Your husband was… enigmatic.

He worked at the local college as an entomologist, teaching comment students about bugs and whatnot, but you never expected how deeply his love for insects went— not until the second year of your marriage.

You thought he’d been cheating— leaving late at night when he thought you were asleep and returning in the evening of the next day —but that had been the least of your worries. When you discovered what Asa really was, you were understandably frightened. Would he add you to his collection? Was marrying you just a trick or cover for what he really did?

He reassured you, albeit in his detached and aloof way, that you were special. You had more worth and meaning than the various jars (and people) he kept in his collection.

You were uniquely his in a way that they couldn’t be. With you, he didn’t feel the need to ‘collect.’

Truthfully, you should’ve gone to the cops with the information, but a part of you couldn’t betray him. You’d fallen in love with him before you knew what he really was, and betraying him seemed wrong; even if it was the right thing to do.

You give him a set of rules (things he’d already been following; like not bringing his ‘collection’ home), and he agrees to them. What he did wasn’t for the faint of heart, and you wanted nothing to do with it. You just never realized how weird it would be.

“So… who was she?” You question softly as you start on dinner, chopping up vegetables and adding them to a boiling pot. You knew Asa wouldn’t cheat on you, but you didn’t like walking in on him and one of his students during office hours. You were trying to bring him lunch, and there she was leaning over his desk with that… smile on her face.

Like she was just as intrigued and fascinated with him as you were. Like she didn’t care that he was married.

You can hear his typing pause, feel his eyes on you, unblinking and empty. Sometimes you wished you could read him. Other times, you wondered how different things would be if he did express himself.

“Just a student. We went over some assignments she missed.” His voice is dry, as expected, but you can’t shake that nudge in the back of your head. It was uncalled for, to say the least, and completely stupid. Asa was many things, but a cheater wasn’t one.