Page 64 of Chasing the Other Woman

I swipe again.

Recent photos now. Ones from the years when I thought I had become furniture in my own life. Me at a table with three laptops open. Me talking to a new crew member. Me standing behind Brooks at some sponsor event, my smile polite enough to hurt.

But in the background of one shot, Brooks is looking at me.

Not at Luci. Not at the camera. Not at the sponsor shaking his hand.

Me.

I zoom in before I can stop myself. His face is soft in a way I don’t remember seeing that night.

Another photo. I’m explaining something to a local emergency manager while Brooks stands several feet away, arms folded, mouth curved with quiet pride.

Another. I’m walking out of frame. Brooks’s head is turned, tracking me.

Tom’s voice comes back to me.

He tracks you like radar.

I set the phone down too carefully.

Petra watches me from the bar. “You okay?”

"No," I say. "I'm upright and breathing, but that's about it."

Her mouth twitches. “Put that on a business card.”

I almost smile, but I can't quite make myself.

Because Brooks saw me.

That’s the awful part. It hurts in a way I can’t make sense of. He watched me leave rooms. He saw me standing right beside him.

He loved me.

Still, that didn’t stop him from hurting me.

How can a man watch you like you’re the most important thing in his orbit, yet make you feel so invisible you’d swear there was nothing left of you to hurt after it was all said and done?

The hurt hasn't gone anywhere. It’s just shifted. I rub my chest and hope like hell it eventually goes away.

I find him outside the temporary supply station behind The Funnel Cloud, looking over one of the storm vehicles at some damage it's recently taken.

“Brooks.”

He turns immediately.

Not quickly. Immediately.

Like some part of him was already listening for me.

“Sam.”

I hold up my phone. “You want to explain this?”

His gaze drops to the screen. Then back to me. “I should’ve done it a long time ago.”

“That’s not an explanation.”