Her Rebirth, His Regret

I looked around the room still having a hard time believing what I was seeing. Yellow curtains. Beige carpet. The hairline crack running diagonally across the ceiling above the wardrobe. My room, the one I had slept in before I was married, before any of it happened. I sat on the edge of the bed with my hands pressed flat against the duvet and looked at everything slowly, letting the feel of the cotton against my kin determine if this was reality. I could hardly believe that I had truly been reborn. The betrayal by Dorothy and Alexander was absolutely no dream. I had felt every second of it with every fiber of my body. The hands around my throat. The open window. The fall. My life leaving me with each second I struggled to draw breath. Alexander's face above mine. All of it had been real. And now I was sitting here in morning light I had not seen in three years, on a bed that smelled of fabric softener, in a room that should not have existed for me anymore. My digital clock sat on

The printer in the copy room spat out the resignation letter in under a minute. I stood there and watched the page slide out and I picked it up while the ink was still warm and looked at it for a moment.Soon I would be completely free of Alexander Hagreeves.I took it straight to HR. The woman behind the desk looked at it carefully, then looked up at me with an apologetic expression pressed into the corners of her mouth. The letter required the signature of the CEO. It required seeing Alexander... again.I hesitated for a single second, then turned around and headed back. It was no big deal. I simply wanted this finished as quickly as possible.What had just happened in the office had left everyone utterly stunned. Before I had walked out to print the letter, Liam had actually come up and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead, asking in complete seriousness whether I had a fever, because how else could I have said what I had said? Romy kept muttering that I must not have gotten

The walk home felt longer than it ever had.I kept my face forward and my steps even and by the time I pushed open the front door my chest was hollow and my jaw ached from keeping it set the whole way there. The anger that had carried me out of Alexander's office had begun to cool, and underneath it was an incessant ache, a heaviness that made it hard to pull in a breath.I still walked.My mother looked up from the kitchen the moment she heard the door. Her eyes moved over my face and she crossed the room toward me immediately, reaching out to press the back of her hand to my cheek. "Maeve, you're back so early and you look pale. Are you alright? Did something happen at the office?"My father looked up from his armchair, his newspaper lowering, his eyes settling on my face with quiet worry.I stood there for a moment. Then I decided to get it over with quickly."I want to dissolve my engagement to Alexander."My mother's hand dropped from my cheek. The kitchen went completely still.

MAEVE "Yes? I'm here, Dorothy." He responded softly."Come down and have some tea with me." My sister practically sang, and Alexander immediately did as she called."Yes," he called back to Dorothy.His eyes came back to mine and whatever had been sitting in them a moment ago closed over and hardened. His jaw tightened. He released my wrist and straightened his jacket with one smooth pull and turned for the door without another word.I almost groan because of the soreness in my wrist. I grit my teeth and refused to look at him again, listening to his footsteps move down the hall.It still hurt, but I told myself it was okay. Finally, I cut every tie with Alexander. I looked at the yellow curtains and made myself breathe evenly until the splinter feeling in my chest dissolved into something duller and more manageable.That was the last time.I came downstairs a few minutes later and was stunned when I saw Dorothy was already standing in the middle of the living room with the sapphire

MAEVE The first day. Dorothy had come home that very morning and they had already been together. I stood frozen in the crowd with the music thumping up through the floor beneath my feet and the realisation moving through me slow and cold from my throat all the way down into my stomach. Every moment rearranged itself in my head — the ease with which he had handed Dorothy Grandma Mary's necklace, the warmth that had flooded his voice when he called back yes to her through my bedroom door, the way his body had tilted toward her in every room like she was the thing his attention was permanently pointed at. It assembled itself into one clear picture and I could not look away from it. How long had he been deceiving me? How many mornings had I woken up believing I was working toward something real while he had been carrying on with my sister behind every closed door? And my child. My innocent child who had never drawn a single breath, who had died on that concrete alongside me without ev