LOGINShare
CHAPTER 7: THE KITCHEN AT 3AM
publish date:
2026-10-24 16:09:54
Latest chapter
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 8: THE MOTHERS
"Enough?" Nerys whispered into the dark. "Enough of what?" She was sitting bolt upright in the spare bed with the duvet in both fists. She had left the door open a hand's width, and the word had come down the hall as clear as if Marguerite had said it into her ear. It had been said with a smile. Nerys had heard the smile. Nobody answered, because nobody was there. She sat with her heart thumping and listened to the flat. A chair scraped. Voices, low. Alden's, short and rough. Marguerite's, light and exact. Then the front door closed softly, the way you close a door you plan to open again. Footsteps in the hall, a bedroom door, and then nothing at all. The clock by the bed said 3:36. She lay back and stared at a crack in the ceiling shaped like a river. Della's marriage has one problem, she thought, and it wears pearls. Mine has two mothers and a phone. Then she thought about Ansel's smile, the real one, wasted on a screen, and she followed the crack from one end to the other
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 7: THE KITCHEN AT 3AM
"Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"Della said it from the doorway, one hand on the frame and her wedding dress bunched in the other. The oven clock said 2:41. Her feet hurt. Her face felt like a plaster cast.Marguerite looked up over the rim of her cup. "Darling, I'm always fine when it matters."She said it lightly. Della heard every word. When it matters. Five hours ago, this woman couldn't breathe."There's a cup poured for you," Marguerite said. "Sit. You'll catch cold in that dress.""I'll stand," Della said."Suit yourself," Marguerite said.A floorboard creaked in the hall. Nerys had crept up behind her with the veil over one arm, peering into the kitchen like someone checking a room for a smell."Nerys," Della said, turning to her. "You should go home. Call Ansel and ask him to come and get you."Nerys's expression hardened. "Absolutely not.""He's your husband. You shouldn't have to spend your wedding night in somebody else's spare room.""After the argument we had at the r
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 6: THE CORRIDOR
"Six hundred pounds, Alden. For a girl I met ten minutes ago." Della said it quietly, which was worse than shouting. She had walked out of the bay without a word. Alden had followed, because the only other choice was staying behind that curtain with his mother's eyes on the back of his neck. The corridor was bright and cold. The clock over the nurses' station said ten to eleven. At the far end, Nerys stood at a vending machine, feeding it coins one at a time and not looking at them. "Del, let me explain," Alden said. "I'm asking you to," Della said. "Okay." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Her landlord sent her a letter. If the rent wasn't in by Friday, he was putting her out." "Yesterday," she said. "Yeah," he said. "And your mum told you this," she said. "She rang me. She was in bits, Del. She said Tamsin had nobody. Her mum died in March, she was going to be on the street." His voice was climbing, and he dragged it back down. "I didn't know what else to do."
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 5: THE HOSPITAL
"Wherever you're going, I'm coming with you. I'm not going back in there." Della turned. Nerys stood two steps above her with her veil bunched in one fist and half her hair coming out of its pins. Her chest was still going up and down. "I'm not going anywhere," Della said. "I'm standing here." "You've been standing here for four minutes. I counted." Nerys pointed her veil at the road. "There's a taxi rank round the corner and a very bored man in a Skoda. Come on." "They said one person in the back," Della said. "One person in the ambulance. Nobody said a word about taxis," Nerys said. "It's your wedding, Nerys. You can't leave your own wedding," Della said. "My mother-in-law has told two hundred people I'm pregnant, and my husband is smiling at his phone." Nerys came down a step. "I'd rather sit in a hospital with the one person in that building who isn't clapping." "Ansel's going to wonder where you are," Della said. "Ansel can wonder." Nerys narrowed her eyes. "You've been
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 4: THE COLLAPSE
"Easy for you, Alden. Your marriage is perfect." Ansel said it to the phone on the shelf, not to him. He hadn't moved since he'd flipped it over, and the words came out flat and fast, as if they'd been sitting in his mouth for a while. Alden had spent the last half-minute trying to stop exactly this. He had watched Ansel smile at that screen, and he had watched Nerys watch him do it, and he had reached for the only tool he'd ever trusted. "On the bright side," he'd said, "you've just set the record for the fastest pregnancy in history. Usually takes nine months." Nerys had snorted before she could stop herself. Della's mouth had twitched. Ansel hadn't even blinked. Now he looked up. His eyes were red at the edges. "Mate," Alden said. "I'm only trying to help." "I know you are. That's the problem." Ansel jabbed a finger in the air between them. "You two walk around like you've got an instruction manual. You never fight. You finish each other's sentences." "We fight," Della said
THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE CHAPTER 3: THE BABY LIE
"Your mother just toasted a baby I don't have, Ansel." Nerys said it into the cloakroom, and the coats seemed to lean in and listen. She didn't care who heard. She had held a smile for two full minutes in front of two hundred people, and she was finished smiling for the night. "Nerys, please, keep it down," Ansel said, pushing the door shut behind him with his heel. "Keep it down?" She spun round, and her bouquet dropped a few petals on the carpet. "She had a microphone, Ansel. I think we're past keeping it down." It was still playing in her head like a video she couldn't pause. Rhian standing at table one with her glass in the air and her face shining. To Ansel and Nerys, and to the little one on the way! Half a second of nothing. Then Bronwen, her own mother, bursting into tears and pressing a napkin to her mouth. Then the clapping. A man at the bar had shouted "About time!" and some of the guests had cheered. Nerys had sat there with her mouth stuck in a grin, counting under he
You May Also Like
One Night Stand With My Boss
BELLA1.9M viewsOn My Professor's Bed
Xee write905.4K viewsThe Day I Kissed An Older Man
Cher the Cherished1.1M viewsA Dangerous Atrophy
Qi River's Old Stream785.2K viewsTime To Cut Off My Shameless Family
Rejoice Ezeh29 viewsTRANSMIGRATED AS THE VILLAINESS? OH, HELL NO!
FrevinaWrites 146 viewsLoving My Forbidden Stepbrother
Zaynee writes40 viewsMy Boss Doesn't Know I Own Him
Obinna pen 141 views
