Chapter 40 Ivy
CHAPTER FORTY
Ivy
The reply to my message is short.
Freddie: Yeah, meet me in the park before work. We can talk there alone.
No emojis. No punctuation beyond a few periods. No warmth. No warning.
Just... Freddie.
And somehow, that makes it worse.
Because I want things to be normal. I want this to be easy. I want, no, I need, someone to meet me in the middle of this hellscape without flinching. Without looking at me like I’m a grenade that already went off and left shrapnel in their chest.
So I go.
I pull on clean clothes that don’t fit the way they used to. I change shirts twice. Nothing fits right. Everything clings too much or not enough, and the mirror is no help. It just reflects back someone who looks too tired to be brave.
The jeans pinch. The bra digs. My body feels foreign, like it’s already halfway into the next chapter of my life without asking if I’m ready.
I tug my hair into something halfway between effort and surrender. My hands tremble as I pour coffee into two cups, double checking the lids as if that will somehow make this feel human.
The coffee ritual helps. Two cups. Extra sugar in his, because he always says bitter coffee is for bitter people. I wish I could believe this means something.
This is just a conversation. Not a reckoning.
I get to the park five minutes early.
The morning is quiet in that eerie way only small towns manage, like the earth’s holding its breath.
I find the bench by the sycamores, same one where Freddie once confessed that he couldn’t imagine his life without his daughter.
Same place where, not so long ago, I started to believe that maybe there could be a version of this life that didn’t end in heart break.
The sunlight filters through the leaves, dappling the ground with warmth that doesn’t reach my bones.
I sit.
I wait.
And then…
A figure approaches.
My heart lifts in my throat, expectant. Hopeful.
But that hope curdles into dread within seconds.
Because it’s not him.
It’s her.
My stomach bottoms out.
The heels, those ridiculous stilettos crunching across the gravel path, give her away before her face does. But there she is, sauntering through the morning, a wasp disguised as a woman.
Trina.
I stand up so fast I nearly upend the coffee.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snap, already reaching for my phone, fight-or-flight boiling in my veins.
Trina smiles.
Calm. Poised. Practiced. Like she’s not the human equivalent of a loaded gun.
“I needed to chat,” she says breezily, flicking imaginary lint off her designer jacket. “Freddie’s busy, so I thought I’d take his place.”
My pulse spikes. “Where is he? What did you do?”
“Oh, relax,” she drawls, rolling her eyes as if I’m being hysterical. “He’s fine. Probably still at home watching cartoons with his little sidekick. Left his phone in the café yesterday, so I borrowed it.”
Borrowed it.
Right, that makes any of this okay.
I crack, splinter, but don’t break.
“You what?”
“Oh, calm down.” Her voice is syrupy now. Mocking. “I just needed to clear the air. Woman to woman.”
My hands are shaking.
I can barely see straight through the red blooming behind my eyes. She steps closer, and I swear the air temperature drops ten degrees.
“You’ve been playing house a little too well,” she says, eyes raking over me with surgical cruelty. “The mommy act. The good girl routine. It’s adorable, really. But this little fantasy you’re living in? It’s going to pop. Soon.”
I square my shoulders. “You don’t know what I’ve been doing.”
Her smile stretches wider, the sharp edge of a blade hidden behind lip gloss and perfect teeth.
“Oh, but I do. I know exactly what you’ve been doing.” She gestures lazily at my stomach. “Or should I say, who you’ve been doing.”
My chest goes ice cold.
“What did you just say?”
She tilts her head with feigned innocence, voice dipping low and venomous.
“Don’t play dumb. I’ve been pregnant, remember?
I know the signs. The bloat. The constant stomach holding.
The exhaustion in your face even when you pretend you’re fine.
Come on, Ivy… do you think I’m an idiot?
I can see how you’ve played Freddie and got what you wanted out of him. Freddie is easy to play.”
My jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I whisper, but the words wobble. I hate that she can hear the crack in my voice.
“And yet,” she purrs, circling closer, “here I am. Reminding you that Freddie? He’s easy. So damn easy. All it takes is a sad story and a sweet smile, and boom… he’s yours. He wants to be needed. Wants to feel like the hero. But that means he could also be mine at just the click of my fingers.”
She steps in so close I can smell her perfume, sickly sweet, suffocating.
“And you? You knew that. You used that.”
I flinch as if she slapped me.
“I never…”
“Oh, spare me the wounded act.” Her voice drops, dripping venom. “You think you’re better than me? Because you bake muffins with his kid and show up with coffee like you’re some domestic goddess? Cute.”
I clutch my coffee cup. My throat burns.
“I’m not doing this,” I say, backing away. My voice shakes, but I hold her gaze. “You don’t get to show up like some rejected villain and rewrite my story.”
She doesn’t flinch.
She just smiles, triumphant. Poisoned honey.
“You already lost,” she calls as I turn away. “You just don’t know it yet. He will pick me because he always does. Why do you think he’s still in Coyote Glen? He’s just been waiting for me to come back to my home town, to reclaim him.”
I don’t turn around.
I don’t give her the satisfaction.
But my steps are frantic now, gravel crunching loud as bones underfoot, and every breath scrapes against my ribs might as well be broken glass. The coffee cup in my hand trembles, forgotten.
By the time I reach the street, my hands are numb. My pulse is a roar in my ears.
I don't cry.
I won’t cry.
But something inside me is breaking.
And I’m not sure how much more I can lose before I shatter completely.