ANMELDENDominicI woke to the sterile smell of disinfectant and the quiet beeping of monitors. My head throbbed like a drum, but the moment I opened my eyes, I saw Liam pacing beside the bed, hands gripping his own hair, face tight with panic.“Damn it, Dominic! You scared the hell out of me!” he barked.I blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the room. Then I noticed my mother in the corner, face streaked with tears, and Leana, trembling, standing closer than she should. Her hand reached for me instinctively, and I jerked back, away from her touch. Every muscle in me tensed.“I need the keys,” I said before my brain even caught up with my words.Liam froze. “Keys? You can’t even stand properly. Where are you going?”I swung my legs over the bed, ignoring the dizziness, and glared at him. My voice low, dangerous. “Your car key. Now.”“You can’t drive,” Liam said, voice sharper. “Especially if you’re thinking about going to the exact place I know you’re thinking about!”“I need to see my wif
Dominic“If you walk away from me, Dominic, I swear I will ruin her.”Her voice echoed in my head so clearly it felt like she was standing right in front of me again. Her eyes had been red from tears when she admitted the truth about the baby, but the moment I stepped back from her, something changed in her face. The tears dried up like someone had turned off a tap. What remained was anger and something colder.“You think you can just leave?” she had said, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “After everything? After you promised to marry me?”I remembered standing there, the copy of the test results still in my hand. The paper had trembled slightly because my fingers would not stay still. “The child isn’t mine, Leana.”She had laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. “So what? That suddenly erases the years we spent together?”“You lied to me.”“I did what I had to do, I was going to abort it and tell you it was miscarriage, so we can have our own child.” she snapped back. “
DominicI stayed there longer than I should have, staring at those photos like they might start moving if I watched hard enough. My head felt heavy, but I could not stop. I bent down again and reached for another carton, pushing aside frames and loose papers until my fingers brushed against something thick.It was a large brown envelope tucked at the bottom of the box, almost hidden under a stack of documents. My name was written on it in bold black ink. Not in my handwriting.My throat felt dry as I pulled it out and stood up. Dust slid off the surface when I brushed it with my palm. For a moment I just held it, weighing it in my hand. It was not light. There were too many papers inside.I opened it.The first thing that slid out was a set of printed photographs. They fell slightly out of order, so I had to catch them before they scattered on the floor. I gathered them and looked at the top one.Leana.She was sitting at a restaurant table, across from a man I recognized immediately.
DominicThe key felt heavier than it should have in my hand as I stood in front of the storage room door. I kept staring at the lock like it might react to me, like it knew I had ignored it for months and now suddenly wanted answers from it. The hallway was quiet, only the faint sound of dishes clinking somewhere downstairs where the staff were finishing up. The house felt too large, too empty without Leana and the boy running around.I slid the key into the lock. It scraped slightly before turning, and the sound of the mechanism clicking open made my stomach tighten. I paused for a second, my hand still on the knob, then I pushed the door open.The smell hit me first, dust and old paper and something faintly floral, like perfume that had been trapped in a closed space for too long. I stepped inside slowly and reached for the switch. The light flickered once before coming on, revealing stacks of cartons lined neatly against the walls, some sealed, some half open. Everything looked org
MadelynThe door closed after Dominic, and the sound of it felt louder than it should have, like the apartment had been holding its breath while he was here and only remembered how to exhale once he left. I stood there with my hand still on the door handle, staring at the wood grain like it might shift into something else if I looked long enough. My chest hurt, like something had settled there and decided to stay.When my knees finally gave in, I slid down until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the door. The cold from the tiles seeped through my clothes, grounding me in a way I didn’t want but needed. My hands went to my stomach without thinking, my fingers pressing gently, protectively.“He came,” I whispered, my voice sounding small in the empty room. “Did you feel that?”My throat tightened, and this time the tears came, slow at first, then faster, blurring everything. I leaned my head back against the door, staring at the ceiling as my chest rose and fell unevenly. I ha
DominicI left Madelyn’s apartment without looking back because I knew if I did, I might not make it to the car. The hallway felt longer than it had a few minutes earlier. My hands were shaking slightly, and I stuffed them into my pockets like that would somehow hide it from myself.The drive home passed in a blur. I stopped at a red light and stared straight ahead, barely registering the cars beside me or the pedestrian crossing the road. My mind kept going back to her face when she opened the door, that look she tried so hard to control, and how it hit something deep inside me without warning. I turned into the driveway and parked, sitting in the car a few seconds longer than necessary before getting out.The house was quiet when I stepped in. Too quiet. Leana wasn’t home, she had been gone for days on what she called a vacation with the boy. She had sounded cheerful on the phone when she told me, like everything was perfectly normal. I hadn’t questioned it then. I was questioning e







