Let's be real we all knew this was coming
once again my Spanish is very rusty bc I'm teaching myself and boy am I a bad tutor
It's a stormy Thursday evening when Miguel O'Hara looks at me as though I'm a stranger.
He stands on the stoop of our brownstone, plastered with rain and bewilderment. He stares at me like I'm an oddity - as if his behaviour isn't the strange one. His russet-brown eyes cross my face, committing it to memory.
I, however, am unimpressed. Unimpressed and concerned, because my husband is standing at the entrance of our house like a drowned rat, having just rung the doorbell. As if we haven't been paying mortgage for this place for half a decade - as if it's not his own home.
"Where have you been?" I demand over the pouring rain and the cars passing down the street. "Do you know what time it is? I had to pick Rosalina up from soccer practise after she called me saying you didn't show. It's ten, Miguel, ten! We've been worried sick!"
Miguel continues to stare, eyes wide and unresponsive. It's like talking to a brick wall.
"Are you just gonna stand there?" I say incredulously. When he doesn't move, I grab the front of his wet jacket and drag him inside. Despite his strength on me he follows easily, letting me haul his soaked self over the threshold of our doorway. I shut away the storm.
Miguel stands, dripping on the rug, and looks around the entranceway as though a stranger to it all.
"I tried to call you - I don't even know how many times," I exclaim as I lock the handle. I turn back to him and struggle to contain my relieved fury. "If you stay late at work, you have to let me know, Miguel! You usually do! Where was your phone, huh? Why didn't you answer?"
Miguel's unfocused eyes drift back to me. "... my phone? My phone. Ah, right." He rubs the back of his neck and grimaces at the chill of the raindrops that have his dark hair waterlogged. His gaze snags on a framed photo of the three of us. "It died."
My brows knit together at the way he avoids my eyes. "Are you okay?"
Miguel turns his head further away and peels off his jacket. "Yeah... yeah. I'm fine." When he hangs it on the coat rack I notice the dirt caked beneath his nails. He smiles at me, though it lacks warmth. "Just tired. Long day."
I look him up and down, concern toppling my tower of anger. There are deep bags beneath this eyes and an exhausted set to his shoulders. He looks like he'd just ran a marathon and is still in the process of regretting even signing up for it.
"Your dinner's in the fridge," I say, slightly worried. "Go warm up. I'll nuke it in the microwave."
Miguel's eyes jump to mine. In the shadows of the barely-lit entranceway, their colours darken to a startling maroon, and I have to stifle the involuntary flinch my body makes. He touches my shoulder in thanks and turns to ascend the stairs, leaving a trail of water as he goes.
The spot where he touched me stings with heat. My fight or flight instinct pops up out of nowhere, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
I watch him go, equal parts confused and uneasy.
••🕷️••
On the same stormy Thursday night, he doesn't sleep in our bed. Instead, he takes the couch.
I stare at the ceiling as the midnight hours tick on, unsettled by this sudden, nervous energy. The storm doesn't cede.
Just yesterday Miguel was his normal self; cracking his cool, sarcastic jokes, spinning me in a circle while listening to music from our youths while cooking dinner. He'd never forget picking up Rosalina.
But now he can barely look me in the eyes. Now, he sleeps on the couch in the living room instead of beside me. His guilt is so potent that I'm choking on it.
I roll over onto my side and clutch the pillow he usually rests his head upon. It smells like him, so I drink up the scent and close my weary eyes. Confusion keeps me up. A flight of stairs separates us.
In the morning he flounders around, lost in his own kitchen. Our cat, Pookie, hisses at him and flees with his fur raised. Miguel leaves for work with a kiss to a sleepy Rosalina's forehead and a nod in my direction.
A nod.
The hurt I feel is palpable. It consumes me entirely until it's all I can feel, until it's my entire world. What caused this sudden distance? It's like he's on a totally seperate island than I, split by shark-infested waters.
"He's cheating on you," my co-worker, Alicia, says after I fill her in. She leans against my desk and eats yogurt out of a plastic cup. "I've seen it a million times, honey. Check his phone."
"Miguel's not like that," I defend. "He would never. He loves me."
But his nod in my direction from this morning says differently. Alicia notices the doubt on my face and raises her brows.
"Check his phone," she repeats slowly. "For your peace of mind, if anything."
I hesitantly return to my work.
Maybe a fourteen years with someone is enough to get tired of them. But I'm not tired of him, and the imbalance - if it is true - crushes me from the inside. How could I live without him? It's not that I couldn't; my job pays well. It's just that I really, really don't want to. I don't want to have another morning where I wake up without him.
I spend the rest of my day doing no work and a lot of thinking.
"Can we talk?" I ask when Miguel gets home late. Rosalina, unaware of the tension, stirs a wooden spoon in a bowl of brownie mix.
Miguel smiles at the sight of Rosalina before hesitantly looking at me, and another spike of hurt spears me through the chest.
"I can't, sorry," Miguel says. He hoists his messenger bag over his shoulder and heads for his home office. "I need to catch up on work."
He leaves without another glance my way. I stare after him until the door closes. I stare at it until my shocked stupor is distracted.
"Mom, look!" Rosalina calls. She's modelled a moustache out of brownie batter and has it pressed over her top lip. I force a laugh.
Miguel stays in his office all evening, denying a call for dinner and only poking his head out to kiss Rosalina good night when she comes knocking. After I tuck her into bed, I go to confront Miguel about his recent attitude, but pause outside the door when I hear his voice.
Curious, I press my ear against it.
"I can't just leave," Miguel says. "Do you know how much that would hurt them?"
I stiffen against the door. Leave? Leave who? Leave what? His job? Rosalina? Me? Was Alicia right about him?
To my mounting distress, a woman is who answers.
"About as much as it would hurt them if they find out what already happened." She's curt and dry, a voice I don't recognise. "Miguel, this was never a great idea, y'know?"
"You're just saying that because you didn't make it," Miguel responds sarcastically.
"Ooh, ouch! Yeah, that one really got me."
"Lyla, focus."
"Yessir," she grumbles.
I step away with my heart in my throat. I can't bear to listen to their familiarity any longer, their banter something reminiscent of what I had shared with Miguel myself. My ears thud. My vision swims. In a daze, I make my way to the living room and sit down.
Lyla. Leave. Is Miguel going to leave me? What about our daughter? He never showed signs of being unhappy before, and if he were, he's the type to talk it out. He doesn't make drastic decisions.
But he's also never acted like this before so, really, do I even know him at all?
I spend the night awake, thoughts heavy and messy, alone in our bed.
••🕷️••
"Recent sightings of Spider-Man have sparked intrigue after he was spotted in an upgraded suit using technology unfamiliar to leading experts."
Miguel's peeking at the TV as we silently cook dinner. It plays a gossip section about the resident superhero of Neuva York. At least that's normal of him. He's always been interested in Spider-Man.
"Rosita, dinner's ready!" I call as I slide diced bacon across the hot pan. It sizzles and pops, almost ready to be added to the pasta. The kitchen is filled with its mouthwatering smell.
Miguel dices fresh celery with slow, careful strokes of a knife. He hasn't spoken a word to me since we started cooking and I've given him similar treatment. I can't stop thinking about a woman named Lyla trying to persuade him to leave. I'm still unsure if it's in reference to Alchemax or me.
Maybe he's trying to act like an asshole so I'll be the one to break it off.
Rosalina bounds down the stairs and beams at us. She's missing a tooth and the white tip of an adult is just poking out from the gum. She is completely, utterly oblivious to the silent conflict between her parents and I strive to keep it that way.
She keeps us talking throughout dinner while she swings her legs on a chair that's too big for her. I'm caught between paying attention and silently worrying.
By the time we finish eating, I've bolstered enough courage to pin Miguel down and get some answers.
"Go have a bath, Rosa," I say softly. She nods, leaping from the table and dashing up the stairs before I remind her to take her plate to the kitchen. Miguel picks up his plate, going to leave.
"Miguel, stay," I order.
He pauses and sends me a wide-eyed look. I nod to his seat.
"Sit down."
Miguel slowly sits.
"Is this an intervention?" he jokes. But his smile is thin and strained.
I stare him down from the opposite side of the table. He slumps in his chair, arm resting against the back of it in leisure, but his finger is tapping the wood in an incessant rhythm that doesn't seem to be slowing anytime soon.
My eyes narrow. For the past week I've been noticing discrepancies in his demeanour; phrases he doesn't usually say, pet names rolling stiffly from his tongue, his silence where what used to be filled with his rambles. His eyes have changed, too, a russet-red instead of the brown I'd known for the past decade.
No, I know Miguel. I married a man I can confidently recite the biblical history thereof. I know every crevice of his smile lines and the innermost dramas of Alchemax's workplace. I know the secret handshake he shares with our daughter, know the way he hums when he cooks, know the way he kisses me when he gets home from work.
I know Miguel, I do. I know him.
But this is not Miguel.
He's either cheating with this Lyla person, or he's not Miguel.
My pattern recognition has drawn a blank since a week ago. Before me is a stranger. And maybe I should have stopped him from entering our home when he knocked on the front door and stared at me as though I were the stranger, but I didn't. I swung the door open wide, a little confused, but I trusted him.
Part of me still does. But the bigger part of me is a ferocious ball of maternal protection, and my hackles have risen against the stranger that wears my husband's face. I have a daughter to protect. I have a husband to find - or get answers from. I'm split between my theories.
"Did you hit your head at work?" I ask.
Miguel's eyes twitch. His finger-tapping ceases, but only to grip the side of the chair with knuckles that slowly fade in colour. Our dinner plates sit on the table before us, empty of food, and his attention drops to a leftover boiled carrot stick on mine.
It's stormy outside. The window panes of our apartment rattle. In the silence that sits between us, the wind howls a haunting song.
"What?" Miguel's voice has risen an octave, and a brief state of conflict surges through me. He sounds like Miguel when he lies, but then he's lying. So, what's the right answer? Is he Miguel or not? Does he still love me or not?
Pushing my plate to the side, I lean forward and lace my fingers together. Miguel edges backwards beneath my intense gaze, and another red flag begins to wave before my eyes. Miguel never sits back. If anything, he'd reciprocate; he'd lean across the table and touch his nose with mine to get a giggle.
On the floor above us, the tap for the bath begins to spray. Rosalina sings off-key to a pop song we heard on the radio during the ride home from soccer practise. It's faint through the ceiling and drowned out by the wind.
I think of the way our cat hisses whenever Miguel enters the room, another new development. Pookie usually loves him. My suspicions have my skin prickling and clammy with chills.
"You've been acting weird," I say.
Miguel crosses his arms with a smile that's too bright. "I have?"
But he's still got Miguel's face, and I can't stop the flutter my heart does when he smiles. Even after all this time. Even when his smile might not be really my Miguel's. Even when he might be lying to me.
"Yeah," I murmur. I can't look at his smile anymore and drop my gaze. "You're not yourself." I pick at the edge of the table. "Is there something going on with you?"
It's an opening for this stranger to confess. But he doesn't, he just shakes his head in an act of innocent confusion.
"I've been a little stressed at work lately," stranger-Miguel offers. He watches me warily, seeing if I buy his lie, and his tone turns with concern. "Are you tired? Is everything all right at work?"
It's infuriating how my body instinctively reacts to his voice. The edge leaks from my shoulders and I have to fight down a soft smile.
No. I know Miguel. I know him. This is not Miguel.
"I'm being serious."
His eyebrows raise. "I think you've been straining yourself again."
If he's not my Miguel then how does he know that? Maybe I am overtired. Maybe he's right. Maybe he is my Miguel and I leapt to insane conclusions. Maybe-
Maybe he's cheating.
But the eyes. The sharp intensity of them, the way they seem to see past me instead of at me, as if I'm no more than a memory, a person who isn't standing before him. And the cool enunciation of his words, the unusual formality.
He is him, but he isn't.
"I think it would be best if we get an early night." And then he pats the back of my hand, as if I were just another one of his buddies, and rises from the chair to leave. My blood runs cold.
My words blurt from my mouth before I lose the nerve to say them. "Are you cheating on me?"
He stops suddenly. He turns back and his russet-brown eyes are blown wide with bewilderment. At least his shock is real.
"What? No." He shakes his head, fervent in his answer. "No, Y/n, I'm not cheating on you."
"Who's Lyla?" I demand.
Miguel falters. Warning bells ring in my ears.
"She's no-one," he answers.
"Then why was she asking you to leave?" My throat tightens.
"She wasn't-" He huffs and closes his eyes to recentre himself. His gaze on mine is mild when they open. "I'm not going anywhere."
It's only a small relief, but it's peanuts compared to my anxiety.
"Who is she?" I insist. I stand from my chair and stare at him helplessly. "Is she- is she someone you're sleeping with? Am I not enough?"
Miguel runs a hand down his face and groans lowly, a guttural sound of frustration. "Dios mío, I'm not sleeping with her. She's just someone from work."
I lift my arms in bafflement. "What else am I supposed to think, Miguel? You've been distant all week - you can barely look at me." My throat is so tight that I can barely get the words out. I'm on the edge of despair. "Do you not love me anymore? Is that it?"
He can't look me in the eyes. The silence stretches for a tad too long. My heart crashes to the ground - he really doesn't love me, anymore.
"Miguel-" I say desperately, but I'm cut off.
"Cariño, stop," he warns. "You're talking yourself into a spiral."
And then I'm back on square one, split between my theories once more. He says the pet name but he doesn't mean it. There's no warmth behind his eyes - only the vague sense of suffering. We are man and wife, we have a daughter, we have fourteen years of history; and yet-
And yet we feel no more than strangers.
Maybe he really isn't Miguel.
"I'm going to my office," he says slowly, gaze boring into mine with the intensity of a snake. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I watch, stunned, as he turns his back on me and retreats to the confines of his home office. I wanted this discussion to ask my questions and to clear the air, but instead I only ended up more confused than before.
I pick up our dinner plates and place them in the sink. A matching set. What would happen if one breaks?
Only a lonely one remains.
••🕷️••
Storm season has grown worse. The trees bow beneath the wind and fling branches across the street. It's a tricky map to navigate late in the evening after driving Rosalina home from her soccer game. A soccer game that Miguel didn't come to watch.
I glance at my daughter in the rearview mirror. She's watching water drip down the glass of her window as she winds the front of her seatbelt around her hands. A small frown curls her mouth, and I loathe to think that her downcast expression is the result of Miguel's and my tension.
"You alright, Rosita?" I ask.
Her brown eyes turn in my direction. "Why are you and dad fighting?"
My lungs collapse, rebuild themselves, and collapse again. I was a fool to hope that Rosalina wouldn't notice; she's always been a smart girl. She got that from her dad.
"I'm not really sure," I confess. I send her a winning smile as I pull into our car port. "But we'll figure it out. We've been through worse and got out stronger."
Have we? I ask myself. But Rosalina's frown is replaced by a placated smile, and I resolve to leave my fickle confidence as something for me to deal with alone.
The windscreen wipers screech against the glass.
Rosalina snags the keys from my hands and races inside in an attempt to beat the rain. I take longer, picking up our bags from the backseat and getting slowly drenched in the process.
A scuffle from the alleyway beside our car port makes me pause. I look over, hair plastered to my face, and behind my freeze instincts I prepare myself to book it inside and lock the door behind me.
Bags abandoned, I turn to do just that.
But then the low rumble of a familiar voice stops me in my tracks.
Pushing the car door gently so it closes with an inaudible click, I slowly make my way through the car port. The ongoing sound of struggle elevates my heart rate and I falter at the corner of the alleyway, frozen, doing no more than listening. My courage keeps slipping through my fingers despite my attempts to keep it.
I press my fingertips against the cold brick and edge forward in tiny increments, battling between my need to see and every survival instinct within me telling me to get the hell outta dodge.
Finally, with a burst of last-minute confidence, I peek around the corner.
The alleyway is dark, shadowed by the neighbouring brownstones and the stormy night above. Two figures stumble in the darkness, and I squint my eyes in an attempt to make them out. Rain trickles down my face. Water drops bow my lashes.
A flash of lightning illuminates the scene for a fraction of a second, but it's enough. I freeze again, shocked into stillness, as I realise what I'm seeing.
Miguel, towering over a slumped man, with his mouth open wide - wider than what's humanly possible. It's just a second, but it's enough. It's enough for me to watch in horror as he sinks wickedly sharp fangs into the man's neck, still him as he writhes, and drinks.
My hand can't stop the terrified gasp that sucks between my teeth. Miguel tenses and rips his fangs from the neck before him, turning his dark-red eyes to commotion I made at the alleyway's opening.
I stumble backwards just in time. Heart thudding, I turn on my heel and race inside our brownstone. My hands shake as I lock the door, and I let loose a string of curses under my breath, because I knew - I knew this wasn't my Miguel. Cheating? What a stupid thought! How idiotic was I to think that when this monster was living beneath my roof alongside my daughter, posing as her father?!
Heavy footsteps ascending the stoop's steps has me reaching for an umbrella and slipping behind the staircase and out of sight. My thoughts spin too fast for them to make any sense, sent into a tizzy, a whirlwind of horror and regret.
I have to get Rosalina. I have to grab her and get as far away from here as we can. Then, I can figure out a plan of action; I'll try to find my husband, my real husband, reunite us, and then this can just be nothing more than a horrible memory.
The lock pops. The door swings open. The hinges creak.
My knuckles are white as I grip my improvised weapon tighter. I struggle to stifle my breathing, but my fear has made my breaths tight and pitched, a deafening cacophony that I'm sure this thing can hear despite his halt in the entrance. Rainwater drops from my figure.
He knows where I'm hiding, I'm sure of it. He's not even five paces away. The stench of blood - vaguely metallic, something I know primally - has my hair standing on end.
"Y/n..?" he calls out slowly, carefully, and I violently flinch, my breath hitches. "What you just saw, I-" he cuts himself off with a disgruntled sigh. "Look, he was trying to break in and I dealt with him, alright? Can we talk about this?"
My stomach twists. He speaks as if he knows me, as if he's still trying to play this charade of being Miguel O'Hara. It makes me unfathomably furious. It makes me want to vomit.
The floorboards squeak beneath the creature's weight as he creeps forward. I shut my eyes tightly. I force my breath to even out, to quieten.
"Y/n, por favor, please," he insists. "Let me explain this to you."
My teeth sink into my bottom lip. I can barely handle the way he implores me with that desperate voice of his. He sounds so much like Miguel.
"You already knew something was off about me," he continues. I peek my eyes open just as he enters the corner of my vision, his big, broad frame swallowed by the stretching shadows bound within the unilluminated entrance. "You must have questions, amor, let me answer them."
Amor. I almost scoff. What does this thing know about love? What has it done to my Miguel?
I swallow tightly as he slowly passes by me and steps through the doorway into the hallway, and then he just stands there. His back to me is a perfect, unsuspecting target.
And if I stopped to think about it, if I paused my too-full mind and really thought for a second, I would've seen the trap a mile away. But I was running on adrenaline and maternal protection, so none of that occurs to me as I leap forward and bring the umbrella down upon him with as much power as I can muster.
It's the strength of everything building up within me from the past week; the uncertainty, the worry. The vague sense of something being inexplicably wrong and the urge to protect Rosalina from all of our troubles. It has the strength of my fury for my family's safety, and I attack the creature wearing my husband's face with all of my might.
Except it never does hit.
As if he has eyes on the back of his head, his hand snatches out and stops the umbrella in the prime of its arc.
My eyes widen in shock at first, and then with the poisonous pit of terror. Miguel's face slowly turns over his shoulder and I shudder at the darkness smeared down his chin, only a glossy blackness in the shadows.
But the shadows can't hide the bright red of his eyes.
"Mi amor," he begins forlornly. The umbrella end snaps beneath his talons - talons - and I drop the handle with a startle. "I think we have a lot to talk about, sí?"