Chapter 4
OWEN
After dragging my useless carcass to the car, I sat in the driver’s seat and ruminated.
Alexis had ignored all attempts at contact. Every form of communication went unanswered and rejected.
Switching into maps, I found her location—undeniably a dick move, but I had no other option.
I should have guessed she was at Mercy Lake. Our lake. The small dot on that map gave me the tiny semblance of hope I required.
That place was special, our haven and safe space where we shared so many memories and countless firsts. A sacred spot that held every significant note in our relationship, that shared in our love.
I parked next to her empty car and rushed down to the water’s edge when a different type of fear began to take root. I couldn’t find her. Alexis was missing.
I soon found her phone and keys on the driver’s seat, abandoned and left behind.
My body began to tremble as my pulse raced faster, the remnants of my previous panic attack threatening to reappear.
Is she hurt? Is she safe? Where is she?
I could only hope that she had reached out to someone for support. Because the sheer thought of Alexis being in pain and alone was unbearable.
Urgency pressed me to go and find her, if only to make sure she was okay and safe.
I had forfeited my right to be her protection. But I needed confirmation that she was taken care of—especially since I was the one solely responsible for destroying any sense of safety that she felt in me.
I screeched to a halt outside my in-laws’ house, barely putting the car in park before I was banging on the door.
A ten-minute drive had turned into five as I thought of Alexis going to her parents. I was almost glad her sister was in town for an extra buffer. Although, Alicia would want to kick my ass.
Another spear pierced my chest at the thought of hurting her family. They loved me, and I them in return. They must want to kill me. And I’d let them if that made Alexis happy. I’d let them do whatever they wanted.
The house, once pervaded in silence, suddenly sparked to life. If I was in my right mind, that would have processed, however, it was safe to say I definitely wasn’t.
“Alright, alright! Pipe down, would ya? I’m coming,” I heard Phil, my father-in-law, call from behind the door.
The porch light switched on, starkly illuminating my ugly, distraught face. Phil paused when he found me on the threshold. Seeing me overtaken with fright, his own features shifted with concern.
“Owen, what’s wrong? Where’s Alexis?”
Oh, no. In my heightened state, I had miscalculated and come up with the incorrect answer.
She isn’t here.
Phil wore simple pyjama pants without a shirt. I had woken him with my aggressive pounding, and now he was waiting for a reply.
I didn’t provide one, and my mother-in-law, Harriot, came rushing down the stairs, tying a dressing gown tight around her middle. “Owen?”
I spluttered, my voice deserting me in the face of my own guilt, not ready to add more casualties to my reign of terror.
I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to fucking breathe.
Harriot pushed forward, enveloping me in her arms. “Calm down, Owen. Tell us what’s happened.” Despite her gentle embrace, her tone was strained, all manner of scenarios racing through her head.
Phil cut in. “Where is Alexis? Is she okay?”
“No,” I whimpered. I’d never felt so pathetic and small.
Before their fear could spiral out of control, I confessed my sins in one torturous exhale. “I cheated on Alexis with Everly, and now, she’s pregnant with my baby.”
Harriot’s arms dropped away, warm contact lost. Tension spiked as my statement settled between us.
Then, without hesitancy, Phil sidestepped his wife and punched me straight in the face. I collapsed to the ground, my mind fuzzy as blood seeped from my nose. I didn’t move. What was the point?
Distantly, I heard Harriot yelling at her husband to go inside. Once the front door was slammed shut, my mother-in-law crouched beside me.
“I’m not going to apologise. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”
I shook my head until the pounding between my ears grew too loud. “I deserve that and more.”
Phil’s solid fist was nothing compared to the disappointment shining in Harriot’s green eyes—the same colour and shade as my wife’s.
An involuntary sob escaped my throat as reality set in.
Tears lined Harriot’s lash line but didn’t quite spill over. “Where is my daughter?”
“I don’t know. I thought she was here. That’s why I came. I just need to speak to her, Harriot. I’ll give her time, but I will fix this.”
“And how will you fix this, Owen? You are to have a baby—with her close friend, no less.”
“Can I just wait here until she comes? Make sure she’s safe.”
“Her safety is no longer your concern,” she said, tone waspish and sharp as a knife. She may as well have stabbed me.
“Please—”
Harriot straightened to her full height—which wasn’t that tall, but staring up at her from ground level had her looking like an avenging giant. “You have no right to ask for anything. From here on out, you will do what’s best for Alexis. Whatever she w ants to do, you will follow. Everything will be on her terms.”
Dread crept back into my system, infecting my thought process. “I just have to see her, apologise—”
“Show my daughter some respect!” Harriot scoffed. “I know that’s a hard concept for you since you’ve failed to give her any. But now is the time for you to stop being a selfish bastard and think of someone other than yourself.”
I didn’t have a reply, nor was one required. She was right, of course. That whole time, I had only been concerned for myself and the repercussions for me .
On that note, Phil wrenched the door open, phone raised in his hand. He ignored me completely, attention spared only for his wife.
“Alexis has left town with Alicia. She’s not coming back.”
No. No. No. No.
Everything ached. Everything.
Eyes narrowed and condemning, Harriot turned her back on me and stalled in the archway. “Owen, get off my lawn. You are no longer welcome here.”
With the closing of their front door came the severing of my final connection to Alexis, her absence resounding in the wake of the bomb I had dropped on our marriage.