A/N Thank you so much to everybody who read the first chapter and particularly to those who commented. Really enjoying writing this one and feeling a bit eager, so I thought I might as well publish Chapter 2 in pretty quick succession. Hope you like it!
If the nurse's revelation had left Richard harboring any concerns that he might have to face the ignominy of his wife waking with the name of another man on her lips, he need not have worried.
When Monica's eyes finally flickered open she was in so much pain she could let out little more than a mewl of distress as she struggled to focus on the blurry face of the man at her side.
It was hardly possible to find a single part of her body that was not in some kind of agony, but the throbbing pressure that felt like it might just split her skull in two at any moment was the worst of all.
"Hi Honey," Richard leaned forward to press a light kiss against her dry lips as they contorted in pain "Don't try to move too much OK? I'll fetch a nurse and we can sort out your pain relief. God, I've been so worried about you."
Monica reached her arm towards a cup of water on the bedside table, desperate to moisten her parched throat, before drawing it back unsuccessfully with a cry of discomfort as her ribs raged at her for daring to stretch.
Richard retrieved the glass on her behalf and helped her to guide it towards her mouth.
"Everybody sends their love. I called Ross from the hotel as soon as I heard what had happened," he told her "He said he'd drive up here right away."
Monica may not have woken up calling for Chandler on this occasion, but the nurse had clearly been correct in her assertion that her dog was never far from her thoughts.
"Where's Tilly?" she managed to slur, wincing as her husband ran his palm across her thrumming head.
"She's fine. She's in the car." he assured her with a loving smile "She stayed right next to you when you fell you know. I think the couple who found you were actually alerted by her barks. She was like your very own Lassie!"
"Except Lassie didn't usually cause the accidents." Monica pointed out with a rasping scoff and a reproachful drawl.
Richard smiled fondly; musing that it had to be a good sign that despite the significant bang to her head, not only could his wife apparently recall what had happened to her, she was also still able to respond with instant dry retorts.
Ross had been only seconds away from missing Richard's panicked telephone call that morning.
The shrill warble of the phone had called out to him at the precise moment that his hand was reaching to close the dark green door of the apartment he had been living in for almost two years; the place his sister had called home before him, and their grandmother before her.
He was already running a little late to pick up his young son from his ex-wife, and had rolled his stressed eyes and huffed loudly when the annoyingly timed call had come through, potentially delaying him even further.
He had briefly considered allowing his machine to pick up on his behalf, but at the last minute, some unknown force had compelled him to dash back to the living room and grab the receiver.
Richard's garbled explanation of Monica's accident was hastily and sketchily delivered, and his agitated description of her prognosis disconcertingly vague; leaving Ross sufficiently panicked about his sister's welfare, that he did something he had seldom done before and canceled on his son; quickly galvanizing himself to make his way to Monica's hospital bedside instead.
He locked up his apartment with trembling fingers, before bursting, ashen-faced, through the front door that stood opposite his own, finding his two best friends standing in the kitchen cheerfully engaged in some kind of impromptu home-invented game involving a screwed up ball of tin-foil and a couple of chipped coffee mugs.
Ross's distress was immediately apparent to Joey and Chandler, and the two men paused what they were doing and stared back at him with inquiring eyes.
"Richard just called from the hotel he and Monica are staying at," he informed them breathlessly "Monica's been in an accident and she's been rushed to hospital. It sounds pretty bad, so I need to drive up there. Could one of you please call my parents and let them know? I tried them once but there was no answer. Tell them I'm on my way to her and I'll call them again when I get there."
He tossed a scrap of paper detailing a hurriedly scrawled telephone number onto the counter, "And can you tell Rachel and Phoebe too?"
"Oh my God! Is she OK?" Joey's dark eyes grew round with worry.
"I really don't know! Richard hadn't seen her when he called. She fell pretty badly and hit her head when she was out hiking with the dog. He said she was completely knocked out and they don't really know how long for. She has a concussion and I think she's due to have a CT scan to check if she's done more damage. And she may have broken her ankle too."
The fear in his Ross's eyes caused a sour churn of nausea in Chandler's stomach, and his knuckles blanched as he gripped the counter, his knees suddenly feeling too weak to support his weight.
Imagining Monica in harm's way incited a vice-like grip of dread to squeeze at his rib cage.
She had been one of his closest and most trusted friends throughout his adult life and the years they had spent as neighbors were, in all probability, the happiest he could remember.
The two of them had spent so much time together back then: Sharing meals, emotional support, laughter and everything in between; she had come to feel like more than a friend to Chandler; more like family, he supposed.
"Guys, I need to leave," Ross told them impatiently, panic rising in his voice as the two men continued to gape back at him "Can one of you call my Mom? Please?"
"Of course, man" Joey assured him with gentle sincerity "Just go. Let us know how she is and if there's anything we can do. And send her our love, OK? And find out if we can visit."
But Chandler was already on his feet, gathering up his jacket and wallet. "I'll come with you" he informed Ross sharply, with not a hint of a question in his voice.
Ross and Joey could not help but exchange a flying glance of concern: To see Chandler's ocean blue eyes so uncompromising and so deathly serious was a rare event indeed.
But to Chandler there was simply no decision to make: The amount of time he had been able to spend with his pretty and sarcastic best friend might have dropped off significantly in recent times; a fact that still saddened him on a daily basis; but that was unimportant in the face of crisis.
The idea of Monica being hurt ignited a potent and resolute need to make his way to her side.
"You don't have to do that, man", Ross told him with a shake of his head "I don't even know if she's allowed visitors yet; I have no idea where I'll stay; I don't know how long I'll need to be there, but I won't come home until I've seen her. I might have to be there for days..."
"That's fine. Me too. Just let me grab my toothbrush and a change of clothes," Chandler told him with a firmness that was at odds with the discernible quaver in his voice, as he made his way towards the bathroom. "I'll call you later Joe".
Chandler could understand the hint of bewilderment on his roommate's face at this instant dropping of everything else in his life without a moment's hesitation. He supposed that his response might seem disproportionate; maybe even inappropriate; to some.
After all, things were not how they used to be.
Chandler and Monica had always been close, but naturally the dynamics of their friendship had changed somewhat when she had married the love of her life and moved into her new husband's sophisticated apartment across town.
And the two of them had seen each other even less frequently over recent weeks, for reasons unbeknownst to Joey, or anybody else.
Chandler, however, knew full well that Monica had been avoiding him, and he completely understood why.
But none of that mattered to him now: If she needed him, he would be there, and it was just as simple as that.
Fundamentally, he knew that the two of them shared a bond so deep that it could not be eroded by time or space.
And certainly not by a singular ill-judged, emotionally-charged and alcohol-fueled incident; no matter how awkward.
It came as a huge relief to Richard that his wife's medication seemed to have brought her physical pain under some degree of control.
Her cornflower blue eyes were gloomy and glazed, but calm at least, as they stared up at the ceiling from the livid mauve bruises of her swollen eyelids.
"Can I get you anything?" he checked, breaking the desolate quiet of the suffocatingly beige room, "A magazine or something?"
"No" she murmured "I don't think I could focus on it. Everything is too fuzzy and blurry. And every time I move my head it feels like my brain is bouncing off my skull."
He gave her hand a compassionate pat, and gazed helplessly at her poor bored and battered face for a moment before turning his attention back towards the newspaper that was folded in his lap.
"Are you going to check on Tilly soon?" Monica eventually asked, her empathy for the tedium her vivacious little dog must be feeling; imprisoned for hours in the confines of the car; was reaching poignant new levels as she herself lay trapped and immobile in bed.
"Yeah, I'll go take her for a walk just as soon as Ross gets here" Richard agreed, glancing down at his Rolex, "Should be any moment now."
The room fell back into silence as Richard began to peruse his newspaper, the claustrophobic ticking of the white plastic clock that was affixed to the hospital wall punctuated only by the occasional sound of muffled voices and passing footsteps from the corridor; or the purr of an engine or the distant call of a bird filtering through the window.
Around twenty excruciating minutes must have passed before a light rap on the door signaled the welcome arrival of a nurse, who poked her head into the room and asked with a sunny smile "Are you ready for visitors?"
Richard exhaled freely, hopeful that a visit from her brother might elevate Monica's mood and ease her boredom somewhat, and he looked up towards the door ready to welcome Ross.
The smile froze to his face however, when he saw that his brother-in-law had not arrived alone.
"Chandler," he greeted evenly, "I didn't know you were coming. Good to see you."
Chandler returned an agreeable nod but was finding it hard to tear his eyes away from Monica, who winced as she gingerly eased her bandaged and bruised head to face towards the door.
His mouth dropped open slightly and he felt a peculiar twist of emotion in his chest as his eyes met hers; a strange combination of shock, relief and something else that he could not quite define.
"Oh my God, Monica!" Ross was immediately teary eyed, alarmed by his sister's contused appearance as he approached her bed.
"It's not as bad as it looks" she assured the men stoically "Or so everybody keeps telling me."
Her brother bent to place a kiss on her forehead but Monica halted him. "Cheek please!" she instructed "It's the only place that doesn't hurt"
He complied and planted a light kiss against the apple of her cheek before taking a seat at her side, stroking a gentle hand across her left forearm, being careful to avoid the plethora of scratches that marred her ivory skin, and the bandage that strapped her sprained wrist.
Richard continued to eye Chandler as he hovered somewhat awkwardly behind Ross, and eventually he stood and offered his seat.
"Sit here Chandler, I have to let the dog out in a moment anyway"
Chandler thanked him, meeting his eyes only briefly, and gave Monica's fingertips an affectionately gentle squeeze as he took a seat at her side.
As shocking as it was to see her so physically damaged, the mere sound of her voice had eased the tightening sensation that had been strangling his chest ever since Ross had mentioned the words "head injury", and Chandler felt like he could breathe again.
"So what's the latest?" asked Ross "How's your head? And is your ankle broken?"
"Just badly sprained" Monica confirmed in lethargic and graveled tones, "But apparently the recovery time won't be too much different from a break so it's going to make work tricky. The wrist should heal quickly though, and hopefully the concussion should start to improve soon. So long as the scan doesn't show any other problems, I'll probably be out of here in a few days."
She turned to look at Chandler as she asked "I know you guys will be honest with me. Just how bad is the broken nose? My vision is so blurry I can't really tell. Am I going to need a nose-job?"
"I keep telling her, she's just as beautiful as she always was" Richard interjected softly from his spot by the window.
"Yeah Richard's right" Chandler agreed, a small teasing smile creeping across his lips "You're still a work of art, Mon... You're just more of a Picasso now..."
Monica let out a guffaw of pained laughter and she swiped a weak slap against his wrist as she told him warningly "Don't start making me laugh, Chandler. My ribs are so bruised! Check this out..."
She hiked up her vest to reveal an angry purple smudge that smothered an astonishingly large portion of her slender rib cage, her lips curling a little as she enjoyed the resulting exclamations of horror from Chandler and Ross.
Richard turned to gaze out of the window unable to prevent himself from feeling a pang of sadness; and yes, jealousy; that a visit from Ross and Chandler had been able to inspire such instant buoyancy in his wife; the two men succeeding immediately, where he had failed all morning.
In fact, if he was being honest with himself, Richard could not remember the last time he had made Monica laugh, even before the accident.
"Seriously, is my nose crooked?" she persisted.
Chandler examined her face softly, another strange surge of intense feeling engulfing his chest as their eyes connected.
"No." He confirmed with tenderness, stroking her fingertips once more, "It's fine. Swollen, but still perfect".
"Yeah and it looks like your cut is pretty well hidden by your hair even if it scars", Ross soothed, carefully moving a lock of hair out of the way so that he was able to inspect her facial injuries more thoroughly.
Chandler could feel the uncomfortable weight of Richard's gaze upon him now and he leaned back in his seat, adopting what he hoped would pass for a casual demeanor as his tone became jocular again.
"I've warned you so many times about the dangers of exercising" he told her with a sage shake of his head, "When will you ever learn? This type of thing never happens when you kick back with a beer in the hotel bar."
"It wasn't the exercise that was the problem, it was the damn dog!" Monica explained with a weary smirk "She got herself stuck and I had to rescue her!"
"Well, I'm pretty sure I warned you about dogs too." Chandler pointed out with smugly raised eyebrows.
Richard looked on pensively before telling them "Speaking of the "damn dog", I'd better walk her before she destroys my car. I'll see you guys in a while."
Chandler shuffled in his seat and looked away as Richard stepped over his feet to land a kiss on his wife's increasingly sleepy, impassive lips.
As the trio continued to chat in Richard's absence, it soon became clear to Ross and Chandler that Monica was going to great efforts to keep her eyelids from drifting closed; her concussion coupled with the sedative effect of the cocktail of pain relief she had been dosed up with, causing her to tire quickly.
"Mon, I'm going to call Mom and Dad OK? I said I'd keep them posted as to how you're getting on. Why don't you sleep for a while?" Ross eventually suggested.
"OK" she agreed drowsily, her lips barely moving as she spoke.
He planted another kiss on his sister's pallid cheek as he stood, looking expectantly towards Chandler who told him decisively, "I'll sit with her until Richard gets back"
Ross gave him a placid nod as he exited the room.
As soon as the door swung closed behind him, Monica was keen to make the most of the fact that she and Chandler were finally alone and despite her exhaustion she dragged her eyelids back open to regard him with doleful eyes.
Her voice was loaded with shame as she told him quietly, "Thank you for being here. I didn't think you'd come..after what happened..."
He placed a comforting hand over hers and told her briskly, "I told you Mon, it's forgotten. It was nothing. Please don't worry about that, OK? Don't even think about it..."
"Thank you" she uttered gratefully, "And I hope you don't think I've been avoiding you -"
She began to form an excuse, but should really have known better than to try to pull the wool over the eyes of somebody who knew her as well as Chandler did, and he quickly interrupted her with a wry smirk.
"You have been avoiding me!"
"Yeah OK, maybe I have" she admitted in a whisper, "I'm still really embarrassed."
"Well don't be." he told her, squeezing her hand tight and feeling her pinky move to link with his own. "It's been an emotional time for you lately. And anyway, it wasn't just you. I should have... Look, these things happen. It's really not a big deal, OK? You just need to focus on recovering from this now..."
She regarded him with hesitation before telling him hoarsely "I meant what I said to you that night though. I do miss you, Chandler. So much. And I'm so glad that you're here."
Chandler swallowed hard, a little surprised that Monica could remember much of anything that had spilled from her alcohol-softened lips that evening.
"I miss you too. But it'll be alright. We'll just make more of an effort to see one another..." he comforted.
"It's not the same."
Tiny wisps of words released sadly into the ether, spoken not really to him; not really to anybody.
She had said the same thing that evening too.
Chandler looked down at their linked pinkies before moving his hand to thread the rest of their fingers.
They sat in silence for a while as he drew the courage to ask the question that had been playing on his mind from the moment he had heard about her accident.
"Mon, you're not ... pregnant now, are you? I was worried...you know... when I heard that you fell..."
Knowing how utterly consumed his friend was by her struggle to conceive, Chandler had been terrified on Monica's behalf, unsure of how she might ever recover if the universe had been so callous as to allow a pregnancy to finally occur only to snatch it away again with a cruelly-timed accident.
"No, I'm not," she quietly confirmed, her eyes moistening immediately, "And I wasn't when I fell."
She took a shaky breath before adding bitterly "Thank you for asking though. Thank you for even considering it. Nobody else did."
Chandler wanted nothing more than to offer reassurance, but he knew only too well that after more than a year of being told to be patient; of listening to glib guarantees that it would happen for her eventually; any such words of appeasement now rang hollow in Monica's ears.
"I wish I could give you a hug" he told her gently, tracing a featherlight finger up and down the length of her forearm, "But I wouldn't know where to start: You're basically just one gigantic bruise..."
She shot him a pained smile, her eyes beginning to drift closed once more, as she breathed "It's just good to have you here."
Chandler continued to offer the only physical comfort he could, drawing leisurely patterns between the constellations of freckles on her arm, before allowing his fingertips to soothe their way along her blue green veins from elbow to wrist.
He watched with soft eyes as sleep finally overwhelmed her, her pale lips parting as her jaw relaxed, and the rise and fall of her chest becoming slow and deep.
The peace of Monica's slumber and the quiet, warmth of the room was having a soporific effect on Chandler too, and he jumped wide awake and straight to his feet when Richard's eventual return startled him out of an apparent doze of indeterminate length.
He glanced back worriedly towards Monica, concerned that his gross overreaction to her husband's arrival might have disturbed her too, but still she lay, glacially serene.
He stretched his stiff arms sleepily as he made his way across the room towards Richard, asking quietly, "How was Tilly?"
"She's OK. Pretty relieved to get out of the car for a while" Richard replied with a thin-lipped smile.
"Listen man, I was just thinking, do you want me to take her overnight? So you don't have to keep checking on her?" Chandler offered amenably.
Unsmiling, Richard considered his words before conceding "That would be great actually. Thanks Chandler."
"No worries, if you give me your keys I'll go grab her. Have you seen Ross, by the way? He vanished ages ago." Chandler asked, suddenly confused by his friend's extended absence.
"He's in the waiting area. Visiting time is over, so he wasn't allowed back in." Richard explained.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Chandler muttered his apology "Nobody told me to leave".
"They probably thought you were Monica's husband" Richard's keen-eyed response dropped too quickly from his lips and Chandler could do no more than coolly meet his gaze in an attempt to disguise his unease.
Richard reached into his pocket, extracted the bunch of keys that included the one to his Jaguar, and deftly tossed them towards the younger man who fumbled a little as he caught them, not having anticipated the throw.
"Are you sure this is OK?" Richard asked with an arched eyebrow "I didn't think you liked dogs?"
Chandler stood tall as he tried not to crumble beneath Richard's scrutiny, unsettled as to why the man's starchy gaze was having such an effect on him.
If he was honest with himself, Chandler was not even completely sure whether the hint of frostiness he felt Richard projecting was entirely imaginary; a figment of self-construct born solely out of guilt.
Not that Chandler had anything to feel hugely guilty about.
Not really.
"Well, I'm not always the biggest fan of dogs, but I do like Tilly" he assured him confidently.
Realistically, "like" was possibly a tad too effusive for what Chandler felt for the little spaniel, but the more time he had spent around Tilly, and seeing the pleasure she had brought to Monica had ultimately convinced him that the creature was not entirely without charm.
"Because she's Monica's." Richard's proposal was not spoken as a question; but neither was it merely a statement of fact. To Chandler, it felt more like an accusation.
"Yes" he admitted simply, carefully gauging Richard's response, but the man's face remained staunchly neutral.
"Uh..I'll drop these back in a second" Chandler held up Richard's keys before making his way back towards Monica's bed, bending to retrieve the jacket that he had discarded in a crumpled heap on the floor by the chair he had been glued to for the best part of the afternoon.
As he stood, he whispered a pointless goodnight to his sleeping friend, but the sound of his voice caused Monica to stir, her eyes flickering but not fully opening as she mumbled a reply so muffled, and so throaty, it was completely indistinct.
She was knocked out on painkillers; her brain fuzzy and concussed.
She might not have known where she was.
She might not have known who was at her bedside.
She might have said anything at all.
But to Chandler, it sounded very much like she said "I love you".
He froze for a moment, straightening out the creases in his jacket before turning around, as blithely as he was able; the look on Richard's face telling him immediately that her words had sounded the same to him too.
Richard was deep in thought when Ross rapped his knuckles lightly against the door ready to return the keys to his car.
He had left Chandler outside, being licked and mercilessly mauled by an exuberant Tilly; the little dog wriggling with delight after being rescued from her solitary confinement in Richard's Jaguar.
"Hey, Tilly is with Chandler, and we found her bed, and her leash, and her box of food. How much of that do we need to give her in the morning?" Ross asked, as he held out the keys to Richard.
"There should be a scoop in the box. She just has a full one of those" Richard instructed before thanking his brother-in-law in low tones "I really appreciate you guys taking her. And it was good of you both to get here so quickly today, it really gave Monica a boost... "
He ran his fingers casually through his salt and pepper hair before continuing lightly, "I'm a little surprised Chandler's office were happy for him to just dash off as he did, considering Monica isn't a relative or anything. I hope it's not going to get him into any trouble".
"Well, Chandler has never been one to worry too much about taking time off work" Ross told him with a quiet laugh "I'm sure it'll be fine"
Richard stared back at him with pensive slate grey eyes. It seemed obvious that there was something the man was keen to get off his chest, and Ross's eyebrows knitted together curiously as he asked "Is everything OK?"
Richard exhaled loudly as he stepped out of Monica's room and into the corridor, easing the door closed behind them.
"Has something happened? Between Chandler and Monica? Have either of them mentioned anything to you?" Richard looked down at his feet in anxious embarrassment.
"What? You're not suggesting... Chandler and Monica? Richard, that's crazy" Ross reassured him with gentle incredulity.
"Well, there was that whole thing the night of Tim's birthday - "
Richard's reminiscence was swiftly curtailed by a forceful rejection by Ross "Come on, they both explained what happened there. He's her friend! He was just looking out for her -"
"And then when I arrived here today, the nurse thought I was Chandler" Richard continued to expand gravely, "Because that was who Monica had been asking for every time she had woken up."
Ross considered his brother-in-law's sad admission for a moment, privately understanding why this case of mistaken identity might have caused him a shred of concern, but still he shook his head vehemently, "She has a head injury, Richard. She's confused! She had hypothermia, and she's on a load of drugs. She was probably totally out of it. You can't really think that means anything".
Richard nodded slowly before telling him gruffly, "I'm also pretty sure she told him she loved him just now."
Ross could only stare back at him blankly, unable to imagine how such a situation might possibly have unfolded.
"I might have been mistaken, she was pretty much asleep ..." Richard conceded, "But when he said goodbye to her, I'm fairly certain that Monica replied "I love you"."
"She was asleep?" Ross repeated slowly.
It seemed unfathomable that a man as mature and worldly as Dr. Richard Burke could be exhibiting this kind of irrational insecurity: Leaping to the conclusion of an illicit affair off the back of the incoherent utterances of a drugged, unconscious woman was the kind of paranoid consternation Ross might have expected from Chandler; or even from himself; but never from Richard.
"She probably thought she was talking to you? Or she might have just been feeling loved-up and woozy because of the drugs? I mean, she probably does love him, but only as a friend -"
"I know!" Richard pressed his eyes closed as he interrupted, suddenly aware of how ludicrous his suspicions must sound to any unwitting bystander; let alone to his wife's brother "I know, I'm reading too much into it. I guess it's just that things have been a little tough between Monica and I recently...I'm probably just searching for reasons that aren't really there. Forget I said anything..."
"I really don't think that this is anything you need to worry about", Ross told him with a confident nod, working hard to prevent his voice from becoming noticeably laced with annoyance: Any pity he felt for Richard being entirely superceded by a need to defend Monica and Chandler from false accusation.
Richard eyed his brother-in-law with more than a hint of ruefulness as he bid him goodnight and returned morosely to his wife's bedside.
He lowered himself onto the chair and gazed wistfully at her beautiful if broken features as she lay tranquil in repose.
When his first marriage had ended, Richard had faced the future with a certain degree of resignation.
Finding himself alone and middle-aged was not a prospect he had ever foreseen, but he had been able to console himself with the knowledge that his had already been a life well lived: He had good relationships with his two grown-up children; two beautiful grandchildren; a successful opthalmology practice that had brought him financial security; a rich enough social life.
Realistically, a man of Richard's means and status might easily have been able to wile away his late middle-age quite happily with afternoons at the golf club and weekly racquetball sessions with his friends; he could have approached his twilight years with relative comfort and fulfillment, despite the breakdown of his marriage.
When Barbara had left, finding another relationship had not been something Richard had particularly considered; and it had certainly never occurred to him that he might find another love as genuine and all-encompassing as his first.
But then he had met Monica: Beautiful, vital, spectacular Monica, who had somehow fallen head over heels in love with him and offered him the possibility of a whole new future instead.
She had captured his heart like a whirlwind, and he had found himself suddenly and hopelessly enchanted; there had been nothing he would not say or do to keep her close.
"There's no fool like an old fool".
He had known that was what everybody was saying about him. Known how ridiculous they thought he looked; a greying divorcee riding around in his shiny new Jaguar with a pretty little girl, young enough to be his daughter.
He had risked some of his dearest friendships to be with her; alienated his children, particularly Michelle, who had been duly appalled to see her father falling for one of her high school peers and outraged on her mother's behalf that he would see fit to behave in such an undignified manner.
Monica was worth it all.
But somewhere along the line something had changed between them.
No matter what anybody said, and no matter how painful it was to admit it, Richard knew Monica well enough to know that there were parts of herself she was unwilling to share with him now; certainly not like she used to.
And he could not honestly say that he was an entirely open book himself: Far from it.
And then there was Chandler: A good man; a man Richard had always liked, in fact. But Chandler was also a man whose presence Richard had started to feel more pertinently in their lives of late; and a man who was hardly able to meet his eye.
There was no doubt in Richard's mind that some hidden truth was being kept from him on that score, but no matter what it was, it would be disingenuous of him to lay all of the blame for his marital strife at either Chandler or Monica's feet.
His marriage felt increasingly like a house of cards, and Richard knew that if he wanted to save it he would have to tread very carefully indeed; because whatever Chandler's involvement was in all of this, the far greater threat to Richard's relationship with Monica came from within.
Because Richard had secrets of his own.