VENESSA S ADVICE

JAMES POV

(7:00 PM)

I sat in my office, staring blankly at the pile of documents scattered before me. My hands hovered over them, almost as if they were tangible evidence of some control I no longer had over my own life. The office felt unusually quiet too quiet but it wasn’t the quiet of peace. It was the quiet of guilt. A guilt I had been avoiding for far too long.

I hadn’t visited Jenny for two days. Two entire days, and I hadn’t once thought about what she must have been feeling what she had endured while I was busy taking care of Vanessa. I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw her in pain. My own selfishness had blinded me, and for the first time, I felt like a fool. A complete fool.

I slammed my hands onto the desk, scattering the carefully arranged documents into chaos. Paper flew everywhere. My heart was racing, my chest tight. What had gotten into me that day? How could I have been so reckless, so thoughtless? My mind raced, remembering the chaos, the confusion, the choices I had made, and the consequences that followed.

Vanessa’s advice from earlier came back to me. Her soft, seductive voice had suggested a gift ,something to console Jenny. Perhaps a gesture could soothe her, make her soften, make her forgive. A gift. I shook my head slightly. A gift. Could something as simple as jewelry or a watch fix the damage I had done? Could it undo the betrayal, the miscarriage, the pain I had caused? Still, I had purchased the gifts earlier this morning, the earrings, the gold watch, the things that weren’t easy to obtain, things costly enough that they would impress anyone. Expensive, exclusive, meant to communicate effort, meant to communicate care, meant to reach her somehow. I could only hope they would reach her heart.

I took a deep breath, trying to gather myself. My chest felt heavy, my throat tight. This was Jenny the woman I had vowed to protect, to love, to cherish and yet I had been absent when she needed me most. I had been lost in my own world, caring for another woman, forgetting my own child, forgetting the woman who had given herself entirely to me.

I stood up, brushing the papers off my desk, and went.

The walk to her hospital room was suffocating. Each step felt heavier than the last, weighed down by my guilt, by my shame. The nurses looked at me as I passed, their expressions neutral, respectful, almost as if they sensed the storm inside me but dared not interfere. I was their superior the director of the hospital but today, I wished I could shrink into a shadow, become invisible, so they would not see the shame written all over my face.

When I reached her door, I hesitated. I didn’t even know which one was hers at first. My hands hovered over the handle. I felt ashamed. Ashamed of everything I had done, ashamed of the way the nurses looked at me, perhaps sensing the truth. But they said nothing. They only bowed slightly and left, and I knew they dared not speak, not when I was the head of the hospital.

I knocked. Once. Twice. Louder. Silence.

I opened the door slowly, almost expecting to see her asleep, expecting to see the calm, serene expression I had always loved. But she wasn’t asleep. She was standing, seemingly unaware of me, as though I was a stranger intruding into her world. She was coming out with a nurse. Perhaps the nurse had helped her shower, helped her prepare herself for the day.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Her voice was quiet, almost fragile, yet sharp with an undercurrent of anger. She didn’t glance toward the door. She didn’t acknowledge me.

I felt the stab of reality. She was angry. She had every right to be angry. But still, the thought hit me hard: it was only a miscarriage. Only a miscarriage. We could have another child, I thought. It was just one lost chance. Another could come. I tried to tell myself this, but my heart thudded painfully, each beat screaming that it was not that simple.

Ah, Dr. James, the nurse greeted politely.

“You can leave,” I said sharply.

The nurse hesitated for a moment but quickly obeyed, bowing as she left.

I watched Jenny as she walked to her bed and sat down. Her posture was stiff, her body taut with tension, her eyes avoiding mine. She pretended not to see me.

I walked over to her bedside, my hands trembling slightly as I reached for hers. I held her hand gently, softly, afraid that my touch might frighten her away. Her hand was cold. Too cold. Almost lifeless, considering she was alive. My chest tightened.

“Are you okay?” I asked. My voice was low, hesitant.

She didn’t reply.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to continue.

“I’m so sorry about the loss of your child,” I said. “Our child. I mean… I’m sorry. I know it hurts. It hurts me too. I feel it just as deeply as you do.”

Her eyes lifted slowly to mine. Sharp. Piercing. Blinding.

“If you knew it was going to hurt me, then why did you make that decision that day?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly but filled with a raw, cutting intensity. “Why did you choose her over me?”

My mind stumbled. My throat tightened.

“Calm down, okay? Please… calm down,” I said, my hands tightening around hers. “Like, Vanessa had been injured and was bleeding from the head if had something—you would have been charged with an attempted murderer, you shouldn't have pushed her… Vanessa told me everything ?”

“ Everything!” she snapped. Her eyes blazed with fury. “That I pushed her! And you believed her. You believed the stranger’s words. Not your own wife! You didn’t even think of me! Not once!”

I swallowed hard. My body went rigid. I felt the shame burn me from the inside out. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“She’s not a stranger,” I tried to whisper.

“Yes, she’s not,” Jenny cut in, her voice sharp. “But you didn’t see me! You didn’t trust me. You chose her over me. Over your own child. Over everything we had!”

My chest tightened. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to argue, to explain, to justify myself, but the truth was, I had no explanation. Not a good one. Only the empty, agonizing truth: I had failed. Failed as a husband. Failed as a father. Failed as a man who was supposed to protect the woman he married.

“Leave,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “I want to sleep.”

My hands clenched, gripping something invisible, trying to keep control of my temper, of my desperation.

“I… I have a gift,” I said, my voice low, trembling with frustration and shame. “I… I bought it for you.”

Her eyes didn’t shift. Her body didn’t react.

I took a deep breath and held out the box, revealing the earrings and the gold watch inside. My smile was forced, awkward, desperate.

“I bought this for you. Venessa told me how you women like expensive stuff. Do you know how much I spent to get this? How hard it was to even get them? Do you know? And I thought… I thought you would like it.”

She stared at me.

Then, with deliberate precision, she pushed the box away. The jewelry scattered across the floor. The earrings bounced, the watch spun, the delicate chain of the necklace tangled in a mess of metal and broken emotion.

I stepped back, shocked.

“What… what are you doing? Are you crazy?” My voice cracked.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes wide, blazing. Her body was tense, every muscle coiled. “I am crazy.”

I could see it. I could see the madness, the raw, unfiltered pain in her eyes. I didn’t know what to call it, but I recognized it. It was grief. It was anger. It was betrayal. It was a woman broken by the very man she had trusted with her heart.

“You know what I want?” she said, her voice trembling but steady. “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you.” I said.

I took a step closer, reaching out instinctively, trying to touch her, to calm her, to fix what I had broken.

“I want a divorce,” she said.

Every word was a dagger. Every word sliced through the remnants of my composure.

I froze.

The room seemed to shrink around me. My chest tightened, my head spun. The gifts, the apologies, the explanations all of it lay shattered at our feet.

She wasn’t asking for my forgiveness. She wasn’t asking for reconciliation. She was leaving me.

And in that moment, I realized something devastatingly clear: I had lost her. Not just our child, not just her trust I had lost her entirely.

I wanted to speak, to beg, to plead, to explain. But nothing could come out. My voice was gone, swallowed by the weight of my failure.

All I could do was stand there, frozen, staring at the woman I loved who had loved me enough to stay, only to be destroyed by my own selfishness and watch as she prepared to leave me forever.

The silence was deafening.

And yet, in that silence, one thought burned brighter than anything else: I would make it right. Somehow. Somehow, I would get her back. Somehow, I would reclaim the woman I had destroyed with my own hands.

But first… I had to survive the storm of her anger, her pain, and her righteous fury.

I had no idea how.

But I would.