Chapter Two

Kyla. 

The hallway stretches before me like a tunnel familiar and yet strangely foreign tonight. My breath is shallow as I take slow, quiet steps toward the bedroom door. The silence still holds, but it’s not peaceful anymore. It’s suffocating. My hand reaches for the doorknob almost on instinct. And my hand immediately starts shaking, a part of me wants to just go back downstairs and ignore everything. 

Then, I hear a sound. A low gasp.

My heart skips a beat and my whole body freezes.

Then I hear it again. A muffled voice. A moan. A woman's moan. 

“No…” The sound escapes me as a whisper, barely a breath, as though the wind has been knocked from my chest.

Another moan follows, louder this time and then a man’s voice. Low. Familiar. So horribly familiar.

Jake.

I don’t need to hear another word to know. I don’t need to open the door. That voice deep and husky, laced with arousal is the same one that’s whispered promises into my neck at night, the same one that’s broken and tired, begging for a child. It’s him. 

My knees wobble and I suddenly feel weak. I don’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

My hand drops from the doorknob like it’s burned me. My entire body has gone cold, but sweat beads along my hairline.

“No, no, no”

I stumble backward, covering my mouth with both hands, trying to block out the noises coming from inside my, our bedroom. The moaning, the rhythm of movement against the mattress, the creaking of the bed we picked out together from that little antique store in town. The bed we dreamed about rocking with the weight of a newborn baby in our arms,

He’s in there. With someone else.

While I was out buying prenatal vitamins and staring at baby clothes I couldn’t afford yet.

While I was texting him about good news.

While I was dreaming of the way his eyes would light up.

The pain is instant and violent. It doesn’t build it detonates. A raw, ugly sob tears out of my throat as I turn and flee down the hallway, nearly tripping over my own feet.

I need to get out of here before I lose it. 

I need to breathe.

I can’t hear another second of this nightmare.

I run down the stairs, my heart hammering in my chest, shoving the front door open with shaking hands. My vision is blurred from tears, hot and thick, spilling down my cheeks.

How could he do this to me?

We were trying. We were trying for this baby. He held me after every negative test. He promised we’d never give up. And now this?

I’m not even sure where I’m running to. I don’t feel the gravel beneath my bare feet, or the wind in my hair, or the way my coat flaps behind me as I storm out into the street. I’m crying so hard I can’t see straight.

I should stop.

I should look around.

But all I can do is cry. Scream. Sob. The betrayal slices into me like a thousand knives. I can’t think. Can’t breathe. The baby. Oh God, the baby I’m carrying his child.

And he is

“LOOK OUT!”

The voice is distant. Echoed. Like I’m underwater.

A sharp sound pierces the air screeching tires.

And then nothing.

Just the sickening thud of impact.

Pain. White hot. Blinding. A flash of light behind my eyes.

And then I see total darkness.