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Two years ago
Date de publication:
2026-05-06 18:39:46Kara's POV.
"Kara? Oh my God! What the fuck are you doing in bed with me?" I heard my boss, Jeremy's voice as he grabbed my hand, turning me to face him. I was also stunned, unable to believe what I was witnessing. I was naked, on the bed with Jeremy who looked like he had seen a ghost. "I d..y..." I tried speaking, but only ended up saying gibberish as my head began hurting heavily; it felt like a hammer was being hit on my head. Probably, because I drank too much last night but how much did I drink, that I got crazy enough to have sex with an engaged man? I immediately tried to get off the bed, grabbing my clothes from the floor as I tried to get dressed, only for the door to burst open, startling the both of us. Before I could blink, the press rushed in, flashing their cameras at us as I suddenly found it difficult to breathe, the air around turning suffocating. Who called them here? "Mr. Jeremy Devonte, is it true that you are cheating on your fiancée?" One of the reporters stepped forward to push a microphone onto his face. "But you engaged Model Brittany yesterday?" "Are you having a secret affair with your secretary or is she the main deal?" Jeremy sat frozen on the bed, unable to say a word as the reporters bombarded him with questions, with just a duvet covering his body on the bed. I had the opportunity to run out of the room since the press were all focused on him but I couldn't leave him behind, especially since this was my fault. I do have no idea how I got into bed with him, nor could I remember all that happened last night. I just knew that I was sad, my boss, the man I had a crush on and have always admired since high school when he saved me from bullies, was getting engaged. So after helping him organize a big preparation for his proposal, I went to the bar to get drunk and also ended up kissing a guy, whom I recognized as Xavier, so how come I was in bed with Jeremy? Even if I wanted to have a one-night stand with anyone, drunkily, it should be Xavier, the man that I remembered kissing, or did the alcohol mess with my head so much that I thought it was him? I then determined within myself to see Xavier after all this ruckus. "Please guys, you are mistaken. My boss isn't cheating on his fiancée." I interrupted the reporters by jumping in front of Jeremy who looked as pale as a sheet of paper. "Oh really? And why should we believe you? He is naked." One of them shoved the microphone in my face, almost hitting me with it. "That's because you are wrong. He got drunk out of too much happiness and I had to come over to help him get dressed. As you can see, I am fully dressed so if we were having an affair, wouldn't I be naked with him on the bed?" I half-yelled and immediately they all went calm, exchanging looks between themselves. Jeremy grabbed me by the arm, and I almost smiled, loving that he was probably relying on me for more help. I would do anything for this guy; I was that crazy in love. "If that's so, we are sorry. The ti......" The head reporter had barely completed his sentence when; "Sir, look at this." We all turned simultaneously and my eyes widened at what I saw one of the reporters holding up. It was the sheet stained with blood, my blood. It was then that I began to feel the ache in my chest. "This is a sign that Mr. Devonte is having an affair, even if it isn't with the secretary." Immediately pictures of the sheets were being taken as I bit my lower lip hard, thinking of another excuse to come up with when; "Hold on, miss, is that a hickey on your neck?" A female reporter grabbed me tight, and I knew right then, as we got surrounded again, that there was no way out of this mess. ........ ........ LATER THAT AFTERNOON. "You Bitch." Mrs Devonte, Jeremy's mum, slapped me across the face so hard that it got flung to the other side as I felt the cold, metallic taste of blood on my lips. "How dare you?" She raged at me as I tried not to cower in her presence. Apparently, the news became a scandal online, so Brittany called it off with Jeremy and flew out of the country asap. That was suspicious to me, because it seemed like she had planned the travel beforehand, but neither Jeremy nor his mum, who had never liked me for reasons best known to her, refused to listen to me. "I have always told you to fire this useless secretary of yours, Jeremy but you refused." His mum turned to yell at him and Jeremy sighed, before raising his head from the palm he buried them into. "Mum, please. That's enough. Just leave her alone." Once again, he protected me unknowingly, and like a fool, my heart melted, since I thought that meant he cared. "Jeremy. I can't believe you, I can't believe you are trying to defend her after everything she did to ruin things for you." His mum screamed. Just then, the door opened and his dad walked in. "What is going on?" He asked, noticing the staring contest between his son and wife. "Your son here, is refusing to listen to me again." Mrs. Devonte hissed. "About?" "Firing this bitch." She pointed at me. "No Irish, don't call her that. She is your soon-to-be daughter-in-law." Mr. Devonte announced and we all froze as my jaw dropped. I immediately looked behind him to check if someone else was behind me, the girl they were referring to, but I saw nobody. "What?" Mrs. Devonte gasped, looking like she had been punched in the gut as her husband nodded. "I am serious dear. Jeremy has to marry Kara." My heart stopped at his words as I struggled to contain the excitement brewing in me. What? Why? I turned towards Jeremy, expecting him to refuse since he was part of those who believed that I had drugged him into my bed, but he was just looking at me calmly. Does that mean he accepted? But something seemed wrong and not right about this. "Over my dear body." His mother tightened her jaw as she glared at me. "She is not marrying my son." "Well, we don't have a choice because the news is circulating fast." "Then take it down." "It's not that easy, sweetheart, Besides, Jeremy confessed to me yesterday that he does like Kara, too." His father revealed and his mum stumbled backwards, out of shock, almost falling to the ground. I, on the other hand, felt as if I was dreaming. None of this could be real. "Jeremy, you did what? I thought you loved Brittany." His mum yelled at him. "I thought so too but when I met Kara, I realized my true feelings. Besides, I only proposed to Brittany because she is my childhood best friend, but I really do care for Kara, so maybe what happened is a blessing in disguise." He said, professing his love to me that night. And like a fool, I believed and happily married him but turns out, I was just a means of revenge. But if not for Brittany, then who and how was it related to my dead parents?
Dernier chapitre
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex She was free
Kara’s POV. We walked to the foundation in the morning. Xavier and I. The city was doing what it always did. Ordinary and alive and indifferent and entirely itself. We did not talk much. Some walks need the quiet. Some mornings are too full for words and the right thing is to walk beside the right person and let the morning be what it is. Grace was already there when we arrived. Standing outside the building. Kofi beside her. She had said: I will meet you at the wall. She had meant the outside wall. The building itself. She was standing the way she had stood at eighteen months old in front of the interior wall. Looking at the building. Taking stock. “Ready?” she said. “Yes,” I said. We went inside. The lobby. The water. The words. The record belongs to the families. They built something real. The building matters more than the taking. I stopped. I looked at the words. I had read them thousands of times. But this morning I read them differently. Not as a dec
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex The night before the last chapter
Kara’s POV. “She was free,” Grace had said. I was still holding the phone. Still standing in the lobby. Still beside the words. Xavier was watching me. “She said it,” I said. “Yes,” he said. Not the notebook version. Not the written version. Grace standing beside me in the lobby of the building my mother had imagined and calling me to say two words. She was free. The same words I had written in the notebook. The same words that were now in the permanent record. But said out loud. In the right room. By the right person. I looked at Xavier. “Take me home,” I said. We walked. The city. The afternoon becoming evening. The specific quality of a city that has no idea it is walking beside someone who has just finished something enormous and is now learning what it feels like to simply walk. We walked slowly. Not because we needed to. Because the walking was right. At home the kitchen. David and Lena in the window. The last light on them. Xavier made tea. I sat at t
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex Someone finally believed me
Kara’s POV. “She said: someone finally believed me,” Amara told me. I looked at Xavier. He had heard. “Which one?” I said. “The one who came in first,” Amara said. “Her name is Josephine. Seventy-one years old. Her grandfather’s dry goods business was on the corner. She has been saying for forty years that the businesses on that block were connected. That it was not coincidence that they all went down in the same eighteen-month window.” She paused. “She said: I tried to tell people for forty years. Nobody believed me. They said I was making a pattern where there was none.” She paused. “Then she walked in today and found the two women and the three of them stood in the lobby and said: you know about it too.” She paused. “Kara. They held each other in the lobby.” “They held each other,” I said. “Yes,” Amara said. I looked at Emmanuel. He had been listening. “Someone finally believed her,” I said to the room. “That is what the room is for,” Grace said. She had come back up whi
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex Keep it going
Kara’s POV. “Keep it going,” Emmanuel Asante had written. “Emmanuel Asante, Ghana, 1998.” Grace held the letter. She read the last line again. Then she looked at Emmanuel. The living Emmanuel. Her grandmother’s brother. Standing in front of her in the second floor of the foundation his cousin’s documentation had helped build. “He knew you would come,” Grace said. Not to me. To Emmanuel. “Yes,” Emmanuel said. “He said: when you find them, give it to the one who carries the work. She will understand.” He paused. “He believed the family would find each other.” He paused. “He was right.” “He was always right,” Grace said. The same words. The same words that had been said about every person in the chain. She was always right. He was always right. Always right before the proof arrived. Because the proof was never the point. The building was the point. The belief was the point. Grace folded the letter. She looked at me. “This goes in the permanent collection,” she said.
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Kara’s POV. “Tell me how you slept,” Xavier said. It was Saturday. The morning after. I had slept the way I had not slept in years. Not the sleep of exhaustion. Not the sleep of someone who has pushed until they cannot push anymore. The sleep of someone who has put everything in its right place and closed the door behind them. “I slept,” I said. “The full version.” “I know,” he said. “I watched you.” “You watched me sleep,” I said. “I watched you sleep the way I have wanted to watch you sleep for twenty years,” he said. “Without the specific quality you have always had. The listening quality. The even-when-you-are-asleep-you-are-ready quality.” He paused. “Last night you were simply asleep.” I looked at him. “I was free,” I said. “Yes,” he said. The kitchen. The coffee. The succulents in the window. The city outside being itself. The notebook was still on the table. Grace had not come for it yet. She would come today. I looked at it. Twenty-five lines across five gene
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Kara’s POV. “The chain knows its own name,” Grace had written. “Keep building.” I read the photograph of her line three times. Then I put the phone down. Xavier was watching me. “She is already on her way somewhere,” I said. “She wrote it on the train.” “Of course she did,” he said. I sat at the kitchen table for a long time. Not working. Not planning. Just being in the room. The specific quality of a day that has given everything it has to give and is now simply asking to be received. At some point Xavier made dinner. We ate in the kitchen. The city outside. David and Lena in the window. Both of them so well established now that Grace had started joking they would outlive us. She was probably right. After dinner I opened the notebook. Twenty-three lines and Grace’s new line from the train. Twenty-four lines across five generations and ninety-five years. From my grandmother’s last written words. To Grace on a train at twenty-five. The chain in twenty-four lines.
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex She knew
Kara’s POV. “Put it in her hands, Emmanuel,” Grace read. “She will know what to do with it.” Emmanuel looked at the notebook on the kitchen table. He had been holding his coffee. He put it down. “She wrote that in 1958,” he said. “Forty years before she died. Before your mother was born.” He pa
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Kara’s POV. “One thousand families,” I said. I was still on the third floor. Grace and Kofi were beside me. Emmanuel was standing in front of my mother’s entry. Adaeze was at the archway. I read Amara’s message again. One thousand names. While you were upstairs. I looked at the wall. The ri
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Kara’s POV. “That is our cousin’s family,” Emmanuel had said. “I am coming.” He was seventy-eight years old. He walked into the foundation with Adaeze and he stopped in the lobby the same way everyone stopped in the lobby. He looked at the words. He read them twice. He looked at the water. Then h
Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex Emmanuel
Kara’s POV. “My brother’s name is Emmanuel,” Adaeze said. I sat down. Not slowly. The way you sit when something arrives that requires the body to be supported. “Tell me what you mean,” I said. “Kofi’s grandfather,” Adaeze said. “Emmanuel Asante. You said he built a trading business in Ghana i
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