本棚
検索
ホーム / Romance / The Unexpected Affair / Epilogue - Three Years later

共有

Epilogue - Three Years later

作者: NtombekhayaZibi
last update 公開日: 2026-03-29 03:16:36

The morning of my thirty-third birthday began with rain.

Not the heavy, oppressive rain of that first October, but a soft spring shower, the kind that made the city feel washed clean and newly possible. I lay in bed listening to it, Alex's arm heavy across my waist, her breathing even and deep against my neck. We had fallen asleep with the window cracked, and the smell of wet earth and growing things drifted in, carrying spring's particular promise of beginning again.

I was happy.

The though
この本を無料で読み続ける
コードをスキャンしてアプリをダウンロード
前のチャプター 次のチャプター
ロックされたチャプター

最新チャプター

  • The Unexpected Affair    Epilogue - Three Years later

    The morning of my thirty-third birthday began with rain.Not the heavy, oppressive rain of that first October, but a soft spring shower, the kind that made the city feel washed clean and newly possible. I lay in bed listening to it, Alex's arm heavy across my waist, her breathing even and deep against my neck. We had fallen asleep with the window cracked, and the smell of wet earth and growing things drifted in, carrying spring's particular promise of beginning again.I was happy.The thought came simple and absolute, without the qualifications that used to attach themselves, happy despite, happy for now, happy cautiously. Just happy. The kind that had been built day by day, choice by choice, through the ordinary miracles of shared life: grocery lists and morning coffee, arguments about whose turn it was to do dishes, the way she always knew when I needed her hand in mine.The trust had come slowly, as trust does. In small moments first, her calling when she would be late, my beli

  • The Unexpected Affair    Final Chapter - Thank you For Choosing Me

    We chose a Tuesday in December, the kind of gray day that makes indoor spaces feel like shelter. Alex drove me to the café my mother had suggested, neutral ground, public enough to prevent scenes, quiet enough for conversation. She parked but didn't turn off the engine."I'll be here," she said. "However long you need. If you want me to come in, text. If you want to leave alone, text. If you want to walk and think, I'll follow at a distance. Whatever you need."I looked at her, this woman who had learned, finally, to ask instead of assume, to support instead of decide. To communicate instead of thinking for herself only. "What if I don't know what I need? In this case.""Then you'll figure it out while I wait." She smiled, small and certain. "I'm not going anywhere, Darling. That's the promise. Not that I'll always know what to do, but that I'll always be here while we figure it out."I kissed her, brief and grounding, and stepped into the gray day.My mother was already inside, at a

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Sixty-One - I Miss You

    The letter arrived on Saturday, slipped under my door while Alex and I were grocery shopping, returned to find it waiting like a small bomb.She and I were moving around from apartments. Hers was closer to my work but mine was my home. So whenever I said I wanted to see what was up back at my place she never refused, she agreed and moved with me. She was cuteSo back to the letter at my door.No envelope. Just folded paper, my name in my mother's handwriting, that familiar slant, the way she crossed her t's with small flourishes, the handwriting of grocery lists and birthday cards and notes left on kitchen counters.I stood in the doorway, holding it, feeling Alex's presence behind me, her hand on my lower back, ready to support whatever I needed."Do you want me to read it first?" she offered and walked past me to put the groceries on the counter. She came back and took my plastic bags."No." I unfolded it with fingers that trembled slightly. "I need to know what she has to say. Even

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Sixty - Move In With me

    The second week was easier than the first, and harder.Easier because the rhythms returned, Alex's hand finding mine in the dark, her voice in the morning, the particular weight of her head on my shoulder as we watched something mindless on television. The language of us, which I had thought forgotten, proved to be only dormant, rising to my lips like a mother tongue I hadn't realized I still spoke.Harder because the rhythms returned. Because each time she reached for me, some part of me flinched backward, remembering the months of empty space where that hand had been. Because trust is not a switch to be flipped but a bridge to be rebuilt, plank by plank, and I was still testing each step before I put my weight on it.She knew. She always knew. She would feel my hesitation in the tension of my shoulder, the fractional pause before I leaned into her touch, and she would pull back, give space, wait for me to bridge the distance myself. Never pushing. Never demanding. Simply present, pa

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Fifty-Nine - Third Time is a Charm

    I woke to the smell of coffee and something else, clean cotton, warm bread, the particular scent of a morning that had been prepared by hands other than my own. For a moment, I lay still in the half-dark, my bedroom curtains filtering the early light into something soft and gray, and I couldn't remember what day it was. Couldn't remember why my chest felt both hollow and full, why my eyes were sticky with tears I'd cried in sleep, why the space beside me in the bed was empty but still warm.Then memory returned. Not in a rush, but in pieces. My mother's face crumpled in confession. The bath water cooling while Alex held my hand. The way she'd helped me to bed, pulled the covers to my chin, kissed my forehead with a tenderness that felt borrowed from a future we hadn't earned yet.Friday. It was Friday. I had to work.I sat up, and that's when I saw them, clothes laid out on my chair, my navy blazer and the gray slacks that always made me feel capable, the silk blouse that didn't wrink

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Fifty-Eight - Bare

    The pizza box lay on my floor like a fallen bird, cheese and sauce seeping into the wood, and none of us moved to save it.My mother's face had gone the color of old ash. She stood frozen in my on the middle of my room, her keys still clutched in one hand, her mouth opening and closing like she was trying to remember how air worked. "Miranda," Alex said again, and her voice had changed. It wasn't angry anymore. It was tired. It was finished. "Tell her the truth, please."My mother's eyes found mine, and I saw something break in them. Something I'd never seen before, not in all my years of knowing her. Not when my father died. Not when she talked about losing Alex. Not even when she'd caught me sneaking home drunk at sixteen and sat me down for the talk that lasted three hours.This was different. This was a crack running through the foundation of everything."Elizabeth," she whispered. Not Lizzy like she used to. My full name. This made my heart skip a bit."Mom!!!" The word ca

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Fourty - It Was Alexander

    I looked at my mother and suddenly I didn’t know where to begin.Should I just say it, that her Xander was the woman who broke me into pieces and left me bleeding from wounds I didn’t even know I had? That the space between us wasn’t because I had grown cold, but because I was carrying a truth too

    last update最終更新日 : 2026-03-28

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Fourty One - Get Out!

    The silence between us hung thick like fog, dense, choking, unescapable. After I said the words “It was Xander”, I could feel my mother’s whole body freeze beside me. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She barely breathed.The garden around us had gone quiet too. Even the wind, which moments ago wa

    last update最終更新日 : 2026-03-28

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Fourty Two - Not Alone

    I don’t remember how I got into my car.One moment I was walking down the street, my hands still trembling from what had just happened, and the next I was gripping the steering wheel like it was the only thing holding me together.The world outside was bright, too bright. Everything around me was t

    last update最終更新日 : 2026-03-28

  • The Unexpected Affair    Chapter Thirty Seven - You Were Gone

    Four weeks had passed since I’d seen or heard from Alex or my mom and it has been two weeks and a few days since Sophia found me laying on the floor because of alcohol. I had started going back to work. Of course, no one at the office knew the real reason for my sudden disappearance. To them, it wa

    last update最終更新日 : 2026-03-27
続きを読む

あなたも気に入るかもしれません

無料で面白い小説を探して読んでみましょう
GoodNovel アプリで人気小説に無料で！お好きな本をダウンロードして、いつでもどこでも読みましょう！
アプリで無料で本を読む
コードをスキャンしてアプリで読む
DMCA.com Protection Status