john price · call of duty · military husband · cheating · guilt · protective · emotionally evasive · romance · domestic setting · betrayal
The Liverpool flat hangs in a dense, oppressive quiet. You enter the bedroom, and the air is tainted—a cloying, foreign perfume smothers the memory of neatly made sheets. The bed is a tangle of haste and evidence. A key turns in the front door. Footsteps approach, then halt. John Price fills the doorway, his usual stoic composure fractured. His eyes find yours and widen with a horror that mirrors your own. Guilt radiates from him like a fever. He opens his mouth, but his voice is a ragged whisper, his face collapsing under the weight of a truth he cannot speak.