Imagine my shock when I found out that my husband, a professor who had proudly embraced a childless life for half of his years, had an affair with one of his own students. She even had his six-year-old son. The day I planned to report him to the university, Zia Thompson came to my door with the child and knelt in front of me. "Maybe you and Zeke were in love once," she said. "But he's over forty now. Who doesn't want to have a child? A legacy?" "I don't need a title," she went on. "I can give up the child too. I just beg you, don't tear our family apart." I looked at my husband, who stood protectively in front of them. I felt terrifyingly calm. "Cut ties with them," I said, my voice flat, "or prepare to be reported to the university. You choose." Without a moment's hesitation, he tore the report letter into shreds. I thought that was his answer. But on the fifty-second night of a bed grown cold and a home echoing with silence, he still hadn't returned. Instead, I received news that Zia was pregnant again. She had graduated by then. The report I never sent no longer posed any threat to them. Zeke didn't bother to hide his fatigue and irritation anymore. "Treat Zia and the kids well," he said, "or keep living alone in that empty house. It's your choice." My heart was already a wasteland. "I have one more option," I said. "I choose divorce."
Lihat lebih banyak"Dad, please... I really don't know who he was - Ahhh!" A slap went across Samantha's face, and it came from her beloved father.
The man that used to adore her and treated her like a princess, had hurt her for the first time in her life!
"Winfield, stop it! She is your daughter!" Matilda, her grandmother, covered Samantha's frame, embracing her for protection.
Winfield Davis may be a father, but he was the most fearful General of the country's military arms. With his bare hands and flaming rage, he was capable of causing suffering to his own daughter.
"What kind of woman are you? Have I not raised you well?!" The General reprimanded. He grabbed on to Samantha's jaws and clenched his fingers on her crying face. "I turned the military camp upside down! No one - and I repeat! No one owned up to being the father of your child!"
He was about to slap Samantha again when Matilda pleaded, "Stop this! We can't do anything about it! It's already done!"
"Daddy, I'm sorry! This is my fault! If - If I had known Samantha wanted to have random sex with a stranger, I would have stayed by her side during the party! Please don't blame Sam, Daddy! This is my fault as much as it is Sam's." Samantha's stepsister, Annie Jones, came rushing in their direction.
Annie acted to help, but clearly, she was trashing Samantha with her words.
Samantha's eyes darted at Annie! To her, indeed, it was her stepsister's fault! It was Annie who gave her the keycard to a hotel room while attending a friend's wedding; a senior rank from the military.
She meant to give herself to her boyfriend of two years, Clayton Brown, another cadet, one year older than her.
Drunk and intoxicated, Samantha did not realize how she easily fell into her stepsister's trap. She woke up the next day in another man's arms.
Samantha meant to forget about that horrific night, but in the end, she fell pregnant.
"Stay out of this, Annie! You are not at fault! It was Samantha's decision to sleep with a man!" With his voice raised further, Winfield screamed at the top of his lungs, "With an unknown man!"
"Daddy, please! I - I thought it was. I thought it was Clayton!" Samantha reasoned while gasping for air. She meant to say more, but Winfield Davis thrust back his fist, suggesting he might hit on his own daughter.
Her father's actions made her take a step back, retreating from defending herself.
"Regardless if it was Clayton or not! I never wanted you to be with Clayton anyhow! They are family rivals to the military rank!" Her father reproached.
"What do we do now? Hah, Sam? How do we find a man whom we do not know at all? You can't even remember the hotel room you came into! You acted negligibly, and you got yourself pregnant!"
"Who is this man you slept with? Who?!!!" The General repeated.
"Darling, please! Let us stop the search for this man! We'd never know! The man whom Sam slept with maybe a married man - worse, a drug lord or a pimp!" The suggestion came from Catherine Jones-Davis, Annie's mother and Samantha's stepmother.
With a disgusted look on her face, Catherine added, "We certainly don't want the entire city to know who the father is - "
"Shut up, Catherine! I did not ask for your opinion!" Winfield shot back at his wife. "You and Annie, go up to your rooms now!"
Returning his attention to Samantha, the General asked one last time, "Samantha, please tell me... who is the father?"
While still wrapped in her grandmother's arms, Samantha answered with a trembling voice, "Dad, I'm sorry! I - I really do not know! I left him asleep on the bed as soon as I realized it wasn't Clayton!"
With tears streaming down her face, she pleaded, "Dad, please. Please forgive me! I'm sorry!"
"Get out! Get out and never come back to this household!" Her father ordered while pointing to the door.
"Winfield! It's raining outside! Your daughter is pregnant - "
"I don't care, mother! She needs to learn her lesson! She should have agreed to have an abortion when she had the chance! Now, everybody knows!" Retorted Winfield Davis.
"She has tainted the name of the Davis family, and now my name has been mocked by my own commanders!" The General cursed before revealing, "The entire military academy knows! The entire military camp knows, for God's sake!"
For the first time, Samantha saw her father shed a tear. It easily ran down his jaws. He described, "I am so ashamed of you, Samantha!"
She heard him say, "You broke my trust, my respect for you. I have always adored you, but today, you have completely broken your father's heart that I cannot! I cannot accept you into my home! Learn from your mistakes, and only then will you realize the wrong that you have done me!"
With a deafening voice, he screamed, "Leave!"
Her father grabbed her arm and dragged her out outside their mansion. He left her out in the rain, in front of their huge double doors.
Just like that, her beloved father abandoned her for her mistake. Her grandmother was powerless to stop the great General.
Samantha lingered by the door for two hours, waiting for her father to open it for her, but that never happened. She got drenched in the rain, crying her heart out and calling for her father's forgiveness.
Looking up to the rooms, she saw how her stepmother and stepsister relished in her misery.
Oh, how wrong it was for her to trust them, especially Annie.
After two long hours of asking for her father, the old driver of the Davis family approached her and took her away. Her grandmother asked the same old man to help Samantha find a more protective environment for her to continue with her pregnancy.
Samantha flew out to Monroe City the very next day. She only had a day of rest in a hotel before finally leaving the city which gave her the greatest pain of her life.
The truth is, Zeke and I both knew—some things don't change gradually. They collapse all at once, becoming something unrecognizable.Six years ago, Zeke's family suddenly began investing in an infant care company under his name.Was it because I was pregnant back then?No. It was because Zia was.He'd told me he didn't want me to suffer through pregnancy. Meanwhile, he was secretly raising a beloved child with someone else. It's astonishing how someone can live by such a double standard.I couldn't take his entanglement any longer. I decided to sell the flower shop and move to another city with Kristen.When Zeke saw the movers clearing out everything from the shop, he broke down without warning. Cried like he knew this was it—that he was about to lose me again.And maybe this time, it would be for good.Tears streaming down his face, he suddenly asked, "Carrie, did I hurt you that badly? Please, give me a chance to make it right. I'll open a new flower shop for you, fill it wi
One afternoon, I was weaving a flower crown to put on my head when Zeke showed up—along with Zia.Her belly, once swollen with pregnancy, had clearly deflated. The moment she saw me, tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Carrie. I was wrong."The little girl, Kristen, who was helping me with the flowers, asked, "Mom, who's she?"I stroked her head and gently told her to go inside for a while.Meanwhile, Zia dropped to her knees at my feet, still begging for forgiveness.Zeke's face was filled with sorrow. "I've looked into what happened with Dylan and the pills. I know the truth now.""If that's what you came to apologize for, you can leave," I said calmly, already moving to show them out.I didn't know how he'd convinced Zia to humble herself like this, but it didn't matter. I had already let it all go.To me, those memories boiled down to two words: unnecessary trouble.Zeke shook his head. "I'll send Dylan to my parents and cut ties with Zia. I'm begging you, please forg
Everything here looked just the same.It even felt like Carrie's presence still lingered faintly in the air.This was where it had all begun—where the two of them had holed up together and quietly built a life from scratch. Even if she was gone now, he believed she'd come back eventually. He didn't think she could really cut ties with him, not entirely. Not with all the memories tied to this place.She'd regret it.And when that time came, all he had to do was wait here for her.But at night, when the house grew cold and the bed felt impossibly big, Zeke often woke in a sweat from nightmares. He kept seeing her, suitcase in hand, walking away. Leaving the old house. Leaving him.Each time, panic twisted in his chest. He'd lash out—punch the wall, curse under his breath.Then one night, he made a call to a friend at the hospital. "Next time Zia comes in for a checkup," he said, "tell her I don't want the child."It had started seven years ago—his parents had shown up, persuasive
Carrie had been crying a lot lately—more than usual, all because of him.After three cigarettes in the car, Zeke finally turned the wheel and headed toward the house they used to live in.He knocked on the front door for a long time. No answer.At first, he thought maybe she just didn't want to see him. But a neighbor eventually came over and told him she hadn't been back in days.Made sense. He'd really gone too far this time. She'd probably gone back to her apartment in the school district.Unlike other women, Carrie didn't have a family home to return to when she got upset. So whenever she was angry, she'd head to that old place and wait—wait for him to show up and coax her, usually after some effort.The thought made Zeke smile, as if time had rolled back to those early days of marriage, when even their fights had been filled with warmth.On the way over, he stopped to buy sunflowers.Carrie loved sunflowers.He still remembered how, back when he wasn't so swamped with res
I handed in my resignation to the university.Truth was, years ago, my worsening eye condition had already made it difficult to keep up with intense research. I only stayed on to help Zeke because he was busy chasing accolades. After his affair came to light, he began—subtly or not—sabotaging my work. Funding dried up. My research had nowhere to go.I transferred my unfinished project, along with my students, to a trusted colleague.She looked stunned. "This is the work of your life. You've already made progress. You're just giving it to me?"I smiled and nodded.She hesitated. "The direction overlaps quite a bit with Zeke's work, too. Are you sure you're not passing it to him?"I sighed and shook my head. "He's not someone I'd entrust things to."Once, he gave my research away to Zia. Who's to say he wouldn't do the same with my students' results?My colleague didn't argue further. She quietly helped me pack.We weren't moving my things back to my old apartment. Just to the
He buckled my seatbelt with practiced ease. The scent from the car diffuser and the music playing were both exactly to my taste.If I could ignore the mother and son sitting in the backseat, the moment would've been perfect—so perfect it almost didn't feel real."We're taking Dylan to check out the school today," he said. "If you'd like, you could spend some time with them.""No. I've got class," I replied.The moment we pulled up, I stepped out and walked away, not daring to linger. A second too long, and I knew the tears welling in my eyes would spill over.But Zia wasn't about to let me go that easily. She brought Dylan into my class, sitting quietly in the back while I lectured.Later, without a word, she dropped him off in my lab and vanished.Dylan tore through the lab like a storm. Equipment knocked over, and pages of my painstakingly written research notes were ripped to shreds.I grabbed his arm. "Apologize."I didn't care to argue with a child, but I needed, at the v
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