Unreadable

A cool, unemotional stare was the last thing he had imagined. Normally, he would have been able to see exactly what she was feeling just by looking at her, but today was different. The half-smile she reserved for him even in her most hostile moods was nowhere to be seen. That unexplainable twinkle in her eye was gone. Rage would have been preferable. A screaming, crying fit of attack would have been easier to deal with than this. She was calm, almost serene in her reaction. She'd had time. It was as though she'd been expecting it all along. Her quiet, unfeeling demeanour gave nothing away, and that cut him to the core. His mind raced through all the things she could be thinking, but found nothing that fit. 'React!' his mind screamed, but as she calmly cultivated her emotions, she gave nothing away. He'd never been so worried. He knew what he had done, and he'd prepared himself for what he thought would be all of the eventualities, but this one never occurred.

Still nothing. Weeks could have passed in the moments he'd been standing there, but her only movement was to slowly remove a strand of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

His mind started to wonder if she ever even cared. Surely, news like this deserved some sort of reaction?

She took a seat in her usual place, in her usual manner. She got on with her life as though he was never even there. He didn't know what to do. Her reaction, or lack thereof, had never been part of the plan. He knew she'd have something to say at some point, but he had no idea when, or what it would be. A short laugh escaped her lips as something funny happened in the tv show she'd returned to watching. Her life had just been turned upside down, and she was laughing. She was calm, and he couldn't work it out. His mind raced as he stared at the side of her head. The woman he thought he knew was baffling him, and all his decisions that led to this were thrown instantly into question. She wasn't the woman he thought he knew. She wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. She was stronger than that. She was calm. She was peaceful. She had control. She was unreadable.