All Chapters of Five Years Too Late : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

13 Chapters

The Preparation

Seattle's weather has a way of setting the mood without even trying.That morning, it rained softly, tapping against the windows like a quiet promise.A reminder that the day had started.The sky was gray,calm and for once,I didn't mind it. It felt peaceful,like today was going to be a good day.I woke up feeling refreshed and lighter than I had in a while. My phone kept buzzing beside me. Notifications everywhere. Messages, tags, comments. People remembered.Five years of marriage.Then I saw his post.“Happy fifth anniversary to my beautiful wife. Five years with you still feels like the beginning.”I smiled without even realizing it. Today is going to be a good day,I told myself.Damian and I had been married for five years. Five years of loving him, adjusting to him, building a life around him. He had been away on a business trip for months now, and I had been counting down the days to this one. He promised he would be available just this day and I believed him.I got out of bed and w

The Space Between Us

The morning light in Seattle didn't bring hope;it just brought a headache that pulsed behind my eyes.I woke up with my face pressed against the silk pillowcase.The bottle of liquor was tipped over on the nightstand, a single amber drop hanging off the rim and the bitter taste of liquor still coating my tongue.I didn't need to turn my head to see that the bed was still empty. The other side of the king-sized mattress was cold, the sheets perfectly smooth. He hadn't come home. Not at midnight, not at three, not even when the sun started to peak through the Seattle mist.I dragged myself to the bathroom, my head spinning. I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the woman staring back. My hair, which I had curled so carefully for him, was a bird's nest of tangles. My mascara had smudged into dark shadows under my eyes, making me look like I’d been in a fight. I walked downstairs, my stomach doing a slow, sick flip with every step. I expected to see the graveyard of my anniversary d

The Reservation

I woke up before him. The sky looked heavy,like it wanted to rain but couldn't quite manage it. For a moment, I didn’t move. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum of the house. Last night sat heavy on my chest, but I pushed it down, burying it under something familiar.Maybe routine.Carefully, I slipped out of bed, glancing toward his side. He was there now, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his head, breathing evenly like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t left me waiting. Like he hadn’t come home to a stranger of a marriage. The sight of him there should have comforted me. Instead, it just reminded me of the space between us.I wrapped my robe tighter around me and went downstairs. The kitchen was quiet, untouched, almost too perfect. I didn’t let myself think about yesterday. I just started moving. I made his breakfast exactly how he liked it. Poached eggs,thick toast and black coffee. My hands worked on their own, muscle memory carrying me thr

Was It All a Lie

The ride home was a blur of hands and whispered promises. Damian acted like a man possessed. Like he couldn't get close enough to me. When the car pulled into the driveway, he didn't even wait for me to open my own door. He lifted me out of the seat and carried me inside, his kiss never leaving mine.He dropped me onto the living room couch, his hands already working at the zipper of my new dress. We were lost in each other, the tension of the last two days finally exploding into something desperate.A soft, polite cough broke the silence. We both froze.Rosa was standing by the kitchen archway, her eyes on the floor looking mortified.“I am so sorry, Mr. Winchester,” she murmured. “I was just finishing the laundry. I'll take my leave now.”Damian let out a breathless laugh, leaning his forehead against mine. “It's fine, Rosa. Head home. We'll see you tomorrow.”As soon as the front door clicked shut, he scooped me up again.“Where were we?” he murmured, carrying me up the stairs to

An Open Marriage

"Don't you dare walk out of this room!" I screamed.I lunged forward, my fingers digging into his forearm. I didn't care about being the "Perfect Wife" anymore. I was shaking so hard I could barely stand, my chest heaving with a pain so sharp it felt like physical glass."Answer me!" I shrieked. "Do not tell me I’m paranoid! Do not sit there and lie to my face when I am holding the proof in my hands, Damian. You were in Chicago! You had these in your pocket while you were kissing me in the car! While you were inside me!"He tried to shake me off, his face twisting into a mask of disgust. "Emilka, stop it. You’re being hysterical. You’re ruining everything because you want to play detective. I’m going to the guest room. I can't deal with this drama tonight.”"No! You don't get to leave!” I scrambled away from him, my eyes landing on his suitcase near the closet. It was still packed, a silent witness to his lies. I ripped it open, my hands moving like they belonged to someone else. I t

The Mask

I woke up on the floor with red lace still tangled in my fingers.The night didn't really end; it just faded into a gray morning. I didn't move from the floor for hours. I stayed exactly where I had collapsed, my back against the wall of our bedroom, surrounded by Damian’s discarded shirts and red lace panties. I stared at them until my eyes burned, trying to make sense of how my life had turned into a business negotiation in the span of thirty minutes. I looked at the room we had shared for five years, surrounded by evidence of the life we had built together. The bed where we used to wake up tangled together on Sunday mornings. The dresser that held both our clothes mixed together. The photograph on the nightstand from our honeymoon, both of us laughing at something long forgotten, looking at each other like we had just discovered the secret that would sustain us forever.My hands were still shaking as I picked up that photograph and studied the faces of two people who no longer exi

Confessions Over Lunch

Andrea was already seated by the window when I arrived at one-thirty in the afternoon. The bistro occupied the ground floor of an old brownstone two blocks from the court, a place we had been meeting for years whenever one of us needed to talk through something complicated. I had walked past it thousands of times without really seeing it, but this morning every detail seemed hypervisible, from the chipped paint on the doorframe, the barista's tired eyes, the way steam rose from Andrea's cup in urgent spirals. Her expression shifted from casual anticipation to immediate concern the moment she registered my appearance. I knew without checking a mirror that the sleepless night showed clearly on my face, written in the dark circles beneath my eyes and the tension I could not quite smooth from my features. I sat down across from her. Andrea didn't look like a best friend; she looked like a storm. She was still in her court attire, a sharp navy blazer that matched the intensity in her ey

An Apology

The drive back from the bistro was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. I kept replaying the conversation I had with Andrea all over again. A dull thud and a jolt forward snapped me out of it. A black sedan had clipped my rear bumper at a stoplight. I sat there with my heart hammering against my ribs as a man in a crisp suit hopped out of the other vehicle. He looked panicked, checking his watch before he even looked at my bumper. "I am so incredibly sorry, ma'am. Truly." He stammered, tapping a high-end tablet with gloved fingers. "My employer is in a significant rush, and the glare... I simply didn't see the light change. If I could just get your details? We can facilitate an immediate wire transfer for the damages. Anything you need to make this right, right now." I rolled down the window, the cool air rushing in to replace whatever feeling was left. "It’s fine. I’m fine," I said, my voice sounding distant. I stepped out of the car to inspect the damage. His

The Touch

The meal ended in a strange and thick domesticity. I stood at the sink with the warm water running over my hands as I washed the plates. It was a ritual that usually grounded me after a long day, but tonight every clink of porcelain felt like a countdown. I focused on the bubbles and the steam, trying to wash away the feeling of the afternoon and the phantom weight of the eyes from the black sedan. Beside me, Damian picked up a towel. His shoulder brushed mine in a casual way that felt deliberate. For a moment, it felt like it used to. I found myself thinking that maybe I was being too rigid. Maybe the world really was changing and I was just stuck in the past. If he was here with me in this kitchen, acting like the man I had married, did it really matter where he went for a few hours each month? But then the image of the red lace flashed in my mind and a wave of nausea hit me. They weren't a metaphor or a hallucination. They were cheap, scratchy lace that someone had worn. The tho

The Performance

I slipped out of bed while the room was still caught in that hazy blue glow of dawn. Damian was still asleep with one arm thrown over the pillow where my head had been just a few minutes before. He looked peaceful and almost innocent with the shadows of the trees moving across his face. I watched him for a second and wondered how a man could sleep so deeply while my entire world was vibrating with a low-grade panic. I didn't wake him up. I didn't want to see the version of him that woke up with a plan already forming in his head. I stayed in the shower until the heat turned my skin a dull red. I scrubbed myself as if I could wash away the lingering feeling of his hands from the night before, but the memory was stubborn. It felt like a film on my skin that I couldn't rinse off, no matter how hard I tried. I put on a pair of leggings and a thick wool sweater because it looked like something a happy wife would wear on a weekend morning. I headed downstairs to the kitchen to start th

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