Shattered Wings

17. Illiana

The past few days have been pure torture. I don’t know what to think about Ben. He could have potentially raped me. Thank God that Lach came by. How do I even begin to process the fact that Ben murdered Christina? I’ll never know if she was pregnant. That closure was so important to me, but it seems like a lost cause now.

I wholeheartedly love my mom and Lena, I freaking do but I swear they are helicopter parents. I’ve had barely a minute of peace these last few days. It feels like I’ve been suffocating, drowning in pain and suffering. All I’ve been doing to numb the pain is self medicate and drink myself into oblivion. I always end up taking pills when everyone is asleep or out of the house. I’ve become a professional at hiding what I’m doing. The fact that I’m scared of being alone in my home is a problem in itself.

Because the moms have been so focused on Blake and ensuring her needs are met, they don’t know about me medicating. I’m immensely grateful for them. But I’m happy that they just left to go home, but I’ll still miss them and my baby girl. Even though I didn’t want to, I let them take Blakely back to South Carolina. They’ll be bringing her back in a few weeks. While she’s gone, I really need to get my shit together. Day by day, I feel like I’m falling apart even more. And this threat that I feel lingering over my head just makes things ten times worse. There’s this nervous energy that I can’t seem to get rid of. The fact that someone came into my bedroom and fucked me while I was under the influence is messing with my head. I can’t keep living like this.

The conversation with Lach yesterday has left me reeling. He seemed weird, off in a way that makes me suspicious. I knew that he and Jaxon were great friends, or I thought they were. He put me on edge and I don’t like it. Thinking about being around her makes me want to pull my fucking teeth out, makes my skin crawl. But at some point, we need to have a civilized conversation. Maybe she’s the one that was watching me. There’s no doubt that someone was. She had something against me when it came to her ‘pregnancy’. But that doesn’t explain the feelings I still have. At this point, I don’t know what to think anymore. She’s dead so it can’t be her, but it’s someone.

I can feel it when there are eyes on me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and uneasiness stirs in my gut. With so much desperation, I hope today is a better freaking day than all the other days before.

I’ve been sitting at the counter for the past hour or so. The need to move, to do something, is eating me alive. All of Jaxon’s stuff needs to be removed from this house. I loved that man with all of my heart, but knowing about his infidelities has broken my heart beyond repair. There’s no chance in hell that I will be the same person who I was six months ago.

Move, I need to move, to do something. After deciding to take a shower, I head toward my bedroom but stop dead in my tracks when I notice that the door to Jaxon’s office is opened just a crack. I made sure to close the door after leaving that damn room the last time. The very last place I want to be today is in his space. I already know that there’s no way I’ll be able to handle it. Even so, I’m a glutton for punishment, I assume.

Pushing the door open, dark shadows cast eerie glows around the corners of the room. It instantly puts me on edge. Honestly, I’m on edge every time I come into this room. It has always been his space, not mine. But now that I’m here, I can’t turn back. Something is urging me to go forward, to move. Standing at the threshold, I reach in and flip the light switch, lighting the entire room. That eases my anxiety, but not much.

The last time I was in here getting Blakely’s bear, I knocked a box down from the top of the closet. I haven’t thought about that box until now. I’d never seen it before. Heading over to the closet, I see that the door is still open, just how I left it. The box is resting on the floor, untouched. I thought the lid popped up when it fell, but to my surprise, it didn’t.

Squatting to pick it up, something weighs down on my chest. There’s an ominous feeling associated with this box, and I get the feeling that I’m not going to like what I find inside. Settling down on the carpet, I spread my legs and place the box down in front of me. I removed the lid slowly, as if something was going to jump out and get me. At this point, that would not shock me at all.

What I see inside takes my breath away. There are letters, so many letters sitting right on the top. From the looks of them, they date all the way back to when Jaxon was in basic training. I can’t believe he kept all the letters that I sent him. A silent tear trails down my cheek as I take in the scene before me. God, I loved this man with my whole heart and now all I’m left with is the memories that we made, and a box, a box that he undoubtedly created for us.

Pulling out letter after letter, I come to pictures next. There are pictures from when we were kids and teenagers, full of love for one another. Now that I’m really looking, paying attention, I can see the love, the adoration that he has in his eyes and he looks down at me. There’s no mistaking that face. He looks happy, serene even. I haven’t seen him look at me like this for years, more years than I’m willing to count right now.

Setting the letters and pictures aside, I continue going through the box of memories. Pulling out a pair of panties, I blush, I fucking blush until I realize that those panties are not mine. WHAT. THE. FUCK. These are definitely not my panties. What the hell is in this box? Tossing the panties to the side, reaching into the box again, my next find is another stack of pictures. I’ve never seen these pictures before. But there seems to be one familiar face in the first one. It’s Jaxon standing next to a woman with a little boy between the two of them. As I further inspect the picture, my breath catches. There’s an uncanny resemblance between the boy and Jaxon. OH. MY. GOD. What the fuck is this? Did he have a baby with someone else? There is no other explanation for this child looking so much like him. Laying that picture aside, I move onto the next, and again it’s a picture of the three of them. Flipping through picture after picture, all I see are the three of them, until I come to a picture of this woman stripped bare. She’s fucking naked. The next picture takes my fucking breath away. From the angle it was taken, it is clear that this woman is sitting on top of Jaxon, either during intercourse or just after. There’s a subtle sheen of sweat on his chest and his face is flushed. He’s got the biggest smile on his face, probably bigger than I’ve ever seen before. Looking at the bottom of the photo, there’s a swollen, protruding belly. I gasp and the picture floats to the floor from my fingers.

A sob catches in the back of my throat. The back of my eyes sting as I try my best to hold back the tears that want to flow. I thought I knew it all. I thought I knew everything. Jaxon lied to me. He fucking lied. The letter that he wrote to me was a bunch of bullshit. I wonder if he wrote her one too. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of a picture that I somehow missed. Picking it up and taking a good look, I recognized this woman. I’ve seen her before. How do I know her? And then a fucking light goes off. This is one of the women from Colombia. Her name was Juliana. It’s all coming back to me now. I’m certain that this is her. Did he have a baby with her? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past him. God, I feel like a fucking idiot.

Laying the picture down with the rest, I started pulling other stuff out of the box. This seems to be a box of never-ending surprises. And to think, this damn thing has been in this closet, in my house for all this time and I’ve never known. How stupid can I be? I placed my heart in the palm of his hands, gave him my unwavering love and support, and this is how he repays me. He’s ruined me, and everything I thought I knew.

My fingers catch on an envelope next. As I stare down at it, trepidation courses through my veins. Flipping the tab and pulling out the paper, my heart skips a beat. There’s this feeling in the pit of my stomach that whatever this says might send me over the edge. Never one to wimp out, I flip the page open. No. No. No. This cannot be true. This can’t be real. It’s a marriage license with Jaxon’s middle name on the spot where his first name should be. Lucas McBride married Juliana Sanchez on March twenty second, two thousand twenty. That was while he was on his military tour in Colombia all those years ago. Oh, my fucking God. This can’t be happening to me right now. He freaking married her! He married a woman while he was married to me. My heart physically feels like it’s being ripped out of my chest. The tears that I’ve tried so desperately to hold in pour from my eyes. My hands are shaking as I lay the paper on the floor next to me.

Digging back into the box with unsteady hands, there’s another stack of photos. I don’t know if I have it in me to keep going through this box. The more I see, the more I break. At this point there’s nothing else left to break. Looking down at the photos in my hand, there’s a black-and-white photo peeking out from in between some of the pictures. Pulling it out, a gasp leaves my lips. It’s a sonogram picture of a baby at twelve weeks’ gestation. Never in my life would I have guessed that this could happen to me. I have loved my husband ever since I can remember. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for the man, and this is how he repays me. He fucks someone, gets her pregnant, and marries her. How the hell can he marry someone when he was already married to me? OH. MY. GOD. He had a baby with someone else before I got pregnant with Blakely. He got this woman pregnant and then married her while he was in Colombia. Six fucking months after he got back, I ended up getting pregnant with Blake. What. The. Fuck. Blake has a half brother out there somewhere.

My head is spinning, bile surges up my throat, and tears fall from my eyes in a rapid succession. Everything that I ever thought I knew was a lie. My whole life is a lie. What else am I missing? If I’m finding this stuff, then I’m willing to bet there’s more.

Hopping up off the floor, walking in the direction of his desk chair, I sit down. Opening the desk drawer, I pull out the laptop that he took with him to Colombia. Powering on his computer, my thoughts run rampant. Who knows what I’m about to find. After the computer powers up, I click on the search history. It’s connected to the computer and the cell phone he used while he was deployed. Porn site after porn site pop up, some with nineteen-year-old girls. He’s fucking disgusting. Why in the hell would a grown ass man be looking at young girls. I’m shocked beyond words. I can’t do this anymore. Getting up from the chair, I head into my room. My stomach is churning, and my mouth waters. I’m on the verge of being sick. Running into my bathroom and lifting the toilet seat, bile surges up out of my throat and into the toilet. I’ve emptied the contents of my stomach and then dry heaved until I can’t anymore. Fuck, I can’t do this.

Grabbing my usual bottle of pills out of the cabinet, and pouring out a handful, I toss them into my mouth and then down them with the glass of what’s been sitting on the counter. It’s decided that I’ll take more pills tonight and not drink alcohol.

Laying down in my bed, I pull my phone out of my pocket, intent on texting Lachlan. He’s the only one that can help me right now. My head starts spinning and black spots dot my vision as I get the text sent.

Ellie: Please come help me. I need you.

Lachlan: What’s the matter, baby doll? I’m on my way.

But I can’t respond. I can’t do anything but lie here and suffer with thoughts of everything that’s happened to me.