He believed that he had set the perfect trap and that Cassidy would walk right into the role he had written for her. He assumed she was still the same woman who would absorb humiliation quietly just to keep the peace for their children.
Across the city in a small apartment located above a local pharmacy, Cassidy Thorne stared at her phone until the letters blurred. The apartment was small enough that the sound of the clicking ceiling fan followed her into every room.
A pot of pasta sat cooling on the stove while laundry hung over the backs of the kitchen chairs because the building dryer was broken again. The air smelled like lemon cleaner and crayons because she worked hard to make the tiny space feel like a real home for her sons.
Mason and Toby were on the rug near the coffee table building a complex city out of plastic blocks and old shoe boxes. Mason was the louder twin who narrated every disaster while his toy car crashed through a cardboard tunnel.
Toby was the quiet observer who arranged the blocks into perfect rows and corrected his brother whenever the traffic patterns became unrealistic. “Cars do not fly over the buildings, Mason,” Toby said without looking up from his work.