CHAPTER 10 Delia
Delia
Jake picked the restaurant on Fifth Avenue where we’d had our first date five years ago.
The choice felt deliberate. A reminder of how we started, back when everything was new and simple and I’d believed love could fix anything. I got there ten minutes late on purpose, needing the time to compose myself, to remember that I was doing this for closure and nothing else.
He was already seated at our old table by the window. He looked terrible. The man who’d left me at the altar looked like a stranger wearing Jake Foxx’s face.
He stood when he saw me. “Delia. Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”
I sat across from him without touching him, without offering the hug he clearly wanted, and folded my hands on the table between us. “You have an hour.”
“Right. Okay.” He ran both hands through his hair, a gesture I’d seen a thousand times. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
He tried to smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “That gala. Three months before our wedding. I got drunk. Really drunk. I don’t remember most of the night, honestly. But Jennifer was there, and the next morning she told me we’d slept together.”
I kept my face blank. No reaction. Let him talk.
“I didn’t believe her at first. Thought she was making it up to mess with us. But she had details about that night. Things that seemed real. And then three weeks later she said she was pregnant.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I panicked.”
“So you believed her,” I said.
“She was convincing. And I was scared. I kept thinking maybe she was lying about the pregnancy, maybe the baby wasn’t mine. I told her I wanted a DNA test. She agreed but said we had to wait until after the first trimester. Said it was safer that way.”
The waiter appeared with menus. We both waved him away.
“So you waited,” I said once the waiter left. “For months. While planning our wedding. While picking out flowers and cake flavors and seating charts.”
“I know how this sounds.”
“Do you?”
“I thought maybe I could handle it without destroying everything. Maybe the test would prove it wasn’t mine and we could just move forward.”
I didn’t say anything to that, and he continued.
“She kept pushing back the test date. Making excuses. And finally, the week of our wedding, she called me. Said she couldn’t wait any longer. That if I didn’t acknowledge the baby publicly, she was going to show up at the ceremony and tell everyone.”
I watched him fidget with his napkin, tearing small pieces off and rolling them between his fingers. Another nervous habit I knew too well.
“I couldn’t let her ruin our wedding,” he said.
“Couldn’t let her stand up in front of everyone and announce it like that.
So I told her I’d take responsibility. That I’d do the right thing.
” He looked up at me with red eyes. “And then I sent you those texts because I couldn’t face you.
I couldn’t bear to watch you look at me while I destroyed everything. ”
“So you destroyed me by text instead.”
“I know it was unforgivable. But Delia, you know me. You know my history. I couldn’t abandon a baby. My parents abandoned me when I was six. I spent five years in foster care being nobody’s choice. I couldn’t do that to a child.”
I did know. Jake’s childhood was one of the reasons I’d fallen for him in the first place. He’d built something from nothing, understood what it felt like to be unwanted, to always be second choice.
“What happened to the baby?” I asked.
“There was no baby.” His voice curdled into something bitter. “Jennifer admitted it two weeks ago. She was never pregnant. Never slept with me. Lied about everything.”
My jaw dropped in disbelief. “What?”
“I finally insisted on seeing medical records. Threatened to take her to court if she didn’t provide proof. She laughed in my face and said the whole thing was a test. She wanted to see if I’d choose her or you.” He was crying now. “She said she’d won this round.”
The cruelty of it made my stomach twist. Made me want to find Jennifer and ask her what kind of person played games with other people’s entire lives like that.
But mostly I was just exhausted.
“I’m so sorry.” Jake reached across the table for my hand.
I pulled back before he could touch me and watched his face crumble.
“I’m sorry, Delia. Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life. Every day since our wedding I’ve regretted it. Every single day I wake up and remember what I did and it destroys me all over again.”
“You left me standing in a church in front of three hundred people,” I said, barely above a whisper.
“I know.”
“You chose someone else.”
“I know what I did.” The tears were falling faster now. “I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I’m asking for it anyway because not asking means giving up, and I can’t give up on us. I can’t give up on you.”
Part of me wanted to tell him there was no “us” anymore. That he’d killed us when he sent those texts. That second chances didn’t exist for people who’d humiliated you in front of everyone you’d ever known.
But another part remembered being happy. Remembered Jake making me laugh, believing in my art when I was ready to quit, making me feel like I was somebody’s first choice for the first time in my life.
“I need time,” I heard myself say. “To think.”
“Of course. Yes. Take all the time you need.” He grabbed onto my words like they were rope and he was falling. “I’ll wait however long it takes. I promise.”
I stood, gathering my bag. The restaurant felt too warm, too small, too full of memories I didn’t know what to do with.
“Delia?” His voice stopped me halfway to standing. “Are you seeing someone?”
The question landed wrong—too sudden, too invasive.
I thought about Axel. About the almost-kiss on the balcony.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Jake looked down at his hands. “I trust you,”
I left without answering because I didn’t have an answer. Not one that made sense anyway.
That evening I stress painted. The canvas was covered in angry reds and blacks, violent brushstrokes that had no plan beyond getting the feeling out of my body and onto something that could contain it.
I heard Axel come home. The sound of his key turning, his footsteps crossing the threshold, the careful way he set down his bag like he was trying not to disturb me.
I kept painting.
“How did it go?” he asked after a moment.
I didn’t turn around. Didn’t stop moving the brush. “Jake’s a mess. He’s begging for another chance.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I need time to think.”
Silence stretched between us. Then, quieter, “Are you considering it? Giving him another chance?”
I finally turned to look at him. He stood by the kitchen counter with that impenetrable expression he wore that I’d never managed to read.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Part of me thinks I’d be insane to even consider it. But another part remembers being happy. Remembers feeling like I mattered to someone.”
“You do matter.”
“Is that why you’re here?” The words came out sharper than I meant. “Because I matter? Or because Daniel asked you to stay?”
“Both things can be true.”
“Which one matters more?”
He looked at me for a long moment. Something raw flickered across his face before he locked it away again.
“Does it need to matter?” he asked finally.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I almost kissed you. Because I think about you constantly and having you here has stopped feeling temporary and started feeling necessary and that terrifies me.
“Because I need to know where I stand with everyone,” I said instead. “Jake. You. Daniel. Everyone.”
“You stand exactly where you’ve always stood.” His voice was quiet. “Being the best part of every room you walk into… and somehow still doubting yourself.”
It wasn’t an answer. Not really. But he turned and walked away before I could push further and the conversation was apparently over.
We moved through the evening like planets in orbit — close enough to feel each other’s gravity, far enough to pretend we didn’t.
Friday we drove to my mother’s house.
The moment we walked in, mom’s face lit up like someone had switched on every light in her body.
“Jake!” She rushed forward with arms outstretched, looking directly at Axel. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I was worried about you after everything.”
I stopped breathing. My lungs forgot how to work.
“Mom, no, this is—”
“The wedding was beautiful, wasn’t it?” She took Axel’s hands, squeezing them with affection. “I know things were complicated for a while, but I’m so happy you two worked it out. I can stop worrying now.”
Axel’s eyes found mine. He looked lost in a situation he had no map for.
“Mom, listen. This isn’t Jake. This is Axel. Remember? Axel Irving. Daniel’s friend.”
Her face crumpled like thin paper. Confusion flooded her eyes, followed by something that looked like fear. “What? No. You’re married now. Why are you saying that? Where’s your husband?”
Aunt Maria appeared from the kitchen, taking in the scene with one glance. Years of practice showed in how smoothly she intervened. “Elena, why don’t we have tea? I made those cookies you love.”
“But Delia is saying strange things. Why is she confused about—”
“Come help me, sister. You know I always take more time when I’m alone in the kitchen.”
Maria caught my eye as she guided Elena away. A small gesture told us to stay put.
From the kitchen I could hear Maria’s gentle voice explaining something. My mom’s higher pitch responding, still confused but calmer.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Axel. “I didn’t know she was doing this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I should have corrected her immediately.”
“Maria was right. It would have upset her more.”
Maria returned minutes later with mom behind her, looking calmer if still bewildered.
“On bad days she’s convinced herself the wedding happened,” Maria said quietly. “That Delia is married. That everything is fine.” She looked at me with eyes that had seen too much. “Correcting her causes distress that lasts for hours. It’s kinder to let her believe what makes her happy.”
“But it’s not true,” I whispered, even though the truth felt useless in the face of her confusion.
“No.” Maria’s voice was so gentle it hurt. “But we’re running out of time for her to be happy about anything. Let her have this while she still can.”
We went back to the living room. Mom had pulled out photo albums, my entire childhood spread across the coffee table in glossy memories.
“Look at this one.” She showed Axel a picture of me at six with missing front teeth and pigtails. “Wasn’t she adorable? You must have known even then you’d marry her someday.”
“She was beautiful,” Axel said—his voice shifting into something soft, almost wistful, something I’d never heard from him before. The way he stared at me briefly made my cheeks grow warm.
“And this one from her high school graduation. She was so nervous about her speech.” Mom kept turning pages, kept talking to Axel like he was Jake. “You would have been so proud, Jake. She’s always been special.”
I sat there watching Axel nod at the right moments, pretending to remember things he’d never witnessed, becoming someone else entirely because my mother needed him to be.
After an hour we said goodbye. Mom hugged Axel tight, told him to take good care of her daughter.
“I will,” he promised. “I will.”
In the car we didn’t speak for the first few minutes. I drove while Axel stared out the window at Brooklyn sliding past.
“I’m sorry she called you Jake,” I said finally.
“Don’t keep apologizing.” He turned to look at me. “It’s fine.”
“Is it though? Did it bother you—being called him?”
He went quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice was quiet. Measured in a way that meant he was choosing every word deliberately.
“What bothers me,” he said, “is that even in your mother’s failing mind, you’re tied to Jake. That she’s convinced herself you’re married to someone who left you.”
The words felt heavy, and for a heartbeat, I didn’t know how to respond.
“She just wants me to be happy,” I said.
“Are you? With him?”
“I’m not with him.”
“But you’re considering it.”
It wasn’t a question. I didn’t answer anyway.
We drove the rest of the way in a silence that felt less like quiet and more like all the things neither of us was brave enough to say.
Back at my apartment, Axel changed and went out, mentioning a work dinner. I went to my bedroom and took a warm shower. Wishing I could escape my thoughts the way water flowed to the drain.
That night, I lay on my bed unable to sleep, it was almost midnight and Axel still wasn’t back.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it too quickly, too hopefully.
It wasn’t Axel. Jake’s text lit up the screen, thanking me for today and telling me he’ll prove that he’s changed.
I stared at it until the screen went dark.