The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 486

Mia's POV

Something I could reach out and touch if I wanted to.

I don't want to.

The cigarette has burned down to almost nothing in my hand. A thin column of ash clinging to the filter, defying gravity, waiting for the slightest movement to fall. I watch it instead of watching him. Easier that way. Safer.

The river keeps moving. That's the thing about rivers—they don't care about anniversaries or ex-husbands or all the complicated history that lives between two people standing too close on a cold October night. They just keep going. Forward. Always forward.

"You're thinking something."

Kyle's voice cuts through the quiet. Low. Careful. The way you'd speak to something easily startled.

The ash finally falls. A small grey ghost drifting down, disappearing into the darkness below the railing. I watch it go.

"I have this dream," I hear myself say.

The champagne, probably. The champagne and the exhaustion and the strange magic of standing by a river at midnight on a day that used to mean something.

Kyle doesn't respond. Just waits. That particular patience he has—the kind that feels like a trap sometimes, the kind that makes you keep talking just to fill the silence.

"I've had it for years," I continue. My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Distant. Like I'm listening to someone else speak.

The wind picks up. His coat shifts around my shoulders, the fabric rustling softly. I pull it tighter. Breathe in that smell—cedar and sandalwood and smoke and something underneath that's just him.

"In the dream," I say, "you're walking ahead of me."

I can feel him go still beside me. That particular stillness Kyle gets when he's really listening. When every atom of his attention is focused on a single point.

"Not far ahead. Maybe twenty feet. Maybe thirty. Close enough that I can see you clearly." I'm looking at the water now. At the way the lights from Jersey City scatter across its surface, breaking and reforming with every small wave. "You're wearing something dark. I can never tell exactly what. A coat, maybe. Or a suit. The details are always blurry around the edges, the way things are in dreams."

A tugboat horn sounds somewhere in the distance. Low and mournful. The kind of sound that makes you think of departures.

"I try to catch up," I say. "Every time. I walk faster. Then I'm running. My legs are burning and my lungs are burning. You just keep walking."

Kyle's hand moves. I see it in my peripheral vision—the slow lift of his arm, the cigarette rising to his lips. The cherry glows brighter for a moment. Then fades.

"And the strange thing is," I continue, "you're not running. You're just walking. Normal speed. But somehow—" I shake my head. The motion makes the world tilt slightly. The champagne still doing its work. "—somehow, no matter how fast I go, you're always faster. The distance between us never changes. Never closes. Never opens. Just stays the same. This impossible, constant gap."

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