Chapter 3- what was already decided

I watched him, the tears already forming in my eyes waiting for an explanation “I thought we went over this Trent. At least after we find out about the baby then we sign but even then I thought—“

“That’s enough for Christ's sake!” He yelled and my words hung in my throat “I’m tired okay? I’m tired of waiting, stalling, and dealing with this. At least I waited to give you tomorrow”

“Tomorrow.” I repeated the word like it might make sense the second time. “You were going to hand me divorce papers tomorrow. While I’m still carrying your baby” my heart sank at that moment knowing the truth.

Something flickered across his face, not guilt, not exactly more like impatience, like I was slowing down a conversation he’d already had in his head a hundred times without me in it.

“That isn’t confirmed yet,” he said. “And don’t make me the villain for wanting out of something that stopped working years ago.”

“Years ago?” My laugh came out broken, nothing like a laugh at all. “We’ve been trying for a baby for three years, Trent. You were there for every appointment. Every negative test. You cried with me after the second round failed—”

“I was performing.” The word landed flat, almost bored. “I kept waiting for it to feel like something again. It didn’t.”

“What if the pregnancy is confirmed, would you have stayed?” I asked hoping he would

He didn’t answer, which was its own answer.

I thought about the folder in Ines’ office. About a stranger’s name attached to a foundation. About the fact that somewhere in this city, a man I’d never met had more of a claim to my child than the one standing in front of me.

“Get out,” I said.

Trent blinked. “This is my house too—”

“Get. Out.” My voice didn’t shake this time. “I’ll figure out the rest tomorrow. Tonight, I need you gone.”

For a second I thought he’d argue. Instead he grabbed his jacket off the chair, and at the door he paused, like he still had something to prove.

“You’ll thank me eventually,” he said. “This was never going to work.”

When the door closed, it was then I realized I was alone with the truth, the baby wasn’t his, but belonged to a stranger I don’t even know. And I was already as good as divorced from the man I thought loved me.

The room tilted and I had to lean on the wall of the room for support, the tears freely flowing now and my emotions crazy on me at the same time. From the corner of the room, my phone rang but I didn’t pick up. I was too numb to talk, too numb to move.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, back against the wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor of a room that used to feel like mine. The phone rang again. And again.

By the fourth ring, I finally looked at the screen, half-expecting it to be Trent despite knowing he wouldn’t regret anything. My eyes stunk from the bright screen since I had been crying

Ines.

For one small, foolish second, hope moved through me before I could stop it. Maybe it was good news. Maybe there’d been another mistake, a second error that canceled out the first.

I answered immediately. “Ines?”

“I’m so sorry to call so late.” Her voice was careful in a way that told me before her words did. “I didn’t want you finding out like this, but I couldn’t sit on it either. The clinic reached the account holder a few hours ago.”

My stomach dropped somewhere past the floor. “What?”

“He knows.” A pause. “Noelle, he’s asked to meet you. Dorian Reyes wants to meet you. Tonight, if you’re able.”

The name landed the same way it had in that hallway, foreign yer heart wrenching.

“Tonight,” I repeated, my voice flat in my own ears.

“You don’t have to,” Ines said quickly. “Not if you’re not ready.”

I looked around the living room, at Trent’s side of the closet already half-empty, at the folder still sitting open in the other room, at the whole life I’d built that had apparently been ending in secret for weeks before I found out about it.

There was nothing left here to protect by waiting.

“No,” I said, suddenly finding courage .

“Tell him I’ll go.”