Chapter 1

For the five years we were married, Julian insisted on sleeping in the guest bedroom, which he had soundproofed with four-inch-thick acoustic foam.

He claimed his PTSD from a past car accident was so severe that he would smash things and hurt people during his violent night terrors. He even kept a thick, heavy steel chain locked under his bed as a "restraint."

My heart ached for him for five long years. I tiptoed around our house, barely making a sound. Even when I heard muffled thuds coming from his room in the middle of the night, I only dared to cry silently outside his locked door.

Until the night I was hospitalized with a fractured leg after a multi-car pileup.

The pain kept me awake. Wanting some white noise to distract myself, my phone accidentally connected to the Bluetooth of his spare phone, which he had left in his jacket hanging in my hospital room.

There were no painful screams or violent struggles in my earbuds. There was only his voice, filled with an incredibly tender, gentle whisper.

"Don't be afraid, I'm right here with you. Close your eyes, take a deep breath..."

That night, Julian sat in the recliner right next to my hospital bed. Wearing his active noise-canceling headphones, he spent the entire night speaking into his microphone, soothing another woman to sleep.

He didn't have night terrors. He didn't smash things. And he certainly wasn't violent.

The day I was discharged, I went home and pried open the lock of the chain under his bed.

The padlock was rusty, but the steel chain was brand new. Even the manufacturer's anti-counterfeit tag hadn't been peeled off.

I coiled the heavy chain right on his pillow and left a note on top of it.

"Next time you have a night terror, go smash things at her place."