All Chapters of My Husband’s Regret, Not My Problem—Short Story : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

NALANI“With the divorce being one step away from getting finalized, have you thought about the next thing in line for you?” Keith asks from the living room while I walk around the kitchen, arranging the three big bags of groceries he just brought for me. He singlehandedly bought everything without collecting a dime from me, so to show my thanks, I invited him in for a late dinner.“I actually have,” I say with a proud smile. “I can’t believe I stayed that long, living for someone who didn’t deserve it, but the time for self loathing is past. There’s so much to do, so many things to learn and unlearn about myself, and I’m actually looking forward to it.”“That’s good,” Keith says, coming into the kitchen to drop his plate in the sink. He emptied the leftover homemade lasagna I had plated for him, and I can’t help but smile. When he rolls up his sleeve to do the dishes, revealing his muscular tatted forearms, I kind of forget what we are discussing. “So, would you like to share?”I cle

NALANI~PRESENT HOUR~Almost as quickly as Keith and I arrive at the scene, a truck of firefighters does too, and they immediately get to work on reducing the blaze. Daniel’s entire building is covered in angry red flames, but my heart is already broken, for many reasons. Daniel was stuck inside the burning building, and there hasn’t been any sign of life from within it for minutes. My heart isn’t broken because I still love Daniel, but because I once did, and even if we have our battle, he is still loved in some way and by someone—Amanda, for one.Amanda hasn’t listened to anyone who has tried to take her away from this devastating scene. She has been wailing, but most of it has been filled with curses for me and my unborn generations, because ‘this is my fault’. Even when I tried to explain that I couldn’t have been involved, she wouldn’t listen. The firefighters are still working, but when one of the uniformed men walks past me, I rush to him. “Excuse me, sir,” I start in a pani

NALANIAgainst what I would want, I end up going to an open lounge to meet with Daniel. This was my non-negotiable condition for meeting him—that we do it in an open space. The moment I lay eyes on him, I see a shadow of the man I knew mere weeks ago. He looks like he has only eaten to be alive, like he hasn’t had any sleep or touched his beards in days, and his entire personality just gives ragged and devastated. When I draw closer, he smells even worse than he looks, and I notice that the bandages wrapped around both of his hands...covering the injuries he sustained from the fire, I guess, have turned brown already.My intuition tells me to end this meeting before it begins, but I still approach him because he already saw me, and his face lights up with a weak smile. My butt doesn’t even touch the chair before Daniel tries to grab my hand from the other side of the bench.“My love, I’ve missed you,” he starts to confess, and any little pity I had for him seconds ago vanishes into

DANIEL I think I heard Nalani talking to someone when I came in, but I’m just glad that I finally found where she’s been staying, so all I care about right now is how to remove that look of restless fear from her eyes. “Don’t be scared, Nalani, I didn’t come to hurt you,” I say, putting my hands up in front of me in a truce sign, but it doesn’t do anything. Nalani looks like a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide with worry.“I just came to talk,” I continue. “I told you I’ll bring the divorce papers to you, right?” I say with a glint in my eyes, proud that I proved her wrong. I show her the papers, even though I have no intention of signing them because I’m never letting Nalani go. “I brought them.”Nalani steps back still, almost stumbling over the table before her, my words doing nothing to reduce her uneasiness, and I clench my jaw, starting to grow frustrated.“How did you find me, Daniel? How did you get in here?” She asks, her voice teary. “Amanda told me she saw you around

NALANITears burn my vision, and there’s a massive commotion going on a few feet away from me, yet, my focus is on getting air back into my failing lungs without dying from too much. I claw desperately at my neck, coughing harder than I ever have in my life, with my chest tight and grating from the assault. After what feels like an eternity of coughing, I slowly begin to breathe normally, but I’m still sore all over.When I dare my eyes to open, it takes a few seconds for me to make out the figure of the person hunched over Daniel.It’s Keith.Oh my goodness…and he’s pounding the living daylights out of Daniel’s face. Daniel doesn’t even try to fight back because he’s no match for Keith’s might.Keith is slightly more buff than Daniel, but he looks like he works out, solely for this purpose, while Daniel doesn’t. I can’t say it doesn’t scare me, but when his purpose for getting physical is to protect me from someone who just tried to strangle me to death, I watch with a frozen stare.