The fluorescent lights hummed their same tired note, that electric buzz that lived inside grocery stores like a heartbeat nobody noticed anymore. I pushed the cart past the eggs, past the butter, my fingers loose on the handle, telling myself this was just milk. That's all. Mira was asleep in the carrier against my chest, her little mouth slack, her breath a soft rhythm I could feel through the fabric of my shirt. Three months old, and she slept through everything now—the squeak of cart wheels, the distant clatter of a pallet jack, the whole world moving around her like she'd decided none of it was worth waking for.

I envied her that.

The dairy aisle stretched ahead of me, cold air spilling out of the open cases, that sharp ammonia tang catching in the back of my throat. I'd been here twice in the last week. Twice, telling myself it was coincidence, that I needed milk, that Mira needed formula samples I didn't intend to buy, that the store was the only one with the good yogurt Luke liked. The excuses piled up like the coupons I never used, and I kept coming back to this aisle like my feet knew something my head refused to say.

I stopped in front of the milk. Two percent, the gallon with the blue cap. I reached for it, and the cold bit through the plastic, seeping into my palm. I turned it over, checked the date—five days out, fine, fine—and put it back. Then I picked up another one. Checked the date again. Put it back.

Mira stirred, a tiny sound, and I froze, my hand still hovering over the case. But she settled, her cheek pressing against my sternum, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

The aisle was empty. I knew it was empty because I'd already looked, twice, the way you look at a doorway you're afraid to walk through. Just me and the milk and the hum of the lights and the cold seeping up through the soles of my shoes. I told myself that was what I wanted. Empty. Quiet. A gallon of milk and my sleeping baby and the drive home to a husband who'd kiss my cheek and ask about my day and never know that I'd been standing in a dairy aisle for ten minutes pretending I wasn't waiting for someone.

I took the milk. First one I'd grabbed, the one with the date that was fine, they were all fine. I set it in the cart, and the plastic clinked against the metal, and I told myself to go. Just go. Push the cart to the checkout, pay, drive home, smile when Luke came in, ask about his day, don't say a word about any of it.

I didn't move.

My hands stayed on the cart handle, and I stood there in the cold, listening to the hum, feeling Mira's breath against my chest, and I didn't move. The avocado sat on my counter at home, a green accusation I couldn't throw away. I'd bought it without thinking. I'd brought it home and set it on the counter and I couldn't stop looking at it, and now I was standing in the dairy aisle with a gallon of milk I didn't need and a baby who was sleeping through her mother's slow unraveling.

Footsteps.

I heard them before I saw anything—the soft scuff of work boots on tile, the squeak of a cart wheel that wasn't mine. My heart did something stupid, a little lurch, a little skip, and I told myself it was just another shopper. Just someone else who needed milk. The aisle was a public place. People bought milk.

I looked up.

He was standing by the yogurt, one hand on the handle of his own cart, and his dark eyes found mine like he'd known I'd be here. Like he'd known, and he'd come anyway, and now we were both standing in the cold light of the dairy aisle with the hum of the fluorescents between us.

"Elena."

My name in his mouth sounded like a question and an answer all at once. Like he'd been holding it in his throat for days and it came out rough, almost broken, the way you say a word you've been afraid to say.

"Hi," I managed. My voice came out thin, a thread. Mira stirred again, and I looked down at her, at her little fist curled against my chest, and I thought about Luke. I thought about the avocado on the counter. I thought about all the reasons I should push this cart forward, past him, down the aisle, out of this store, and never come back.

I didn't move.

He did. He stepped closer, and the sound of his boots on the tile was too loud in the quiet, and I could smell him before he was close enough to touch—sawdust and soap, something clean underneath the work of his day. He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could see the stubble on his jaw, the way his dark hair curled slightly at his temples, the lines at the corners of his eyes that deepened when he looked at me.

"I thought about you," he said. His voice was low, almost a murmur, like he didn't want anyone else to hear. Like this was ours, this moment, this cold aisle, this confession.

My fingers tightened on the cart handle. I felt my knuckles go white, felt the hard plastic edge of the handle biting into my palm, and I couldn't make them let go. "I know," I whispered.

I hadn't meant to say that. I'd meant to say something else, something safe, something that would push him back, remind him I was married, remind me. I'd meant to say I shouldn't be here, that I was just here for milk, that he should go. But what came out was the truth, and the truth was that I knew he'd thought about me because I'd thought about him. I'd thought about him in the dark of my bedroom while Luke slept beside me. I'd thought about him in the nursery while Mira nursed. I'd thought about his hand on mine in the produce aisle, the way he'd looked at me like I was a person and not a machine that made milk and babies and pain.

He didn't say anything. He just looked at me, and I could see the question in his eyes, the same question I'd been asking myself for days. What are we doing here?

I didn't have an answer.

Mira made a sound, a little whimper, and I looked down at her, at her face scrunched against the light, her small body shifting in the carrier. I reached down without thinking, my hand coming up to cup the back of her head, my thumb brushing over the fine, soft hair. She settled, her mouth finding my chest even in sleep, and I felt the familiar ache of milk letting down, the dull pressure that came before she even woke.

When I looked up, he was closer. I hadn't heard him move, but he was closer, close enough that I could see the way his throat moved when he swallowed.

"She's beautiful," he said. "She looks like you."

I felt something crack in my chest, something I'd been holding together with willpower and denial and the routine of my days. "Thank you."

"Elena." He said my name again, softer this time, and it did something to me, the way he said it, like he was learning the shape of it. "I'm not going to pretend I came here for yogurt."

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "I'm not going to pretend I came here for milk."

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, almost. "Then what are we doing?"

"I don't know." The words came out honest, raw, the way I hadn't been honest with anyone in months. "I don't know who I am anymore."

He was quiet for a moment, and I watched his eyes move over my face, like he was reading something there, something I couldn't hide. "You're the woman in the dairy aisle," he said finally. "The one who keeps coming back."

"I'm a mother," I said. "I'm a wife." The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "I'm supposed to be those things."

"You can be those things and still be here."

"Can I?" I heard the edge in my own voice, the desperation I'd been trying to swallow. "Can I stand here with you and still go home and smile at my husband and pretend I didn't—" I stopped. The word caught in my throat.

"Didn't what?"

I shook my head. "I can't say it."

"You don't have to." He stepped closer, and now he was close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the warmth that radiated off his body in the cold of the aisle. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, Elena. Not to me."

I looked up at him, at the dark of his eyes, at the patience in his face, and I felt the wall I'd spent years building start to crack. I'd built it brick by brick, after every time with Luke that ended in pain, after every doctor who told me there was nothing wrong, after every night I lay awake feeling like a ghost in my own life. I'd built it to keep myself safe, to keep myself numb, and now this man was standing in front of me and the mortar was turning to dust.

"I shouldn't be here," I said, but I didn't move.

"You are here."

"That's the problem."

"Is it?" He tilted his head, and there was something almost gentle in the way he looked at me. "Because I've been thinking about you for a week. I've been walking through this store hoping to see you. And now you're here, and you're looking at me like you're afraid of what happens next."

"I am."

"What are you afraid of?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but the words wouldn't come. I was afraid of so many things. I was afraid of what I wanted. I was afraid of what he'd do if I let him close. I was afraid of what I'd become if I didn't. I was afraid of the avocado on my counter and the husband in my bed and the baby on my chest who deserved a mother who wasn't standing in a dairy aisle with a stranger's heat in her blood.

"I'm afraid," I said, "that I don't want to leave."

He looked at me for a long moment, and I watched something shift in his face, something I couldn't name. "Then don't."

"I have to."

"You don't have to do anything."

I laughed, a small, broken sound. "You don't understand. I have a husband. I have a baby. I have a life, and it's not—" I stopped, swallowed, started again. "It's not mine anymore. It hasn't been mine for a long time."

"Whose is it?"

"I don't know." The words came out almost a whisper. "Everyone's but mine."

He was quiet again, and I could feel the weight of his attention on me, the way he was really looking at me, really seeing me, not the milk-stained shirt or the dark circles under my eyes or the way my body still ached in places it shouldn't. He was seeing me, and it was terrifying.

"Elena." He reached out, and I watched his hand move toward mine, slow, like he was giving me time to pull away. His fingers brushed the back of my hand on the cart handle, and the touch landed like a spark in dry grass.

I didn't pull away.

His hand settled over mine, warm and rough, calloused from work, and I felt the heat of it travel up my arm, into my chest, into the hollow place where I'd been holding my breath. I looked down at our hands, at the way his fingers covered mine, at the way my knuckles were still white on the handle, and I didn't pull away.

I couldn't.

Mira stirred against my chest, a small sound, and I felt the ache of milk in my breasts, the pull of my body toward my baby, toward my life, toward everything I was supposed to be. But his hand was on mine, and I could smell the sawdust and soap, and I could feel the question in the air between us, the thing neither of us had said out loud.

"I know," I whispered, and I didn't know if I was answering him or myself.

His thumb moved over my knuckles, a slow, gentle stroke, and I felt the wall crack a little more. I felt the cold of the dairy aisle and the warmth of his hand and the weight of Mira on my chest, and I stood there, frozen in the space between who I was and who I was becoming, and I didn't move.

The fluorescent lights hummed. The milk sat in my cart. His hand stayed on mine.

And I didn't pull away.