Novel-novel oleh Tokoni Benson

The door barely clicked shut behind Dante before I turned away, wiping the tears from my eyes as I walked back into the living room. My body was trembling with exhaustion, panic, and confusion all tangled into one tight, aching knot."Sienna," Dante's voice followed gently behind me. "Please… talk to me. What’s going on? Where’s Abigail? Your face looks all puffy and red and your eyes are swollen, why have you been crying?"I didn't respond. I didn't know how to respond. Where would I start from? How do I explain everything that has happened without melting again?He moved closer. "Sienna, talk to me. Let me help you. Please."I turned around sharply, bitterness bubbling over. "No! You don’t just get to show up after everything and act like my savior! Why are you even here now?"His eyes widened, lips parting to respond, but I didn’t stop."You walked away. You didn’t fight for me. You let me walk out of your life like I meant nothing. You stayed gone. And now you’re here, what? To sw

I hurriedly rushed to the babysitter to pick Abigail up. It has been a long day and she would most certainly be exhausted. As the babysitter came out to answer the door and saw me standing there, the look on her face made me a little frightened. She looked like she wasn't expecting me and was surprised to see me standing there. “Hey, Ms. Sienna,” she greeted me slowly, clutching her phone awkwardly.“Hi,” I smiled weakly, forcing the energy to keep up with formalities. “I’m here for Abigail.”Her brows lifted just slightly in confusion. “Oh… but her dad already picked her up.”I blinked. “What?”She tilted her head as if I was the one not making sense. “Marcus. He said you sent him. That you had something to take care of and would be late.”Every nerve in my body froze. “What?” I asked again, louder this time.“An hour ago,” she added, glancing over her shoulder, probably sensing how fast the blood had drained from my face. “He said you didn’t want Abigail here for long knowing the

I had a meeting scheduled with my lawyer the next day. The first court hearing was in two weeks and we needed to get things straight before then. As I walked into Mr Lawson's office, I felt the walls closing in on me. The smell of expensive leather chairs, the cold, the serene but exquisite decor, and the way the lawyer was sitting across from me with his laptop in front of him, all made the room feel too big and too small at the same time. It felt like I was suffocating, and I had only just stepped into the battle.The lawyer, Mr. Lawson, was experienced—no doubt about that. He had worked on plenty of custody cases, but I wasn’t sure he understood what this one meant to me. He didn’t know the way Marcus had broken me and yet still had the audacity to come back and try to take my daughter from me.As I explained my ordeal with Marcus to Mr Lawson, I couldn't control myself from having a breakdown. It was all too much. Everything I had been through with Marcus was just one chapter aft

For the next few days, I couldn't rest. My mind was a storm. Sleep had become a stranger to me and all I could think of was how to protect my daughter. I sat at the kitchen counter, Abigail’s bunny mug still sitting in front of me, half-full with juice that had long gone warm. She hadn't woken up from her nap, and the silence of the apartment made everything louder in my head. The echo of Marcus’ words, the threats, the betrayal.He wanted custody of Abigail.Just thinking about it again made me feel sick to my stomach . How could he even say that? What kind of delusion did you have to live in to think you were fit to take her away from me? After everything. After throwing me out like some worthless piece of shit, after being absent for practically almost the entirety of her life, he had the audacity to act like he deserved any of this.No he didn’t. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t even fucking deserve to be called a father.I blinked back tears as I scrolled through the list of fam

I didn’t sleep much last night. I couldn't even sleep at all. My face was swollen and sore, but the ache in my heart was worse. It was deeper and relentless, like fire burning in the wind. I kept replaying the incident of the previous night over and over again. His hand, his voice, his anger, the sharp sting, the disbelief in my own eyes when I saw him standing there afterward, how he almost looked shocked himself, like he hadn’t fully registered what he had done, but he had and so had I.The silence in the apartment this morning was heavy. Abigail was still asleep, covered up in her blanket, unaware of the storm that had just begun in her mother’s world. I moved around quietly, unsure of what to do with myself. I wiped the same spot on the kitchen counter for nearly ten minutes before realizing my hand was shaking.I wasn't going to cry again. I was done crying over Marcus. He had crossed a line I didn’t even think he was capable of crossing. No matter how bad things had gotten betw

Weeks had gone by since Marcus had snapped at me, and in that time, I noticed something shifting again. It was low-key, but present. He was trying. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.He started coming home a bit earlier, offered to make coffee in the mornings, and even spent more time with Abigail. He would take her on walks and play with her, she was even bonding really well with him. When I got caught up folding laundry late into the night, he actually took over and told me to rest. It was small, but I saw the effort and I clung to it like a lifeline.Maybe he was feeling guilty, maybe he realized he crossed a line, or maybe, just maybe, he was beginning to understand the weight of being a father and leaning into embracing it. Whatever it was, I allowed myself a thread of hope. I wanted to believe in change.One evening, after Abigail had gone to sleep, I found myself sitting with Marcus on the balcony. The air was calm, cooler than usual, and the city lights shone from