Waking Up to Five Years Later
"So… Jake's name… It's short for Jacob?"
Alicia drew in sharp, deliberate breaths, as though trying to suppress her emotions. After a long silence, she looked at me again. Her earlier hysteria was gone, replaced by an icy calm.
"You just admitted it yourself. Why keep pretending?"
Without giving me a chance to speak, she turned and left.
Despair hollowed me out, but still I wanted to explain.
Yet Jake clung to my sleeve with all his strength, his little face twisted from the effort. His voice, soft yet relentless, repeated like a curse, "Bad man. Don't bully Mommy!"