.” Sadie watched him quietly. “I can’t keep doing this,” he said finally.

Her expression tightened almost imperceptibly. “Doing what?”

“This.” He gestured between them sharply. “This weird fucking strangers thing we’re doing. I can’t.”

Sadie looked down immediately. “Harry—”

“No, seriously.” His voice cracked with frustration and heartbreak all tangled together now. “How are we strangers? How did we get here? One minute we’re planning a residency together and arguing about whether Jesse needs another bloody stuffed dinosaur and now you send me photos of our son like you’re proving he’s still alive.”

Sadie flinched. Harry instantly regretted the phrasing but couldn’t stop now that the words had started coming.

“You don’t talk to me anymore.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Anything real!”

Her jaw tightened tiredly. “Everything I say hurts you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” Her voice stayed quiet, which somehow made it worse. “I breathe wrong lately and it hurts you.”

Harry dragged a hand through his hair hard enough to tug. “You cancelled therapy.”

“I just needed a week.”

“You didn’t explain.”

“I didn’t think I had to explain every single thing anymore.”

“See?” He looked at her helplessly. “That. That’s what I mean. You just disappear and shut everyone out and act like nobody’s allowed to care.”

Sadie’s face flickered then, irritation finally surfacing through the exhaustion. “People caring about me right now feels a bit ridiculous, Harry.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She laughed quietly under her breath. “I cheated on you.”

The sentence still hit exactly the same every time. Harry felt it physically. Sadie saw it happen in his face immediately and looked away. Silence crashed between them. From the lounge came Jesse’s voice faintly shouting something excited at the television.

Harry swallowed hard. “I know you did.” Sadie closed her eyes briefly.“But I need you to stop acting like that means you deserve to disappear. I mean it.” His voice softened despite himself. “You need help, Sadie.”

Her eyes opened slowly. “I’m fine.”

“Stop saying that.”

“I am.”

“You’re not eating.”

Something defensive flashed immediately. “You don’t know that.”

“You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

“That’s not your problem anymore.”

Harry stared at her. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. You keep deciding things for everyone.”

“I’m not deciding anything.”

“You are.” His voice sharpened. “You’ve decided I hate you. You’ve decided everybody blames you. You’ve decided you should isolate yourself until you feel punished enough to deserve existing again.”

Sadie looked stunned for half a second. Then angry. “Don’t psychoanalyse me.”

“I’m not. I’m watching you fall apart.”

“I’m not falling apart.”

“You dropped your keys because your hands were shaking.”

She froze. Harry’s chest tightened immediately because there it was, the moment she realised he’d noticed. “You think nobody sees you,” he said quieter now. “But we do.”

Sadie looked away sharply toward the kitchen counter, blinking too fast.

“And it’s making me fucking crazy,” Harry admitted suddenly, voice roughening with emotion now that he’d finally reached the real thing underneath all the anger. “Because this should be straightforward, shouldn’t it? You cheat on me, I hate you, end of story. But I don’t.” He laughed once, miserable and exhausted. “I’m angry all the time and I’m heartbroken and some days I can barely look at you without hearing those words in my head again, but I still…” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I still need you to be okay.” Sadie’s face crumpled slightly. Harry looked away before he lost his nerve entirely. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then softly, carefully, like she was afraid sudden movement might break him further, Sadie said, “Harry, just... calm down a bit, yeah? Jessie is going to hear you and it's going to start a whole thing.”

He laughed breathlessly. “When are we supposed to have a conversation then? Honestly? Because therapy’s the only place we speak properly anymore and now you’re cancelling that too.”

“I just needed space.”

“No.” He shook his head firmly. “You needed support and instead you isolated yourself.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, what’s not fair is watching you punish yourself into the ground while pretending it’s accountability.” Her eyes filled immediately at that. Harry stepped closer without really thinking. “You think you’re alone in this and you’re not. Yes, you hurt me. You broke my heart, Sadie. You did.” His voice cracked properly now, the vulnerability in it shocking even himself a little. “But now you’re making everybody stand back and watch you destroy yourself over it because you think that somehow balances the scales.”

Tears slipped silently down her cheeks now. Harry softened instantly. “Hey.”

She shook her head quickly, embarrassed already. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“I just…” Her breathing trembled unevenly. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

The honesty of it gutted him. Not fix us. Not fix the marriage. Just... fix it. As though the damage itself had swallowed everything else whole.

“You can’t fix it overnight,” Harry said quietly. “Neither can I. But this…” He gestured toward her vaguely. “This thing where you stop talking and stop eating and stop sleeping and disappear into yourself — we’re not doing that anymore.”

Sadie rubbed at her face hard. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “But I can tell you I’m worried. I can tell you that I care.”

She looked up at him then, properly looked, and for the first time in weeks Harry thought maybe she was seeing his heartbreak without therapy-room anger wrapped around it. Just the grief itself. The devastation. The confusion. The love that still existed despite every logical reason it shouldn’t. It seemed to shake her more than shouting ever had. Then from the lounge came a loud toddler voice.

“Mummy! Bingo sad!”

Both of them blinked. The tension cracked slightly around the edges. Sadie laughed wetly under her breath and wiped quickly beneath her eyes. “Coming, Jess!”

Harry exhaled slowly, running a hand over his mouth. “Also,” he added suddenly before she could walk away completely, “you’re coming tonight.”

Sadie turned back. “Harry—”

“No.” His voice steadied with surprising certainty. “You’re coming to the last show.”

Her expression immediately shuttered again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t care.”

“Harry.”

“I mean it.” He stepped closer again, tired but firm now. “I know you think you don’t belong there anymore or whatever’s going on in your head, but I’m making this decision. I want you there.” Sadie stared at him quietly. “And before you say it,” he added, softer now, “yes, I heard what you said about living in my world. I did. But this isn’t me controlling you.” His throat tightened slightly. “This is me asking my wife to be at something important.”

The word wife nearly broke them both. Sadie looked down immediately, tears threatening all over again. Finally, very quietly, “Okay.” Harry nodded once.

Neither of them knew what exactly they’d just agreed to. Whether this was repair or simply survival. Whether love was enough anymore or too much. But for the first time in weeks, standing there in the quiet wreckage of their marriage while Bluey played faintly in the background and their son narrated cartoon emotions from another room, they at least looked directly at each other again instead of through each other. And somehow that felt almost terrifying.

Two hours before the final London show, Harry was pacing hard enough backstage that even Jeff eventually stopped pretending not to notice. Usually by this point in the evening Harry settled into performance mode naturally. The nerves sharpened into energy, the dressing room filled with movement and laughter and familiar ritual. Mitch tuning guitars in the corner. Hair and makeup floating in and out. Someone inevitably losing an in-ear pack at the worst possible moment. Harry half-dressed and wandering around barefoot while everybody shouted at him to sit still for five minutes.

Tonight none of it was landing properly. Because Sadie still wasn’t there. Neither was Jesse. And logically, Harry knew there were a hundred harmless explanations. Traffic. Jesse refusing shoes. Parking around the stadium being a nightmare. Sadie getting overwhelmed and needing five minutes in the car before walking inside. But logic had stopped being particularly useful to him where Sadie was concerned.

His phone sat face-up on the counter beside him. No new messages. The last thing from her had been forty minutes ago.

Leaving now.

That was it. Harry checked the time again.

“Mate,” Jeff said carefully from the sofa, “you’re gonna wear a hole through the floor.”

Harry stopped pacing just long enough to drag both hands down his face. “Sorry.”

“You wanna call her?”

“No.” Immediate. Defensive. “I don’t wanna be… insane.”

Jeff wisely chose not to point out that Harry had already checked his phone approximately thirty times in ten minutes. A soft knock came against the open dressing room door before Anne slipped inside carrying a cup of tea she probably knew he wouldn’t drink.The second she saw his face, her expression softened. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Harry looked away immediately, embarrassed by how obvious he apparently was. Jeff stood smoothly. “I’m gonna go check where we’re at with doors.” The room quieted after he left.

Anne handed Harry the tea anyway before sitting on the sofa. “Talk to me.”

Harry laughed once under his breath, exhausted. “I feel like all I do lately is talk.”

“Try me anyway.”

He stayed standing for another few seconds before finally sinking into the chair opposite her, elbows on knees, tea untouched between his hands. The adrenaline under his skin felt jagged tonight, less excitement than pure emotional overload. “I went to Sadie’s this morning.” Anne’s eyebrows lifted slightly but she didn’t interrupt. “And I think maybe I scared her a bit.”

“Scared her?”

“Not intentionally,” Harry said quickly. “I just… I don’t know. I kind of lost it.” He rubbed hard at his jaw. “Not angry. Just saying too much, probably.” Anne watched him quietly. Harry stared down into the tea. “I told her we can’t keep doing this weird strangers thing anymore. And I told her she needs help because she looks like she’s disappearing in front of everyone and pretending she’s fine.” His voice roughened slightly. “And then I told her I needed her here tonight.”

Anne’s expression softened even further. Harry laughed again, quieter now, more miserable. “See? This is what I mean. I feel like I’m saying the same thing over and over again and none of it makes any sense.”

“What thing?”

He looked up finally then, eyes bright with exhaustion and grief and frustration all tangled together. “She broke my heart and I can’t trust her, but I trust her with my life when it comes to Jesse. She cheated on me and some days I can barely look at her because all I hear is those fucking words in my head again, but at the same time all I want to do is look at her.” His breathing had started going uneven now, emotion finally pushing past whatever control he’d been holding onto all day. “And I hate what she did. I do. I hate it. But I’m also still so insanely in love with her and I don’t know what the fuck to do with that because this version of her now — this version that won’t sleep or eat or talk to anyone — it’s terrifying.”

Anne stayed very still, letting him get it out.

Harry shook his head hard. “And if she won’t listen to me, then who the fuck is she gonna listen to? Because Joanna tries and she shuts her down and Bennett tries and she shuts her down and every time I think we’re getting somewhere she disappears again.” His voice cracked then, properly cracked, the heartbreak underneath finally surfacing without anger protecting it. “And I still don’t understand why she did it. I don’t. I understand pieces of it maybe, loneliness and control and all that shit, but I don’t understand why she ruined us. Or maybe…” He swallowed hard. “Maybe we were already ruined for her to do that in the first place and I just didn’t see it.”

Anne’s eyes filled instantly. Harry laughed helplessly through the emotion building in his chest. “And now tonight’s supposed to be this big final London show and all I can think about is how it was supposed to feel. She was supposed to be here with Jesse and we were supposed to leave together afterward and go to the next city together and it was supposed to still be us.” He looked down, voice dropping quieter. “And now I know she’s probably gonna leave halfway through because she still thinks she doesn’t belong here anymore, and I feel so fucking alone all the time, Mum.”

The confession seemed to physically pull something out of him. “And then I have to go out there,” he continued shakily, “and sing happy songs and flirt with the crowd and act like I’m having the best time of my life when really I feel like somebody’s peeled my skin off.”

“Oh, darling.” Anne was across the room before he fully realised he’d started crying. Not dramatic sobbing. Just the kind of exhausted heartbreak that finally overwhelms the body after weeks of being held too tightly. Anne pulled him into her arms immediately, one hand cradling the back of his head the same way she had when he was little.

“Oh, my baby boy,” she murmured softly against his hair.

Harry laughed wetly despite himself. “Don’t call me that.”

“You’ll always be my baby boy.”

He folded into the hug for one dangerous second longer than he meant to, breathing uneven against her shoulder while she rubbed slow circles against his back until he could breathe properly again. And then, faintly through the corridor outside, came the sound of a child crying. Harry pulled back instantly.

“Mummy!”

His head snapped toward the door. Sadie’s voice followed immediately after, soft and calm despite the distress underneath it. “Oh, Jesse, come here. You’re okay, sweetheart. That must’ve hurt, huh?”

Harry was moving before he consciously decided to. The dressing room door swung open and there they were in the corridor outside. Sadie crouched down holding Jesse against her chest while he cried dramatically into her shoulder, one tiny hand clutching at her tank top. There was a faint scrape along his forearm already pinking from what looked like a fall.

Harry’s first instinct should’ve been the scratch. Instead, shamefully, overwhelmingly, all he could think was... She came. And Christ, she’d listened.

Not fully. She still looked tired — he could see it immediately in the shadows beneath her eyes — but she’d tried tonight. Her hair was down properly instead of shoved into a messy knot, soft makeup warming her face slightly, lips tinted faintly pink. She wore a simple cream slip tank tucked into a denim midi skirt with little ballet flats, understated and beautiful and so painfully her that Harry’s chest physically hurt looking at her. Not hiding. Not disappearing into oversized jumpers.Present.

He hated that his first feeling wasn’t relief about Jesse. He hated that his first thought was she cared enough to come properly.

Sadie looked up when she heard the door open, and for one tiny second something uncertain flickered across her face, like she wasn’t sure what version of Harry she’d be met with now. Harry was already kneeling beside them. “What happened?”

Jesse sniffled hard. “Daddy, I fall over. ”

“Oh, buddy.” Harry reached immediately for his little arm, inspecting the scrape gently. “That’s all right, s’just a scratch.”

Sadie smoothed curls back from Jesse’s damp forehead. “He tripped over one of the cables near the door. Scared himself more than anything.”

“I no like falling,” Jesse whispered miserably.

“I know.” Sadie kissed the side of his head softly. “But look, mummy and daddy are both here, yeah? You’re okay.”

The words hit Harry harder than they should have. Mummy and daddy are both here. For a brief second it sounded dangerously close to normal. Harry held out his arms automatically. “Come here then, I’ll calm you down.”

Sadie shifted slightly to hand him over, but Jesse immediately tightened his grip around her neck. “No. Mummy.”

The silence that followed was tiny but noticeable. Sadie froze for half a heartbeat before trying to hide the reaction entirely. But Harry saw it. The immediate softening around her eyes. The almost disbelieving relief. Like Jesse choosing her in that moment repaired some tiny fractured thing inside her, even temporarily.

“All right,” she said softly, voice wobbling just slightly despite her effort to steady it. “Mummy’s got you.”

Jesse buried his face into her shoulder again dramatically. Harry watched her rub his back in slow circles and suddenly realised she looked more present right now than she had in weeks. Still fragile. Still exhausted. But present. Like maybe showing up tonight had cost her something significant emotionally, but she’d done it anyway.

His eyes flicked toward her quietly. “Have you eaten?” Sadie looked up, surprised by the question. Harry kept his voice low enough that Jesse wouldn’t notice. “Today.”

For a second she looked almost embarrassed. “We were on our way to catering before…” She glanced down at Jesse gently. “Before this happened.” Harry waited. Sadie swallowed slightly before adding softly, “I’ll eat. I promise. I will.”

And for the first time in weeks, he believed her.Not because he trusted everything suddenly. Not because the betrayal hurt less. Not because any of this was fixed. But because she was standing here. Hair done. Makeup on. Holding their little boy close while he cried against her shoulder, having forced herself into the world instead of disappearing from it. Trying.

Harry looked at her for one long quiet second, something aching and complicated moving through him all over again. Then Jesse sniffled loudly and pointed toward Harry’s dressing room. “Daddy sing now?”

Harry laughed softly through the emotion still sitting thick in his chest. “Yeah, buddy.”

Jesse nodded seriously from Sadie’s shoulder. “Daddy amazing.”

Sadie’s eyes flicked instinctively toward Harry then, and despite everything — despite all the damage between them — she gave the smallest, softest smile. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “He is.”

The show was good. That was the worst part.

It wasn’t one of those nights where his body betrayed him or the crowd felt distant or the band missed cues or he had to fight every second to stay afloat. The show was good from the first note. Better than good, probably. The kind of good where Harry could feel it happening even while some awful, detached part of him stood back and resented it. The crowd was loud enough to shake the floor beneath his boots, the lights came in clean and blinding, the band locked into him like a second heartbeat, and when he stepped out for the opening song, the roar rose so violently it hit his chest before he’d even taken his first breath.

For a little while, performance saved him. Not fully. It never did lately. But it gave him shape. It gave him somewhere to put his hands, his voice, his face. He moved because the song moved. He smiled because twenty thousand people were smiling back. He lifted the mic and the room answered before he asked it to, and there was comfort in that, in the old reliable machinery of call and response. He knew how to be this version of himself. He knew how to give strangers something real enough that they could take it home and call it magic, even if backstage his marriage was lying open like a wound that nobody knew how to bandage properly.

The first few songs blurred together in colour and heat. Gold light. White light. Bass through the floor. Hands reaching up from barricade. Someone’s sign near the front that made him laugh even though he barely read it properly. He heard himself speak between songs, easy and charming and loose, and felt the odd distance of recognising his own voice as something useful. “London, you all right?” he shouted, and the arena went mad for him, and for one brief second he almost believed he was all right too.

Then he looked toward the side. Anne was there, one hand pressed over her chest like she always did during the big moments no matter how many times she’d seen him do this. Joanna stood beside her, dancing with absolutely no sense of shame, as promised. Simon was just behind them with his arms folded and a proud little smile he probably thought looked subtle. And Sadie was there.

Harry’s throat tightened around the next lyric, but he caught it in time.

She stood a little back from the others, not as far removed as last time, but still not fully swallowed into the group. Jesse was in her arms despite being far too big to be carried comfortably for long, his green earmuffs slightly crooked over his curls, face already crumpled in a half-whinge against her shoulder. Harry saw Sadie shift him higher with effort, saw the way her mouth moved near his ear, murmuring something only Jesse could hear. Jesse shook his head stubbornly, lower lip out, and Sadie pulled a ridiculous face at him — not big enough for anyone else to notice, just enough for Jesse — crossing her eyes slightly before pretending to bite his sleeve. Jesse giggled. Harry nearly forgot where he was.

It was such a small thing. Nothing, really. A mother making her tired child laugh during a loud show. But the sight of it went straight through him. Sadie’s hand spread across Jesse’s back, her thumb moving in slow circles. Jesse’s face tucked into her neck. The soft competence of her, the instinctive tenderness that hadn’t vanished just because everything else was broken. Harry turned toward the other side of the arena before he could stare too long. The crowd screamed when he moved down the catwalk.

He played into it because that was what he was meant to do, because he had built a career on knowing how to make a vast room feel like it had been personally noticed. He walked slowly, grinning, gesturing to signs, taking in the sea of faces and lights, but every few seconds his gaze wanted to cut back toward the family section. By the time he reached the end of the catwalk, he finally let himself look again. Jesse had perked up now, one hand lifted awkwardly in his general direction while Sadie held his wrist gently and helped him wave. Harry waved back. The arena screamed like he’d done it for them. He hadn’t.

Sadie smiled faintly when Jesse gasped in delight, and for one second Harry saw them as if from outside himself. His little boy waving with his whole arm, his wife helping him, his family gathered at the side of the stage, the final London show glowing around them like the life they were supposed to be living. It hurt so badly he had to turn away and sing directly into the dark instead.

That became the shape of the next several songs. Perform, look, survive. Perform, look, survive. He gave the crowd everything because it was easier than holding anything back. He joked more than usual, moved more than usual, let the music pull him forward when his own mind wanted to drag him under. The fans would never know the difference. Maybe that was a mercy. Maybe that was terrifying. He could be falling apart internally and still look electric beneath stage lights. He wondered, briefly, how many people in the arena were doing the same thing in smaller ways. Smiling beside friends. Singing love songs beside people who had hurt them. Filming him with hands that shook for reasons nobody would ask about later.

Halfway through the set, during a song that had once made Sadie cry laughing because Jesse used to shout the wrong lyric from his car seat, Harry looked toward the side again. Anne was there. Joanna was there. Simon was there. Sadie and Jesse were gone. The lyric kept moving through his mouth. His body stayed in time. The crowd didn’t notice. But something inside Harry dropped so violently it felt almost physical.

For a few seconds, he told himself not to react. Jesse was tired. She probably took him somewhere quieter. That had been the plan, sort of. She’d said she’d watch until he got fussy. But the rational thought came too late and too weak. The older fear had already risen, fed by weeks of watching Sadie retreat from every room where she might have belonged. She left. Of course she left. He’d asked her to be there, begged in the only way he still knew how to beg without sounding like it, and she’d still left. She’d smiled, nodded, promised, dressed up like she meant it, brought Jesse, stood where he could see her, and then vanished the moment it became too much.

Everything he’d said in her flat suddenly felt humiliating. I need you there. Apparently that meant nothing. Apparently he meant nothing.

No. Not that. That was too childish. Too cruel. But hurt had never been reasonable, and under the heat of lights with the whole arena singing back at him, Harry’s brain took the absence and turned it immediately into evidence. She didn’t care. She couldn’t stay. She didn’t want to. She was already gone.

He pushed through the rest of the song on pure instinct. Then the next. Then the next. If anything, the show got better after that because anger could masquerade as energy if he aimed it correctly. He ran harder down the catwalk. Laughed bigger. Held notes longer than he had all week. The crowd lost their minds and Harry let them, because if they were loud enough maybe they could cover the sound of his own thoughts tearing at him.

By the encore, he was almost dizzy with it. By the final bow, his face hurt from smiling. The second he stepped offstage, the world narrowed brutally. Noise shifted from roar to backstage chaos. Crew cheering. People clapping him on the back. Someone shouting, “Incredible, H!” over the ringing in his ears. Jeff appeared, grinning and relieved, already saying something about the run, about how good that one had felt, about press photos waiting, about champagne. Harry ripped his in-ears out so hard one of the cables snapped against his neck.

“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered.

Jeff’s expression changed immediately. “Harry?”

“Not now.”

“Mate, what’s going on? Show was great.”

Harry shoved past him before he could stop himself. “I said not now!”He heard Jeff follow anyway, because Jeff was Jeff and because there were very few people in Harry’s life paid or brave enough to ignore the warning tone in his voice. “Harry, slow down. Talk to me.”

But Harry couldn’t slow down. The adrenaline had nowhere to go now that the stage was gone, and it came tearing through him sideways, ugly and hot. He moved through corridors too fast, stage shirt sticking damply to his back, pulse hammering in his throat. Someone congratulated him and he barely nodded. Someone tried to hand him a towel and he missed it. His dressing room door came up too quickly, and he pushed it open harder than necessary. Then stopped dead.

Sadie was inside. Not gone. There.

Sitting on the sofa with Jesse asleep heavy against her chest, his head hanging over her shoulder at an angle that looked uncomfortable for everyone except him. One of her arms curved around his back, the other hand moving slowly through his curls in the repetitive soothing motion of someone who’d been doing it for a while. The room was dimmer than before, only the mirror lights on low, and Sadie had kicked off her ballet flats beneath the coffee table. Her skirt was creased where Jesse’s legs had been curled against it. The strap of her slip tank had slipped slightly down one shoulder. She looked tired and soft and startled, turning toward the door with Jesse still asleep against her.

“Harry?” she whispered, immediately concerned by whatever she saw on his face.

He stood in the doorway breathing hard. For a second, all the anger had nowhere to land. “I thought you left,” he said. The words came out low and harsh, half whisper, half accusation.

Sadie’s eyes widened slightly. “What?”

“I thought you left.”

Understanding moved across her face slowly, then something like shock. Not offended shock. Wounded shock. As though she hadn’t realised her absence from the side of the stage could matter enough to do this to him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered quickly, glancing down at Jesse as he shifted faintly. “He was getting really fussy, and the noise was too much, so I brought him in here. I was just trying to settle him. I didn’t—” She looked back at Harry, worry sharpening. “I didn’t leave.”

Harry swallowed hard, still breathing like he’d run the length of the arena. Behind him, Jeff appeared in the hallway and stopped immediately when he saw the scene. Sadie looked past Harry briefly, then back. “Harry, what’s going on?”

“I can’t talk to you,” Harry said, voice tight. Sadie’s face shut down so fast it hurt to watch. He saw it and immediately added, rougher, “Not like that. I mean I can’t talk to you while you’re holding him. I don’t want to wake him.”

Jesse stirred slightly at the sound of his voice, making a tiny sleepy noise into Sadie’s neck. Sadie looked down at him, then nodded once. “Okay.”

The care she took putting him down nearly undid Harry again. There was a makeshift cot set up in the corner from earlier, one of those collapsible travel things someone had dragged in after Jesse fell asleep during a previous show. Sadie stood slowly, every movement controlled, Jesse heavy and boneless against her shoulder. Harry stepped forward instinctively as if to help, then stopped himself because he didn’t know whether touching either of them right now would steady him or shatter him completely. Sadie lowered Jesse gently into the cot, one hand supporting his head, the other easing his arm from around her neck. He whined softly, and she froze, whispering, “Shh, baby, you’re okay. Mummy’s here. Daddy’s here. Sleep, sweetheart.”

Harry closed his eyes at that. Mummy’s here. Daddy’s here. Again. That phrase. That impossible little lie that was also, in the moment, true.

When Jesse settled, Sadie tucked Harry’s hoodie — the one Jesse had apparently stolen from the sofa — around him like a blanket and kissed his forehead so softly it barely looked like contact. Then she turned back to Harry, face pale.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Jeff cleared his throat awkwardly from the doorway. “I’ll just…” He looked at Harry, then at Sadie, then wisely stepped back. “I’ll give you a minute. But people are waiting, H.”

Harry didn’t answer.

Sadie led the way into the adjoining room because she seemed to understand, somehow, that if Harry had to stay in the same room as sleeping Jesse, he would swallow every word and choke on it. The adjoining room was smaller, used mostly for wardrobe overflow, with a rack of clothes pushed against one wall and champagne already sitting unopened in an ice bucket on the sideboard. Celebration waiting politely beside collapse.

The door clicked softly behind them. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Harry stood with his hands on his hips, chest still rising too fast, sweat cooling unpleasantly on his skin. Sadie stood a few feet away, arms wrapped around herself despite the room being warm, eyes fixed somewhere near his collarbone.

“You thought I left,” she said quietly.

He laughed once, bitter and embarrassed all at once. “Yeah. I did.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that now.”

“I would’ve told you if I was going.”

“Would you?”

She flinched. Harry hated himself for saying it and still felt the truth of it burning in his throat. Sadie’s eyes filled quickly, but she blinked hard, refusing to let them fall yet. “I stayed because you asked me to.”

The simplicity of the sentence landed like a hand against his chest. Harry looked away.

“I stayed,” she said again, softer now. “Jesse just needed quiet.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, laughing under his breath because the emotional whiplash was too much. “Do you know what it felt like looking over and seeing you gone?” Sadie’s mouth parted slightly, but no answer came. “It felt like every fucking thing I said this morning didn’t matter.”

Her face crumpled.

“And I know that’s not fair,” Harry continued immediately, voice rough and unsteady now, “because he’s three and he was tired and obviously you took him somewhere quiet. I know that. I’m not stupid. But I looked over and you weren’t there and my brain just—” He broke off, pressing his thumb and forefinger hard against his eyes. “It just went.”

Sadie wiped under one eye quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop.”

“I am.”

“I know you are!” His voice rose slightly, then he immediately glanced toward the door and forced it lower. “I know you’re sorry. I know you’re always sorry. That’s part of what’s making me lose my mind.”

She stood very still. Harry looked at her fully then, and all at once the words came the way they had with Anne, only worse now because Sadie was the person they belonged to.

“I don’t understand how we got here,” he said. “I don’t understand how I’m standing in a dressing room after the last London show feeling like I can’t breathe because my wife wasn’t where I expected her to be. I don’t understand why you ruined us.” His voice cracked on that last word, and Sadie’s face crumpled completely. “And I know that sounds cruel, but that’s what it feels like. You ruined us. Or maybe we were already ruined and I didn’t know. I keep trying to work it out. I keep going back through everything — tour, Jesse, the wedding, the months before it happened — trying to find the bit where we stopped seeing each other.”

Sadie covered her mouth with one hand, tears now slipping silently down her cheeks.

Harry kept going because if he stopped he’d never survive starting again. “I can’t trust you. Not with us. Not with me. And I hate that because I trust you with Jesse completely, which makes no sense. I know you’d throw yourself in front of a car for him. I know you’re a good mum. I know that, and then I look at you and I think, how could the same person do what you did to me?” He laughed once, broken and quiet. “I can’t look at you sometimes. I genuinely can’t. It hurts too much.” Sadie nodded like she accepted the wound because she’d made it. Harry’s face twisted. “And then all I want to do is look at you. All day. All the time. I look for you in every fucking room like an idiot.”

A sound escaped her then, tiny and devastated. He stepped back because the instinct to reach for her was suddenly so strong it frightened him.

“I hate you,” he whispered, but there was no force in it. Only grief. “Sometimes I really think I do. Not you. Not all of you. But what you did. The version of you that could do it. I hate that person so much I don’t know where to put it. And then you stand there looking like you haven’t slept in a month and all I can think is that I need you to eat, and I hate myself for caring because it feels like you’ve made me responsible for your pain too.”

Sadie shook her head quickly, tears falling harder now. “I don’t want you to feel responsible.”

“But I do!” Harry said, voice breaking again. “That’s the fucking problem, Sadie. I do. Because you’re still my wife and I’m still in love with you and you’re walking around like you’re half dead, and somehow I’m supposed to be angry enough not to care?”

She pressed both hands over her mouth now, crying silently but violently, shoulders shaking with the effort of not making sound.

Harry looked at her and felt the rawest part of himself exposed. “You hurt me,” he said, quieter now. “You hurt me more than anyone ever has. And I don’t think you understand what it’s like to be furious at someone and terrified for them at the same time.”

Sadie lowered her hands slowly. Her voice, when it came, was barely there. “I do.” He stared at her. She swallowed hard. “Not the same way. I know that. But I do.”

The admission shifted something tiny and dangerous in the room. Sadie took a hesitant step forward, then stopped immediately. Her hand lifted slightly, like she wanted to touch him, maybe his arm, maybe his hand, something. The movement was so familiar that Harry almost moved into it without thinking. Then she dropped her hand.

“I don’t know how to answer you in a way that helps,” she said, voice shaking. “I don’t know how to make this make sense. I wish I did. I wish there was a reason clean enough for you to hold. There isn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. There’s just…” She inhaled unevenly. “There’s me being so unhappy in myself that I made the worst possible choice with it. And that sounds pathetic, and I know it’s not enough, but I don’t know how to dress it up into something more useful.”

Harry said nothing. Sadie’s tears kept falling, but she didn’t wipe them away now. “I didn’t leave tonight because I didn’t care. I left the side because our son was tired and overwhelmed and I thought if I stayed out there making him watch because you asked me to be there, then I’d be doing the exact thing I keep saying hurt me — forcing someone into your world because it mattered to you.”

The sentence landed hard. Harry’s mouth opened slightly, then closed again.

Sadie shook her head quickly. “That’s not me blaming you. It’s not. I know this is your night, and I wanted to be there, and I was there. I promise I was. But Jesse needed quiet, so I brought him here.” She looked away, embarrassed by her own honesty. “And maybe part of me thought you wouldn’t notice anyway.”

Harry’s face tightened. “How could I not notice?”

The question came out so softly it hurt both of them. Sadie looked back at him. For a moment they just stood there in the wardrobe room after the final London show, surrounded by clothes and unopened champagne and all the versions of Harry the world wanted him to be, while the two of them faced the private version nobody else got to see: exhausted, heartbroken, still tethered to each other by something neither betrayal nor shame had managed to cut.

A knock came at the door. Both of them flinched. Before Harry could answer, the door opened partway and one of his team leaned in with an apologetic but bright smile, holding two champagne flutes already filled.

“Sorry, H, they’re ready for you out front. Quick champagne photo with everyone, then we can do friends and family. Amazing show, by the way.”

The room changed instantly. Harry looked at Sadie. Sadie looked down, wiping her face quickly with both hands, trying to erase the evidence of what had just happened before anyone else could see it.

“Yeah,” Harry said after a second, voice rough but controlled. “Give me one minute.”

“Of course.”

The door clicked shut again, but the moment was already broken. Sadie stepped back first. “You should go.”

Harry stared at her, still breathing hard, still full of everything he hadn’t finished saying. “Sadie—”

“No, you should.” She nodded toward the door, forcing steadiness into her voice and failing at the edges. “It’s your last London show.”

He almost laughed at the cruelty of that. Not from her. From the situation. His last London show. Celebration waiting outside. His son asleep in the next room. His wife crying in a wardrobe room because he had finally told her exactly how impossible it was to love her now.

“I don’t want to leave you like this,” he said quietly.

Something in her face broke all over again. But she just nodded once. “I know.”

He hated that answer. He hated all the answers they had lately.

Another cheer rose from the hallway, muffled through the door, his name somewhere inside it. The world wanted him back. Harry looked at Sadie one last time, then forced himself to turn toward the door because that was what his life had always asked of him in the end. To walk out of one kind of heartbreak and into applause.

The first thing Sadie noticed was that she still thought of it as home. Not Harry’s house. Home. And that was a problem in itself.

She sat in her car for nearly a full minute after pulling into the driveway, staring at the front door through the windscreen while her fingers remained wrapped around the steering wheel. The weather had turned properly autumnal over the last week, grey clouds sitting low over London and making everything look softer than it really was. Home.

Not anymore. The thought came automatically now. Every time. She grabbed her bag and climbed out before she could talk herself into leaving. The front door opened before she even reached it. Harry. For a second they both just stood there. The aftermath of the stadium conversation still lingered awkwardly between them. Not resolved. Not fixed. Just... there. Like furniture nobody knew where to put.

"Hey," Harry said.

"Hi."

His eyes flicked over her face automatically. A quick assessment. Eating? Sleeping? Existing? She hated that she recognised it now. "Anne and Jess already left?" she asked.

Harry nodded. "Park. Apparently Jesse wanted to show Nanny Anne every duck in London."

A tiny smile almost appeared. "Right."

Silence. "Jeff's inside."

"Okay." She stepped past him.

The familiarity of the hallway hit her immediately. The framed photos. The stupid console table she'd spent three weeks convincing Harry to buy because the first one he'd chosen looked "like it belonged in a hotel lobby." The faint smell of coffee. Her chest tightened. Harry noticed. Of course he noticed. But neither of them said anything.

Jeff was already sitting at the kitchen island with a laptop open and several documents spread around him when they walked in. He looked up and immediately offered a smile that sat somewhere between manager and family friend. "Morning."

"Hi Jeff."

"Tea? Coffee?" he asked.

Sadie shook her head. Harry answered, "Coffee."

The meeting started easily enough. Dates. Flights. Accommodation. Show schedules. Practical things. Safe things. The upcoming residency was already planned months ago. Two weeks in Los Angeles. Two weeks in New York. Hotels secured. Security arranged. Transport booked. The only variable now was Jesse. Which meant the only variable now was them.

Jeff scrolled through his calendar. "Okay. So realistically, we need to finalise Jesse's schedule before the end of the week." Harry nodded. Sadie nodded. Jeff looked between them. "Thoughts?"

And then, somehow, they both spoke at exactly the same time.

"I thought I could have Jesse for the two weeks—"

"I can come with you—"

The words collided. Silence. Jeff immediately looked like a man who wanted the floor to open and swallow him whole. Harry turned toward Sadie. Sadie turned toward Harry.

"Oh." The word escaped both of them differently. Harry's sounded surprised. Sadie's sounded embarrassed.

Jeff cleared his throat awkwardly. "Right."

Nobody helped him. Because Harry was still staring at Sadie. "You wanted to come?" The question wasn't dismissive. That somehow made it worse.

Sadie immediately looked away. God. Idiot. Of course she'd misunderstood. The stadium. The conversation. Him asking her to stay. Some stupid part of her had let herself believe it meant something larger. Not reconciliation or forgiveness but maybe he still wanted her nearby. Maybe there was still a version of their life where they could figure it out while existing in the same space. And now she could practically feel how foolish it sounded.

Harry filled the silence before she could. "Right, well..." He rubbed his hands together. "I just thought Jesse could come out for two weeks." Sadie kept her eyes fixed firmly on the table. Harry continued talking. Talking because talking felt safer than the silence. "He'd have fun. Mum will be there. Then after the two weeks she could fly him home and he'd stay with you while I do New York."

Jeff nodded. "That's definitely workable. Plenty of support."

"Exactly."

Every sentence felt like another brick being laid down between them. Sadie nodded once. "Yeah."

Harry looked at her. "What do you think?"

The answer sat right there. I think I thought you wanted me there. I think I'm embarrassed. I think I'm tired of guessing what you mean. Instead she smiled faintly. The same smile she'd been using for weeks now. The one that hid everything. "That's fine."

Harry frowned immediately. "Sadie."

"It's fine."

"You said you wanted to come."

The gentleness in his voice almost made it worse. Sadie shrugged. A tiny movement. Like she was physically trying to make herself smaller. "It was a stupid idea."

Harry's expression changed. "No it wasn't."

"It is."

"Why?"

Because you clearly don't want me there. Because I misunderstood. Because I'm tired of putting myself in positions where I have to realise I'm not wanted.

But saying any of that aloud felt unbearable. So instead she just looked down at the papers. "Your idea works."

"Sadie if—"

"It's fine."

There it was again. That word. Fine. The word Harry had grown to hate more than almost anything. Because fine never meant fine. Fine meant retreat. Fine meant armour. Fine meant Sadie deciding what everyone else felt before they could tell her themselves.

Jeff shifted awkwardly in his seat. Harry looked like he wanted to argue. Then stopped himself. The rest of the meeting stumbled forward after that. Not badly. Just... carefully. Like everybody had become aware of a crack in the floor and was trying not to step directly on it.

By the time they finally left for therapy an hour later, Harry felt exhausted all over again. The drive lasted nearly forty minutes. Sadie spent most of it staring out the window. Harry spent most of it staring at the road. The silence wasn't angry. That would almost have been easier. Instead it felt familiar. The exact kind of silence they used to sit inside before everything fell apart. The kind where both people were thinking constantly and saying absolutely nothing.

Halfway through the drive Harry almost broke. Because he kept replaying the meeting in his head. I can come with you. The way she'd said it. Not demanding. Not manipulative. Hopeful. And then the immediate embarrassment afterward. The immediate retreat. Harry gripped the steering wheel harder. Because the truth was he hadn't rejected the idea, not really, the truth was he'd never even considered it. Not because he didn't want her there but because he wanted her there too much. London had been one thing. Familiar ground. Family around. Therapy every week. A routine.

Los Angeles was different. New York was different. Hotels. Flights. Months of being trapped in the same orbit while neither of them knew whether they were fixing their marriage or ending it. It hadn't felt safe for either of them but Sadie didn't know that. And now she was sitting beside him assuming the worst. Again. Just like he was assuming the worst. Again.

They were unbelievable. Both of them. By the time they pulled into the therapist's parking lot, Harry had worked himself into a fresh wave of frustration. Not at Sadie but at them. At how impossible this had become. At how every conversation somehow transformed into a misunderstanding. At how every misunderstanding immediately became another reason not to speak.

The car had barely stopped before Sadie unclipped her seatbelt. Harry looked over. She already had her hand on the door handle. "Sadie."

She paused. Not looking at him. "What?"

Harry opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Because suddenly he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say. Don't do this? Tell me what you're actually thinking? Stop deciding how I feel before I say it? Stay? The words tangled. And in the end all he managed was. "We should probably actually talk about it."

For a second Sadie stared out through the windscreen. Then she nodded once. Still not looking at him. "Okay."

But Harry already knew that wasn't what she meant. Then she climbed out of the car before he could stop her, crossed the parking lot quickly, and disappeared through the therapist's front doors. Leaving Harry sitting behind the wheel alone for another moment, watching her go and feeling that familiar helplessness settle heavily in his chest.

Harry knew before they even sat down that this session was going to be a disaster. Not explosive or dramatic. Those were almost easier now. At least when they shouted, things got said. This felt worse.

The receptionist smiled at them when they arrived. Sadie smiled back automatically. Harry watched her do it and thought, not for the first time, that she had become frighteningly good at pretending she was fine for exactly fifteen-second interactions. And then they were sitting in the waiting room. Sadie in her usual chair. Harry one seat away. Back where they'd started.

The entire drive over sat heavily between them. The tour conversation. The misunderstanding. The look on her face when she'd realised they'd imagined completely different futures.

Harry rubbed his hands together and stared at the floor. Beside him, Sadie sat unnaturally still. No fidgeting, checking her phone. Just still, which somehow worried him more.

When Doctor Bennett finally appeared in the doorway and called their names, Sadie was on her feet almost immediately. Like she'd been waiting for permission to escape. The session started quietly which Doctor Bennet noticed immediately. She sat opposite them, notebook resting on her knee, and looked between them carefully. "I imagine we should probably start with the missed session."

Sadie let out a small breath. "Yeah."

"You said you needed a break."

"I did."

Lydia nodded slowly. "And how did that feel?"

Sadie stared at a spot somewhere near the carpet. "Good. Bad."

A tiny smile from Lydia. "Both? Can you explain that?"

Sadie rubbed her thumb across her wedding ring unconsciously. "It was nice not talking about everything for a week."

Harry noticed she still wore it. He always noticed.

"And the bad?"

Sadie's laugh was hollow. "The bad is that all the stuff you're avoiding is still there when the week ends."

Lydia nodded. A moment passed before she asked another question. "Have you made any progress with individual therapy?"

Sadie's face immediately did something strange. Something close to dread. "Yeah."

"And?"

"My first session is next week."

Doctor Bennett smiled. "That's good."

"Sure." Sadie's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Lucky me." Sadie shrugged. "Two therapists."

Doctor Bennett almost laughed. "That's one way to look at it."

"It feels excessive."

"You've had a difficult few months."

"That's one way to look at it too."

The sarcasm was mild. Barely there. But Harry noticed it as did Lydia. Interesting, at least she was engaging. Then Doctor Bennett's attention shifted. "Has something happened today?"

Silence. The meeting. The difference in ideas.The waiting room. The tension. Everything. Sadie didn't answer, so Harry did.

"This morning we were meeting with Jeff. My manager."

Doctor nodded. "About your tour in America, I'm assuming?"

"Yeah." Harry sat back slightly. "It was logistics stuff." His eyes found Sadie's briefly. Then looked away again. "When we were a family..." The words came naturally before he could stop them. "This is just what we did. We planned where Jesse would be, where Sadie would be, what dates worked."

The second the sentence left his mouth he saw Sadie flinch. Tiny but unmistakable. Harry's stomach dropped.

"Sadie?" Doctor Bennet questioned.

Sadie swallowed then laughed quietly. Not amused. "I don't see why it matters."

Harry frowned. "What?"

She looked at Lydia instead of him.

"You just said when we were a family." The room immediately felt colder. Harry opened his mouth. Closed it again. Sadie shrugged. "There isn't really much else to discuss."

"Sad—"

"No, it's fine."

The dreaded word again. Fine.

Lydia leaned forward slightly. "It doesn't sound fine."

Sadie smiled sadly. "No." A long silence followed. "I just thought..." Her voice caught unexpectedly. She looked down and then tried again. "I thought after what you said at Wembley..." Harry froze. "...maybe you felt differently."

The admission sat between them. Raw. Embarrassing. Honest. Sadie laughed softly at herself before either of them could respond. "Which is probably just me being stupid."

"Sadie—"

"No, it's okay." She wiped beneath one eye quickly. "I just had high hopes."

Harry's chest tightened. "That's not—"

"And that's my fault." Her voice remained calm. That somehow made it worse. "We're not a family." The words hurt to hear. "We're not." She nodded once. "And that's because of me."

"Sadie—"

"And that's how it is now."

Bennett shifted slightly. "Can you explain what you mean by that?"

Sadie looked exhausted. Like every sentence cost her something. "I cheated on my husband." The bluntness shocked even Harry. "So we're not a family anymore."

"That's not necessarily—"

"But we aren't." The tears were back now. "I understand that."

Doctor Bennet opened her mouth but Harry spoke first because suddenly he was frustrated. Not angry. Frustrated. Because they were doing it again. The same dance, the same assumptions. The same conclusions reached before anyone else got a chance to speak.

"I was open to hearing what you wanted." Sadie looked over. Harry leaned forward. "I genuinely was."

"Okay."

"No." His voice sharpened slightly. "I mean it. You said you wanted to come but then the second I asked about it you shut down." Sadie's face changed. Harry kept going. Because once again he could see her doing it, the thing she'd always done. Only now he finally had words for it.

"You decide how everyone feels before they tell you." The room went quiet. "You've always done it." Sadie stared at him while he shook his head. "You hurt yourself first."

"Harry—"

"No, listen." His voice wasn't cruel. If anything, it sounded tired. "You decide people are disappointed before they can be disappointed." Sadie's eyes filled immediately. "You decide they don't want you before they tell you whether they do."

"Harry."

"You've done it since I've known you." Her breathing visibly changed. Harry could see it happening but he couldn't stop. Because for the first time he felt close to something true. "And it's only become more obvious since you decided to ruin our family."

The second the words left his mouth he wished he could drag them back. Not because they weren't true. Because they were, at least partially. That's what made them dangerous.

Sadie went completely still. She wasn't crying. She was just still. Harry knew instantly he'd hit something. Too hard. Too deep.

Lydia spoke first. "Harry." A warning.

He barely heard it because Sadie's face had emptied. Like he'd reached into her chest and confirmed the thing she'd already been telling herself every night.

You ruined your family.

Harry felt sick. "Sadie, I—"

She shook her head once. Tiny. Almost imperceptible. And she barely spoke for the rest of the session.

The drive home was awful because Sadie cried the entire way. Silently, while looking out the passenger window. Harry gripped the steering wheel hard enough to hurt. Three times he opened his mouth and three times he closed it again. Because what was he supposed to say? Sorry? He wasn't sorry. The comment came from somewhere real. Somewhere wounded. But seeing what it had done to her made him wish he'd chosen different words. Or maybe just different timing.

The silence stretched for thirty minutes. By the time they pulled into the driveway Harry felt exhausted. Sadie was out of the car before the engine fully stopped.

Inside, the house felt warm. Safe. Normal. Which somehow made everything worse. Anne and Jesse were in the living room. Jesse immediately spotted them. "Mummy!" He launched himself off the sofa. Sadie caught him automatically. And for the first time all afternoon Harry saw something soften in her. Only for a second.

She buried her face in Jesse's hair. "Hi, Jess."

Jesse wrapped both arms around her neck. "Mummy why you crying?"

The room froze. Sadie closed her eyes briefly and then smiled. "No, sweetheart, everything is okay."

Harry looked away. Anne looked between them immediately, understanding far too much. Sadie picked up Jesse's overnight bag and then his dinosaur toy, and his water bottle. Moving quickly. Purposefully. Harry recognised it as escape. "I'm just gonna get him and go." Her voice sounded flat.

Anne frowned. "Sadie—"

"My mum will drop him back in three days." She adjusted Jesse on her hip. "I've got my first session then anyway."

The room felt tense enough to snap. Harry stepped forward. "Sadie." She stopped but didn't turn around. "Can we talk?"

"No." The answer came instantly. She was tired.

"Please."

Still facing away, she shook her head. "I don't want to."

The honesty of it hurt. Harry looked at Anne helplessly. Anne looked away. Giving them privacy without actually leaving.

"Sadie..."

Finally she turned and she looked exhausted. "You told me exactly how you feel." Her voice was quiet. Steady. "You think I ruined our family."

Harry swallowed. "That's not—"

"It is." A small shrug. A defeated shrug. "You don't have to take it back." The tears started again. "I know what I did."

"Sadie—"

"No." This time her voice cracked. "I really don't want to do this right now."

Jesse shifted sleepily against her shoulder. Completely unaware that both his parents looked like they were barely holding themselves together. Sadie kissed the top of his head and then looked back at Harry one final time. And what Harry saw there scared him. She didn't look angry or heartbroken. But there was a look of resignation, which somehow felt worse because at least heartbreak still fought. Resignation gave up.