Chapter Three

(Rebecca's POV)

The words hit me like a slap on the face. “There's never been a more perfect time in my whole life.”

It was at this point I was grateful I was holding on to the banister because I genuinely felt like collapsing. The little boy looked up at Jason with bright, trusting eyes as he continued to ruffle his hair and called him “Daddy.”

“That's my boy,” Jason hailed, grinning widely.

I swallowed hard and forced the question out, even though I already dreaded the answer. “Is he… truly your son?”

Jason glanced down at the boy again, then back at me. His expression hardened. “What are you now, Rebecca? A detective? Well, if it would answer your question, he’s Arabella’s son from her previous marriage. Since Arabella and I are going to get back together, her son will be mine too.”

For a second, everything went quiet except for the roaring in my ears.

This was the same man who had insisted I stay on contraceptives for years. The same man who had shut down every conversation I tried to have about starting a family. “Not yet, Rebecca. I’m not ready.” “We have plenty of time for that…” “Focus on us first,” until I eventually stopped bringing it up.

I had folded that longing away and told myself to be patient. I had believed he would come around and continued those pills month after month like a good wife, even when it made me feel empty inside.

Now he was standing in our living room, calm as ever, telling me he was ready to step into fatherhood, not for our own children, but for another man's child.

The pain that attacked my chest was searing hot and blinding.

I had given this man part of my liver. I had given up my name, my future, my family. I had poured every piece of myself into this marriage and his company, and he couldn’t even imagine having a child with me. But for Arabella? He was ready to step into the role of father without blinking.

Arabella watched me silently, a triumphant smirk on her face.

“Just as I thought. Keep your mouth shut because none of it is your fucking business,” he scoffed at me before turning to Arabella. “Go get comfortable, baby,” he kissed her smack on the lips before my eyes.

She took her son's hand, speaking quietly to him, while guiding him toward the stairs. I watched them move through my house like they already owned it.

By the end of that morning, everything had changed.

I stood in the hallway and watched as Arabella’s suitcases were carried into the master bedroom by Jason, the same room I had shared with him for three years.

The room where I had stayed up nights when he returned home drunk after his grandmother's death, changing his clothes and wiping sweat from his forehead.

The room where I had celebrated every promotion I secretly helped him get with quiet dinners and tried so hard to make him feel loved.

I had ironed his shirts on the board by the window and left small affirmation notes in his jacket pockets that he never once acknowledged.

Now her bags were on the floor I had meticulously cleaned, and her clothes would soon hang where mine used to be.

Jason passed me in the hallway a little while later and said, without meeting my eyes, "You should be on your way out already."

I looked away from him without saying a word, my eyes trailing to the floor. The taste in my mouth was bitter like ash as tears threatened to pour down my cheeks.

“You have stuff in the closet that's in the way, Rebecca. Get them out now. Arabella needs to get settled into the room,” Jason called out from inside the room moments later. I realized I'd been standing in the same spot for long after he'd left me.

Quietly, I walked into the room and began folding my clothes. Arabella and her son were somewhere outside by the pool, frolicking under the sun while Jason slaved away for them. Surely, he had to see he was being manipulated, right? This woman had only just materialised in both our lives to tear us apart.

I heard him come into the room while I was packing my things.

“Why are you being fucking slow, Rebecca? Gosh!” he let out a disgusted scoff as he hauled yet another large suitcase into the room.

I felt my heart break further as the suitcase hit the ground. “Jason.. baby, please…”

“Don't bloody call me that!” he hissed with a scowl on his face. “Wake up from whatever fucked up delusion it is that you've got, Rebecca. Me and you? We're done. Get that into your head,” he brushed past me, dragging the suitcase along. “And get the hell out of my house already!”

The force with which he'd brushed past me had sent me a few steps backwards, making me lose my balance and drop the items I’d been holding in my hands. I watched them splay across the floor around my feet, my vision blurring with tears. Jason left me to battle with my despair as he stepped out of the room.

I wordlessly began packing up my things. My documents. My toiletries. When I zipped the suitcase and looked at the room, it looked like I had never been there at all.

I could just leave it all. Everything. But I couldn't. Not without a fight. I still had until evening after all. A brilliant idea flashed through my mind.

I picked up my suitcase and carried it down the hallway to the guest room at the far end. It was a smaller room, with plain bedding and a window that looked out at the side fence.

I unpacked, and when I finished I sat on the edge of the bed and stared into space. Jason and I were still married legally until I signed the documents, right? I planned to stretch that time for as long as I could, if only to convince the man I loved with my life that he was about making a costly mistake.

The rest of the day passed in a hazy blur and I barely took notice. I stayed in the room, quiet and still in the company of my own thoughts. I didn't feel hungry. The gap in my heart swallowed up whatever other appetites I should have had.

I heard laughter from downstairs and peeked out carefully through the window blinds, careful not to be seen. The boy screamed in excitement as Jason played with him.

I guess he took a day off from work to entertain them when he had never done the same for me, not even when I was ill.

That evening, after dusk had arrived, I opened a fresh notebook I had brought with me. My hands were steady as I wrote at the top of the first page in clear, bold letters: “DAY 1.”

And without holding back, I wrote down all the events of today. I wrote it all down because I wanted to document my journey, trying to save my marriage. I had barely months to live anyway, so I wanted to remember exactly how it happened. I wanted to record every event for the next 30 days. What I'd do with the record, I had no clue, but I wanted to record it anyway.

“Maybe a memoir to be published after I die?” I thought with a sad laugh, my vision blurring with tears as I collapsed on the bed.

Later that night, I lay in the unfamiliar bed trying to sleep. The guest room still felt foreign and I knew I'd have to adjust. No one knew I was inside and I wanted to keep it that way, at least until the following day, if only to be close to Jason.

Sleep was just beginning to take me when a sharp bang echoed through the house from downstairs.

My eyes snapped open. My heart slammed against my ribs as I jumped out of bed and rushed out, barefoot. I stopped at the top and looked down.

One of the family photo frames, the one with Me, Jason and his grandmother on our wedding day, lay shattered on the hardwood floor.

Glass shards were scattered in different directions. And standing over the wreckage was Arabella's son. He had a small, mischievous, smile on his face as he poked at one of the larger pieces with the toe of his shoe.

Looking at him, I didn't need a soothsayer to know he had deliberately knocked the frame off from the console it was placed on.

I stood frozen to the spot, unable to move.

I could still remember the posture we assumed in that image. Jason's grandmother Nana Benedicta had her arm through mine and Jason and she was smiling wide in happiness and satisfaction.

It was the only thing of hers still left in this house, and I had dusted it without being asked every single week because she had been good to me. In a house where I often felt like a guest, she had been the one person who made me feel like I had a right to be here.

Now the image lay in ruins across the floor…