Richard stood outside the gym. It was early morning.
It was a strange feeling; arriving anywhere early that wasn't work. But he stood outside the gym on a grey Monday morning, hands in his coat pockets, watching people drift in and out with gym bags slung over their shoulders. Young people, mostly. Fit people. People who moved as though the body were something effortless to command.
He was fifty now. Not old. Not young. Somewhere between the two, drifting.
He wasn't unhealthy; the doctors always said he was "in good shape for his age." But he was no longer the man who used to jog along the Thames before sunrise, or casually lift weights in his twenties without worrying about his back the next day.
He exhaled slowly, shaking his head with a wry smile.
"I need to start doing something," he murmured. "Before Robert starts dragging me here himself."
The thought stirred an unexpected warmth in him. Because Robert would. Kindly, but firmly. He had become a man transformed; steadier, calmer, happier, in a way Richard didn't think he'd ever seen him, not even in the early days of his first marriage. He had purpose now, family woven around him: Isabelle, her children, the baby on the way. He was gentle with them, protective in ways that made Richard's chest ache with both pride and something like envy.
Good envy. The kind that reminded him what love was supposed to look like. His friend deserved the glow he carried now.
Still… gym.
The word alone caused a pain in his chest; the faint scrape of a memory.
Eleanor.
Of course it would be Eleanor.
Her voice floated up from somewhere deep in memory; bright, clipped, tinged with the kind of dissatisfaction she wore like perfume.
"I need a personal trainer, Richard. I've met one, a friend of a friend recommended him. Very experienced. Very in demand."
He'd been half-dressed for work, searching for cufflinks. He remembered answering without looking up.
"Alright. Book him."
He hadn't asked questions. Not because he trusted blindly, not even because he was disinterested, but because Eleanor spoke in declarations, not requests. She decided, he agreed. That was their rhythm.
At first, she complained about the training constantly.
"He pushes far too hard. The man has no compassion. No personality either."
Richard would glance up from the evening paper, nodding vaguely. Another complaint in a sea of them. Her gym sessions, the weather, the traffic, the school parents, the wine she bought herself. He had grown used to the sound of dissatisfaction.
He wondered now, despite himself, whether she had been sleeping with that trainer, Toby, from the beginning, or if it had grown into something else later. Something that lasted more than a year, woven through his business trips, through birthdays and holidays and the small domestic moments he'd believed were real?
It didn't matter.
He wasn't jealous.
He wasn't grieving the marriage.
He just hated the ghosts. The daily reminders. The echo of being the last person to know.
What had a twenty-something trainer seen in a woman approaching fifty?
He didn't like the question, didn't like the sour twist it brought. But he could admit, silently, that Eleanor had always been beautiful. Polished, striking. The kind of woman people glanced at twice.
But beauty wasn't the same as honesty and loyalty.
And the truth was simpler: it didn't matter why her trainer wanted her. It didn't matter when it started. It didn't even matter who left whom.
What mattered, what still stung, was the deceit, the lies.
Because she could have told him.
At any moment, any day, any month, any year, she could have said she wasn't happy. That she wanted freedom. That she wanted someone else. That she wanted the house, the money… even the children.
He would have given her anything.
He always had.
He stood there a moment longer, letting the cold breeze slide across his face, letting the memories settle where they belonged; behind him, not inside him.
The gym entrance loomed ahead, all fluorescent lights and loud music he already disliked. He hesitated.
Then shook his head.
No.
Not this.
He wasn't going to spend any time associating every treadmill with Eleanor's trainer, every weight bench with the affairs she'd hidden beneath "sessions," every visit with some reminder of being replaced long before he'd known it.
He stepped away from the entrance and walked around the side of the building, following the signs toward the pool.
The scent of chlorine reached him before the doors opened; oddly comforting, sharp, but clean, like something that stripped the past away if you breathed deeply enough.
Swimming, he thought.
Different. Quiet. His.
He bought some shorts at the desk, rented a locker, changed and stepped out to the poolside. The water was a still sheet of blue, broken only by the slow, steady strokes of an older man gliding down the length.
Richard felt something ease inside him.
He slipped into the water. It was warm, he felt weightless. He pushed off.
No pounding footsteps. No mirrors. No reminders.
Just movement. Breath. The hush of water closing around him.
He tipped his head back, floating for a moment, weightless and suspended.
He loved his children. He loved his work. He loved the life that was rebuilding itself piece by piece.
What he didn't love, what he refused to carry, was the pain she had left behind.
If she hadn't been happy, she could have said so. She could have spared him the lies, the pain, the slow unwinding of trust.
But she hadn't.
And now?
Now he floated.
Now he breathed.
Now, at fifty, he chose something new, something calm, something unconnected to her, something wholly his.
He swam another slow lap, the water sliding past his ears, and for the first time in a long time, he felt something that bordered on peace.
Richard arrived at the office just after nine, his hair still damp from the pool, the last traces of chlorine clinging faintly to his skin. His limbs felt looser, lighter than they had in years. Swimming was already doing something to him; not just physically, but mentally. It was rhythmic. Quiet. Anonymous. A place where no one wanted anything from him, where he didn't have to perform or hold the world up.
But the moment he stepped through the glass doors of his floor, a familiar heaviness slid back into him.
Guilt, unexpected and sharp, met him like a punch to the sternum the second he saw her.
Isabelle stood at her desk, signing for a package. Her hair was pinned neatly, a loose strand escaping near her cheek. She looked pale around the eyes, tired but composed. Exactly how she always looked when she wasn't letting anyone worry about her.
He slowed, the memory of those old warnings slamming back into him with unwelcome clarity.
She had told him.
More than once.
Richard… someone's messing with my files. They're going missing or being altered and I can't explain it.
Richard… he keeps hovering, messaging, turning up for no reason. It's inappropriate. He's making me uncomfortable.
Richard… Clive's interview was all lies. It wasn't just unfair, it was cruel.
And he'd done nothing. Nothing meaningful. Nothing protective. Nothing that counted.
Because Eleanor had been jealous of Isabelle. Of his admiration and respect for her. Because the company had been mentioned in the papers. Because he'd been exhausted. Because he'd believed it would sort itself out.
Because he had been going through the motions without paying attention.
He swallowed hard, shame catching in his chest like a hook.
She turned then, noticing him, and offered a small smile. It was soft, professional, genuine.
"Morning, Richard."
"How are you?" he asked and the question carried more weight than he intended.
She shifted the parcel in her hands. "Fine. Honestly." Then she gave a tiny, embarrassed laugh. "Though the baby seems to have decided Worcestershire sauce crisps are the only food worth eating."
Richard blinked, then smiled. "That's… an unusual one."
"I agree," she sighed. "I woke up at two in the morning craving them. Then spent an hour wishing I hadn't eaten them because the heartburn was so awful." She shook her head. "I don't remember the cravings being this bad with Becca and Luke. Or the heartburn. It's like everything is heightened this time."
He chuckled softly, warmth breaking through the guilt. "Well, if you need a lifetime's supply of crisps, just say the word. I'll have someone raid every corner shop and supermarket in London."
That earned him a real smile, the kind that lifted her whole face, softened her shoulders. "Thank you, but I think Robert has already beaten you to it. I know he's emptied all our local shops."
"Good. And Isabelle… tell me if you need anything. Anything at all." Richard said quietly.
She nodded, touched, but humble as always. "I will."
She turned back to her desk, leaving Richard standing with hands in his pockets and guilt like a stone inside him.
He had let her navigate too much alone.
Not again, he thought as he headed to his office. Never again.
He was no longer the man he'd been then. He had been distracted, stretched thin, losing pieces of himself without noticing.
Now, the swimming, the routines, the small reclaimed parts of his life… they grounded him.
And part of that grounding meant making sure he never let someone he cared about fight alone again.