All Chapters of 60 Days Before the Apocalypse,I Divorced My Cheating Husband: Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

Jessie's shrill voice burst out of the phone before Hailey could lower it from her ear."Derek! Hailey slapped Helen and me! She's crazy, she's completely out of her mind! You have to come home right now!"Hailey held the phone at arm's length and listened with a calm face while Jessie sobbed loud enough to rattle the speaker. She could see the woman on the couch, one hand pressed to her red cheek, peeking at her from behind her fingers to check that the performance was landing."What?!" Derek's roar came through so sharply that Liam stopped crying for a second and stared. "Hailey, have you lost your mind?!""Not at all," Hailey answered lightly, and she strolled toward the window with her free hand resting on her hip. "I feel better than I have in years."Before Derek could reply, Helen lunged off the couch and snatched the phone out of her hand. The old woman clutched it with both hands, her cheek blotchy and swollen, and her voice turned instantly sweet and wounded."Derek, my son,

While she waited for the final confirmation documents, Hailey drove to the high end grocery store on the corner of Maple Street. She had shopped there every week for five years, always with a list Helen had written for her, always in a hurry, and always with a knot in her stomach about the total.Today she walked in with her head up and her heels clicking against the polished floor. She pulled a big cart from the row by the door and started down the first aisle without checking a single price.Water first, she thought, grabbing the biggest crates on the bottom shelf. Then rice, beans, oil, salt. Everything that lasts.She loaded bulk crates of canned meat, dried fruit, and instant noodles until her cart was heaped to the top. She added water filters, thermal blankets, camping stoves, gas canisters, and three boxes of heavy duty batteries. A young stock boy stared at the mountain of supplies as she rolled past him, and she gave him a friendly wink."Planning a long weekend?" he asked,

The silence on the line stretched so long that Hailey checked her screen to make sure the call had not dropped. It had not. She could hear Derek breathing, ragged and uneven, and behind him the sharp hiss of Helen's whispers."Say something," Jessie hissed, so close to the phone now that her voice came through thin and shaking. "Anything, Derek! Fix it before she hangs up!""I'm trying," Derek snapped back under his breath. "Be quiet."Hailey sat on the edge of a hotel bed with her legs crossed and a notepad on her knee. She raised her eyebrows at the phone and smiled."Please don't stop on my account," she offered sweetly. "I love hearing Jessie tell you what to do. It's the most honest thing this family has done all day."Nobody answered her. Then Derek cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, the arrogance in his voice had begun to crack under the weight of the truth."Hailey, come home. We can talk about this properly, like adults. Leo misses you. He hasn't eaten all day. Just