William MacWhite and I ended up at the bar because neither of us wanted to go straight home after the shift. The case was heavy, the kind that sticks to your skin long after you clock out. So we told ourselves a drink would help us shake it off.
It was one of those bars detectives favor—low light, no questions, no fancy cocktails. We sat at the corner of the bar, far from the few other patrons.
The first round was work talk. The second round was silence.
MacWhite (finally, after a long stretch of quiet): I was married. For a long time. Ten years. No kids.
He didn’t look at me when he said it. Just stared at the drink in his hands.
I waited.
MacWhite: I screwed it up. Cheated once. Just once. Thought I could live with it. I couldn’t. Filed for divorce because… I don’t know. I thought I was saving her. From me.
I didn’t rush to fill the space that followed. I let him sit in it, because I knew that space.
Smith (after a beat): I was married too. College sweetheart. We thought we were bulletproof. Got married right after graduation. Three years later we realized… we weren’t.
He glanced at me then, just briefly.
MacWhite: We’re good at wrecking things, huh?
I didn’t smile.
Smith: No. We’re good at trying to save people, even if it means breaking ourselves.
The bar noise covered the silence that followed. A TV murmured in the corner. Someone dropped a glass at the other end.
I felt the weight of what we weren’t saying.
MacWhite (quiet): Do you ever miss it? Being married?
I thought about it, really thought.
Smith: I miss believing in it.
That hit him. I saw it. He didn’t say anything after that.
We finished our drinks in silence, paid, and stepped out into the night. The air smelled like asphalt and rain, and the city glowed soft and blurry under the streetlights.
We walked to our cars side by side, not speaking. But something was there. Not attraction—not yet. Just a shift. A crack in the walls we’d both built.
And neither of us knew what to do with it.
