A heartbreaking reminder that my wife had sex with my eldest son before she had sex with me.
I pick up a rock and hurl it into the water letting out an angry, guttural roar.
It doesn’t help, so I try again. I throw rocks and stones and handfuls of shells until my arm aches and my throat is hoarse. Nothing can erase the image of Amelia and Ruairi from my mind.
She lied to me. She promised to love and cherish till death do us part, and all the while, she didn’t know if she was carrying my baby or my son’s.
Did she lie about being in love with me too?
How can I ever believe anything she says?
How can I ever trust her?
Perhaps she told Ruairi that she loved him. She might’ve lied when she said that she didn’t know Ryan Connor was my son. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that they hooked up that night. This might’ve been her agenda after all.
And like a lovesick fucking idiot, I walked straight into the trap.
A raindrop lands on my forehead with a splat.
History repeating itself.
It feels like only yesterday that Amelia and I sheltered from the rain right here on this beach, naked, desperate for each other. And now… The world is a different place.
A cruel, perverse, twisted fucking reality in which my eldest son is dead, my wife is a liar, and the baby she is carrying might not even be mine.
I stand in the rain, head tipped back, eyes closed, until I’m drenched and my teeth are chattering. Nature is cleansing. Rainfall is therapeutic.
When it passes, the angry buzzing in my head is still there, but I’ve found a way to ignore it. I climb back into the car and drive home feeling as if my chest has been ripped open again and patched together with Band-aids.
Amelia is in the foyer when I let myself back into the house. Perhaps she was waiting for me, peering out of an upstairs window until she saw the car on the driveway. Her eyes are dark. Her face is pale and drawn. Gone is the vibrant bubbly womanwho stood on the stairs the day she arrived and asked, “Have we met before?”
You must be confusing me with my son. You know, the man you had sex with a few days ago.
“Declan, you’re wet.” She doesn’t come any closer.
I can’t look at her. This is how it’s always going to be. Whenever I see her, I’ll picture her with Ruairi, and my heart will fucking rip open, over and over and over.
“I’m going to shower.” I head upstairs without looking back.
When I come out of the shower, Amelia is sitting on my bed, waiting for me. I towel-dry my hair and drape it over the back of the chair while I pull a sweater over my head. I can feel her eyes burning holes in the back of my skull.
“Please can we talk, Declan?” There’s fear in her voice.
I caused that. She’s afraid of what I’m going to do, afraid of what comes next, and her fear triggers a fresh wave of rage somewhere deep inside. I promised to protect her, to keep her and the baby safe, to love them no matter what.
She’s the one who lied.
How dare she act the victim now?
“Sure, we’ll talk.”
The breath leaves her body with a sigh of relief. Part of me wants to fold her into my arms, breathe in the smell of her shampoo, and tell her that we can work this out.We’re a team, remember. But my heart is too damaged to allow her back in.
So, I listen to my cold voice telling her, “I promised to keep you and the baby safe, and I’ll honor that promise.”
Her eyes grow watery, and I look away before I cave.
“This is your home. You and the baby. You’re my wife, Amelia, and I will treat you as such in all aspects but one. We will have separate rooms. I’ll bring up the child as if they’re my own, my name will be on the birth certificate, but I cannot forgive you for lying to me.”
