Darius Coleman was sitting on the edge of the bed when his fiancée leaned against his shoulder and smiled at him.
For anyone looking through the bedroom window that Saturday morning, they would have seemed completely ordinary.
Happy, even.
Darius was a thirty-four-year-old Black American man with a steady career in commercial construction, a modest house outside Charlotte, North Carolina, and a wedding scheduled for less than four months away.
The woman beside him, thirty-one-year-old Black American marketing consultant Simone Ellis, had been part of his life for almost five years.
They had survived job changes, family losses, financial stress, a pandemic, one miserable apartment with broken air conditioning, and enough arguments over where to eat dinner that Darius joked they were already prepared for marriage.
That morning, Simone was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt and shorts.
Her long curls spilled over one shoulder.
Darius was dressed in a black T-shirt and sweatpants.
They had spent most of breakfast discussing wedding invitations.
Or, more accurately, Simone had been discussing wedding invitations while Darius tried to understand why anyone needed four different shades of cream paper.
“This one is ivory,” Simone said.
She held up a sample.
Darius stared at it.
“That one is white.”
“It is not white.”
“It looks white.”
“It’s ivory.”
She lifted another.
“This is pearl.”
Darius stared again.
“Also white.”
Simone narrowed her eyes.
“This is why men are not allowed to plan weddings.”
Darius laughed.
“We see through the scam.”
“What scam?”
“The wedding industry created twelve names for white so they can charge us twelve different prices.”
Simone tried not to smile.
“You are impossible.”
“And yet you agreed to marry me.”
She leaned toward him.
“I was temporarily confused.”
Darius wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Too late now.”
Simone kissed him.
“Four months isn’t too late.”
Darius pulled her closer.
“You already spent the deposit.”
“Good point.”
They laughed.
It was the kind of easy moment that had made Darius believe they were solid.
Not perfect.
Solid.
There was a difference.
Perfect relationships existed in anniversary posts and carefully edited photographs.
Real relationships had dirty dishes in the sink, forgotten errands, stupid arguments, missed calls and mornings when one person wanted silence while the other wanted conversation.
Darius understood that.
He never expected perfection from Simone.
He expected honesty.
For almost five years, he believed he had it.
Simone stood.
“I’m getting coffee.”
“Bring me some.”
“You have legs.”
“I’m emotionally exhausted from looking at all those different kinds of white.”
She laughed.
“Get your own coffee.”
She walked toward the bedroom door.
Her phone remained on the bed beside Darius.
Neither of them noticed at first.
Simone disappeared down the hallway.
Darius looked again at the invitation samples.
He picked up the so-called pearl card.
“White,” he muttered.
Then Simone’s phone vibrated.
Once.
Darius ignored it.
The screen illuminated beside his hand.
He wasn’t trying to look.
He would repeat that fact to himself many times afterward.
He did not pick up her phone.
He did not enter her password.
He did not search messages.
He simply glanced toward a screen that lit up less than a foot from him.
The contact name made him smile at first.
Pizza Hut
Darius almost laughed.
Simone received restaurant promotions constantly.
Then he saw the message beneath it.
His smile disappeared.
Hey sexy, your man gone yet?
Darius did not move.
For several seconds, his brain refused to understand the sentence.
He read it again.
Hey sexy, your man gone yet?
The screen went dark.
Darius stared at his own reflection in the black glass.
Somewhere downstairs, a cabinet opened.
Simone was humming.
Nothing around him had changed.
The room looked exactly the same.
Their wedding invitation samples remained scattered across the comforter.
Simone’s engagement ring dish sat on the nightstand.
A framed photograph from their trip to Miami hung on the wall.
His shoes were beside hers.
Their laundry was piled in a chair neither of them ever used for sitting.
Everything looked normal.
But nothing felt normal anymore.
Darius picked up his own phone.
He checked the time.
10:41 a.m.