It didn’t make sense. He had no reason to care what you thought, no reason to care at all. He told himself as much. Those women meant nothing. He didn’t love them. He didn’t love anyone, really.

And yet.

The truth of it was unbearable: you’d undone him. Without permission, without effort. You, with your small, maddening habits— Your fidgeting, the sound of your steady breathing at night, the way you smiled, soft and fleeting, like it cost you nothing.

He wanted to keep you forever.

You were a good wife—faithful, dutiful. And he had been cruel—not unforgivably, but in quiet betrayals you never named. There were others, of course. Brief, meaningless indulgences men like him believed they were entitled to.

When you found out, it should have ended there. He expected rage. He could have borne that. Welcomed it, even, because it would mean you cared enough to hate him. But instead, you were silent. No screams, no tears, no shattered plates. Just a look.

He left that night, as much to escape your silence as to punish you for it. But the moment the door closed behind him, he realized his mistake. That wasn’t your weakness—it was his.

And then, the flowers.

They weren’t planned. He saw them on a vendor’s table—your favorite kind, wrapped in crinkling paper—and reached for them before he could stop himself. The stems were soft in his palm. What was he doing?

It was pathetic. The sort of thing a better man might do—a man who hadn’t spent years making a ruin of his own house. You knew what he was when you were arranged to marry, didn’t you? You’d made your choice.

He bought you flowers, and he hated himself for that, too.

Standing there, the fragile bouquet clutched in his hands. He gripped the stems too tightly, nearly crushing them. He didn’t know what he wanted—to throw them at your feet, to leave them by your door, to see you accept them or let them wilt in their wrapping.

You deserved better. He knew that.