Chapter 8
Their messages had changed over the years, the way most couples' do.
In the beginning, they were long and tender—late-night confessions, little jokes, sensual promises that kept them awake at night.
As time wore on, they thinned into the practical: updates about David, reminders to pick up milk, an occasional love you sent more from habit than impulse.
Which was why the one that came that afternoon caught her off guard.
Are you alright?
She stared at it, her thumb hovering before setting the phone face-down without answering.
For the first time since the earth collapsed beneath her feet, she cooked.
Cooking slowed her mind and gave her something to focus on.
She made a rich pasta sauce, portioned it into boxes, labelled them in her neat block letters and slid them into the freezer.
By the time she stacked the last container into the chest freezer, she could almost believe her life was still the same.
Like she was still in control of something.
She thought about him in fragments.
Ronin in the hospital delivery room, hair sticking up at odd angles from hours of pacing, his face lit with a mixture of wariness and fascination as the nurse placed David in his arms. The way he'd looked down at their son, lips parting as if to speak before closing them again, as though words might shatter the perfect moment.
He'd glanced at her then, eyes shining, and she had felt, without question or doubt, that they were a family.
The way he had stood up to his mum when she wanted to name their son after her father-in-law, who had made it clear from the beginning that he thought she wasn't suitable for the family.
She thought about the day her mother died.
They'd never been close—always sparring, always circling each other like two people thrown together by fate but speaking different languages—but blood was blood.
Ronin hadn't said much. They had been planning the final placements for the wedding when the hospital had called.
He'd simply taken her keys from her hand when she couldn't remember how to drive home, made tea she never drank when they got back, and sat hugging her in silence until the shock began to wear off.
Later, when she cried into his shirt, he'd held her so tightly it felt like he was holding her together.
There had been ordinary days, too—laughing in the kitchen over burnt pancakes, his warm hand on the small of her back in a crowded street, the comfortable quiet of two people reading in the same room.
The feeling of completeness when he held her close after coming inside her.
She'd once thought those were the safest places in the world.
Now they felt like someone else's life in a parallel universe.
David usually got back from football around five. Ronin came later—seven at the earliest. So, the click of the front door opening just after five startled her out of her reverie.
Ronin stepped inside hesitantly, as if unsure of his welcome. She straightened immediately, stepping towards the hallway to leave, but he moved quickly to intercept her.
"Sage—"
She flinched when his hand came up.
"Okay, I'm backing up," he said, palms lifted. "I just thought...I need to go to Brussels tomorrow. It's hard to cancel at the last minute... Do you want me to...stay?"
She said nothing.
He sighed like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. "Amanda—"
The name hit her like a slap, and she flinched again.
"I called," he said quietly. "And asked for a paternity test."
Her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall just above his shoulder.
It felt like he had sucked the air out of the room by just saying her name.
Her traitorous mind conjured an image of his large arm with a sprinkling of dark hair on the back holding a pale, slender body, learning her curves, joining their bodies, and making a baby from that.
Something inside her felt like glass—too fragile to shift without shattering.
She walked past him without a word and grabbed the first bottle she touched from the liquor cabinet. Then she moved around him again, careful not to brush against him, and climbed the stairs before running to the guest bedroom. She closed the door with a bang, the wooden door shuddering on impact.
Sitting on the bed, she twisted the cap off, took a long, burning swallow. The alcohol did nothing to numb the pressure building in her chest; it did not numb the knowing or make her forget. And then the raw, wrenching sobs tore out of her like an avalanche before she could stop them.
It was the kind of grief that scooped your soul out.
The pain that came when you realized the solid ground you'd been standing on for years had been an illusion.
Her mind reeled—flashes of their life together clashing with a new, brutal reality.
A sense of betrayal so deep it felt physical, as though her body tried weakly to reject it to protect her from the pain.
She couldn't tell if she was shaking from rage, humiliation, or the sudden, suffocating fear that she had never really known the man she'd built her life around.
She stayed in the room, refusing to answer when someone knocked. Her stomach burned with the unfamiliar weight of alcohol. Ronin used to tease her about being a lightweight, tipsy on a single beer. Now, half a bottle of vodka sloshed inside her, stealing her control and muddling her thoughts.
She pictured Ronin with Amanda, their perfect daughter between them. A flawless little family. Maybe they'd even have another. Maybe David would choose to stay with them. Leaving her, the blind penniless fool, behind.
The nausea came hard and sudden. Sage lurched forward and barely made it to the toilet, retching until her stomach seized and her throat burned raw.
Shaking, she dragged herself beneath the shower, her clothes clinging until they grew too heavy.
She peeled them off one by one, swaying under the scalding spray until the heat eased some of the ache.
Then, mechanically, she brushed her teeth, trying to rinse the gorge away.
Naked as the day she was born, she padded her way to bed, only to catch sight of herself in the full-length mirror.
Once she had been tall, shapely, striking.
Five-foot-nine, with curves Ronin used to claim were irresistible.
He had held her tight a few weeks ago after a party and whispered that she was sexy and how much he loved her body.
But Ronin couldn't be trusted; Ronin was a liar, a man who'd kept a two-year affair hidden behind a smile.
She wondered how many of those colleagues of his at the party knew about the affair. Were they all laughing at her?
There was a German word for it.
Schadenfreude
Her reflection showed the harsh truth: a paunch softening her stomach, stretch marks lacing her hips and thighs, the wobble of flesh when she slapped her leg.
She raised an arm and watched the underside tremble.
Her breasts sagged, her face held faint lines at the forehead and the corners of her eyes, and a softness had begun to gather under her chin.
Her fingers pinched the flesh of her hips with revulsion.
Tyres, she thought bitterly. Not love handles. Tyres stacked, one on top of the other.
She should eat clean and workout, reclaim herself. But in this moment, she couldn't bring herself to care.
She slipped under the blanket, naked, and lay on her back.
But sleep would not come. She saw Amanda in her mind's eye, taut and glowing, with the body of a university student even after giving birth three months ago.
Compared to her, she was...what? A ghost of who she had been.
A woman who couldn't look at herself in her own mirror. A woman who was not enough.