CHAPTER 003

MAYA

Loud laughs woke me up. I didn't sleep early last night. I worked on the UrbanAxis realty project into the wee hours of the morning.

Gabriel had mentioned how important it was for him to send the first sketch by morning. By the time I concluded the project it was well past two in the morning.

I pulled up. Sketchboard, cardboards, and metre rules lay by the foot of the bed. I grabbed them, placing them on the desk that served as my workspace.

Then I tilted my head, the window stood above it. I grabbed the curtains, pulling them apart. My eyes fell on them, laughing like the whole world bows to them. I moved closer and leaned against the window frame.

Gabriel in a white vest soaked to the point that the outlines of his chest showed. He laughed the loudest.

He had a hose in his hand splashing water on Amila instead of the rows of flowers before them.

Amila brushed her face with one hand and retaliated with the hose in the other hand, her little girl, Hannah, running around in her pink swimsuit, soaked too.

My heart sank into my stomach as I stood there watching my husband play with his supposed cousin in that manner. Her chestnut hair clasped to her bare shoulders, sundress almost transparent. It felt like a knife was stabbed into my heart and twisted fast enough, deep inside.

I had never seen Gabriel this happy. The only time he managed a full smile at me was when I told him I was pregnant the first time. I had placed the pregnancy test result in a plate, covered it as if it were food, and awaited his arrival. But all those smiles had ended with the pregnancy.

I had miscarried at eight weeks. The doctor said there were no known causes. That baby could have been three if I hadn't miscarried. Just a little younger than Hannah.

I bawled my eyes out for months. Then one sunny afternoon, I tested positive again. I was over the moon. Finally, I was going to be a Mom, and Gabriel would finally be a father too. But when I shared the news with him, his eyes only widened. His mouth remained only a thin line.

“Are you not… excited?” I asked. Shocked at the cold reaction I had received from him.

“What's the essence, huh? Have you not been pregnant before now? What happened to it?” He slurred, pushed the chair beneath him so hard that the chair scraped noisily against the floor.

My heart shattered as I watched him climb the staircase. Nothing made sense. But then he was right. Two months later, I had woken up with blood smeared everywhere on the sheets. I had miscarried again.

George wouldn't touch me again. He said it was of no use. He said what's the use of making a baby I would end up shedding like I always did.

His mother had dismissed me too when I sought her help. I resigned to fate, only nearing his bed when he felt like it, mostly on nights he returned home drunk. Sex had become a chore. With him thumping like an empty bag on me.

I stood there, grip tightened around the curtains as I watched them run around like the perfect complete family I couldn't give him. I gulped hard. Tears welled up behind my eyes. I pulled them back.

Never! I was done shedding tears for him. Even this new development of Amila, a woman with a child, living under the same roof with us, I wasn't going to let it get to me.

I strutted toward the closet, yanked the door open, and pulled out the divorce papers. Evelyn had made me get them. She found the lawyer too. The process was quite fast, but I had kept it hidden, deep down in my box. Evelyn’s words still echoed fresh.

“This is the height of it, Maya.” She said, “You can't keep answering his wife while he goes around town frolicking with his personal assistant.”

I had caught him smashing into his personal assistant from behind, in his office. He had promised to change. He had begged me, he had asked me to think about the company.

Truth is, I did think about the company. Mr. Magnus's hard work would go to waste if I didn't stay. The old man would roll in his grave.

I still needed my marriage too. I still loved my husband. Couples do fight and make up.

But right now, as I stood before the closet, Gabriel's chuckles like a kid playing in my mind. I knew it was time to tell myself the truth I had run away from so much. Gabriel never loved me. He never wanted this marriage.

But the thought of leaving him was too expensive. I would go back to nothing. I had no job to sustain me. My mother still benefited from the company, Mr. Magnus Steele had added her to the payroll after the surgery. Gabriel wouldn't think twice before wiping her name off the moment I take a walk.

The papers shook in my hands. The dotted lines stared back empty and sacred. But I was tired of being the other woman in my own home.

Just last night during dinner, Gabriel and Amila had avoided me like the plague, they played deaf to whatever I contributed to the discussion. Amila would scoff and carry on like someone hadn't spoken.

I just stood in the room. The clock on the nightstand ticking too loudly, the only sound in the room. I exhaled countless times, letting go of the heaviness clogging my chest. I could hear his footsteps approaching the door in the hallway.

But I had decided to let this slide. I wouldn't let them push me just yet. It was my birthday in a few hours and the last thing I would want was to get upset.