Josh drives like the radio might save us both from having to talk.
He’s got it on low, some classic rock station. Outside, Lynnfield slides by in that gray, half-awake way mornings do when nobody in the car got enough sleep.
I watch the trees blur past my window and decide someone has to say something eventually.
“So... what’d you think of Alyssa?”
Josh’s hands tighten slightly on the wheel. “She seems nice.”
I let the silence that follows sit for a second, just to see if he’ll fill it himself. He doesn’t. He just keeps his eyes on the road like it requires intense concentration, even though we’re doing thirty on a straightaway.
“You know you’re allowed to be honest with me, right?”
“Yeah.” He says it too fast. “Yeah, no, I know.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
“So you’re not gonna tell me to break up with her?”
Josh’s eyebrows shoot up. “You mean divorce?”
I actually laugh at that, short and surprised.
“When did you even get married?” he asks, and there’s real bewilderment in it now, cutting through whatever careful script he’d been running.
“She just kinda showed up.” I shrug, keeping my eyes on the trees going by.
Josh glances over at me, then back at the road. “Showed up.”
“Yeah. Few weeks ago, when you dropped me off. I went inside and she was just... there. In my apartment.”
“In your apartment,” he repeats, like saying it slower will make it make more sense.
“She had a knife out.” I say it the same way I’d mention the weather. “Told me she was my wife.”
Josh’s knuckles go white on the wheel. “And you didn’t call the cops.”
“No.”
Josh lets out a long breath through his nose, and I watch his grip ease back up on the wheel, fingers spreading out instead of choking the leather.
“Okay,” he says. “So then what happened?”
“She said she was my wife and went to make dinner. Found out I didn’t have any food, so then we went got food.”
“Sure. Fair. So she just... stayed.”
“She stayed.” I say.
“And you let her.”
“I didn’t really do anything to stop it, no.”
Josh is quiet for a mile or so, like he’s chewing on something before he lets himself say it.
“Do you like her, though?”
The question catches me a little off guard. Not because I don’t have an answer, but because nobody’s actually asked me that directly. Not Rachel, not Madison, not even Alyssa herself in those terms.
“Honestly, yeah.” The words come out easy, no hesitation behind them. “She’s a lot of fun.”
Josh’s whole posture shifts. His shoulders drop an inch. His grip on the wheel goes loose again, and when I glance over, there’s something in his face.
Total, bone-deep relief.
“Honestly, Caleb...” He shakes his head slightly, eyes still on the road but softer now. “This is the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”
I don’t say anything right away.
“You were smiling,” he says. “When you said bye to her back there.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He lets out a breath, almost a laugh, disbelieving. “So you know what? If this clearly unhinged woman is what it takes to keep you from wanting to die... I support it.”
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.” He glances at me for half a second, quick, like he needs to see my face to mean it properly. “I’ve watched you go through the motions for ten years, man. Ten years of you just... existing. Like you’re waiting for permission to stop. And then some woman breaks into your apartment with a knife and tells you she’s your wife, and a couple weeks later you’re smiling.”
“She did fuck up my apartment last night because she looked into the porn I watched before I met her.”
“I don’t care.” He says it flatly, no hesitation. “I genuinely do not care. If she makes you want to stay alive, she can burn your apartment down for all I care.”
“She also beat the shit out of Madison a few days ago.”
Josh’s head whips toward me so fast I hear his neck crack. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s a whole thing.” I keep my eyes on the trees. “Madison found some diary of Lauren’s. Cornered me outside work, wanted to buy me a drink and show it to me. Said she finally believes I didn’t kill her.”
“After ten years.” Josh’s voice goes flat, disbelieving. “Ten years of turning your life into a public manhunt, and now she just, what, decides you’re innocent?”
“Pretty much.”
He scoffs, shaking his head at the windshield like it personally offended him. “Too little, too late. And you know what, fuck her too. She doesn’t get to just show up and fix it because she feels like it.”
I feel a laugh building in my chest before I can stop it. “Yeah well, Alyssa agreed with you. Violently.”
“She beat her up over that?”
“She beat her up because she thought I was cheating.” I shrug. “The diary thing was more of a side effect.”
Josh is quiet for a second, processing that, and then he starts laughing. Really laughing, the kind that shakes his shoulders and fogs up the windshield a little.
“Your wife sounds like an absolute stand-up girl.”
I laugh with him, surprised at how easy it comes.
“Well,” I say, once we’ve both settled down, watching the meeting building come into view up ahead, gray brick and a sad little sign out front. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to know she’s got your approval now.”
Josh pulls into a parking spot near the entrance, gravel crunching under the tires, and kills the engine.
“Yeah, well it sounds like she’s a lot to handle. I’ll probably just stay out of her way if she’s already swinging on people over misunderstandings.”
I nod.
I think about the way Alyssa’s face went flat and certain this morning, the grip on my collar, the low, even promise she made without a hint of a joke in it. ‘If he talks you into leaving me, I’ll kill him.’
I don’t say any of that.
“Yeah,” I say instead. “Definitely for the best.”