Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
FALLON
I pull into the driveway and cut the engine, then let my head fall forward against the steering wheel.
What the hell did I do?
I just let my student touch me. In my classroom. During school hours. It's so far over every line that exists, so completely unforgivable that I could lose my job. Should lose my job. Any administrator who found out would fire me immediately, and they'd be right to do it.
Daniel may be one of the worst husbands in existence, but he's still my husband. And I'm not the type of woman who cheats. I've always judged people who have affairs, looked down on them with the moral superiority of someone who thought she was better. Stronger. More ethical.
Now I'm one of them.
Oh, and I'm fucking pregnant on top of all of this.
The thought makes my stomach twist into knots so tight I can barely breathe. I need to tell Daniel tonight. Have to tell him. I scheduled the doctor's appointment this morning for Tuesday—confirmation of what I already know.
I close my eyes and allow myself one more moment of being a terrible person. Just one moment to remember how Kade's hand felt sliding up my thigh, fingers tracing patterns on skin that hasn't been touched with anything resembling gentleness in years.
Holy shit, I don't know if I've ever been that wet in my entire life.
Daniel has never cared about foreplay. Sex with him is mechanical at best, painful at worst—something that happens to me, not with me.
But with Kade... god, I was so desperate for him today.
So close to coming right there on his hand in the middle of my classroom until that freshman walked in and shattered the moment.
I'd wanted to rip the kid's head off for interrupting.
I feel terrible about that. He's a nice boy, just looking for help with his essay, and I'd been furious at him for existing. For needing tutoring. For walking into my classroom at the scheduled time like he was supposed to.
All because I was too busy being fingered by another student to care about doing my actual job.
The shame crashes over me in waves, hot and suffocating.
I take a deep breath and gather my things from the passenger seat—purse, laptop bag, stack of essays I brought home to grade.
The familiar weight of routine. Normal teacher things.
Like I'm a normal teacher who didn't just commit about fifteen different ethical violations in the span of twenty minutes.
The house is quiet when I step inside. Empty. Daniel won't be home for at least two hours—he texted earlier about a meeting running late. I should feel relieved by the reprieve. Instead, I just feel numb.
I put my things down carefully on the entry table and head straight for the kitchen. Dinner. I need to start dinner so everything's ready when he gets home. So I can just pop it in the oven at the right time and have it perfectly done when he walks through the door expecting his meal on schedule.
The routine is meditative. Familiar. I wash my hands at the sink, scrubbing harder than necessary, trying not to think about what someone's hands were doing an hour ago. What I allowed. What I wanted.
I pull the chicken thighs from the refrigerator and arrange them in the baking pan and season them with the spice blend Daniel prefers—rosemary, garlic, paprika. Not too much. He hates when I over season things.
The vegetables come next. I chop potatoes into even pieces, slice mushrooms with precise cuts, trim the woody ends off asparagus spears. Everything exactly the same size so it all cooks evenly. No burnt pieces. No undercooked sections. Perfect.
I toss everything in the sauce I made yesterday—white wine and butter and herbs—and add it all to the pan over the chicken. The foil goes on top, crimped around the edges to seal in the moisture.
There. Done. Ready to go in the oven.
I glance at the clock. Four-fifteen. I have time for a shower before I need to start the oven. Time to wash away the classroom and Kade's touch and the evidence of what I let happen.
Time to scrub myself clean and pretend I'm still the good girl from Nebraska who believed in doing the right thing.
In my bathroom, I strip off my clothes with mechanical efficiency. The skirt Kade's hand slid under. The panties he soaked through without even really trying. Everything goes in the hamper, evidence of my shame buried under yesterday's laundry.
The shower runs hot—almost too hot—and I step under the spray and close my eyes.
But all I can feel is his hand between my thighs.
All I can hear is his voice calling me Peaches like it's the most natural thing in the world.
All I can taste is the wanting that I've tried so hard to bury.
What kind of person does that make me?
I press my forehead against the tile and let the water run over me, washing away nothing that actually matters.
I set his plate down in front of him, the ceramic clicking softly against the polished wood—a sound I've learned to make as quiet as possible, nothing jarring, nothing that might disrupt his mood.
Steam rises from the perfectly roasted chicken, vegetables glistening with butter and herbs in the precise ratio he likes.
Everything arranged just so. Everything perfect.
"Do you want ice water?" I ask, because that's what he always has with dinner unless he's drinking, and I've learned to anticipate his needs before he voices them. Stay one step ahead. Make his life easier. Make myself useful.
"Yeah." He pulls his napkin into his lap, the gesture so familiar I could time it. "Dinner looks and smells amazing."
I walk back into the kitchen for a glass, my bare feet silent on the tile—I learned years ago that heels clicking on the floor during dinner annoyed him.
The kitchen feels like a sanctuary for these brief moments when his eyes aren't tracking my movements.
"Thanks," I murmur, grabbing one of the crystal glasses from the cabinet.
Ice first—exactly four cubes, never three, never five—then water from the fridge dispenser.
I count them as they drop. One. Two. Three.
Four. The glass sweats immediately in my palm, condensation cool against my skin as I bring it to him.
"Thank you." He doesn't look up, already cutting into his chicken with surgical precision, the knife moving in clean, controlled strokes.
I head back into the kitchen for my own plate—never serve myself first, never sit before he's settled—and bring it to my seat at the other end of the table.
Ten feet of mahogany stretches between us, the wood so polished I can see my distorted reflection in its surface.
Sometimes it feels like miles. Tonight it doesn't feel like enough distance.
"So how was your day?" I ask, making polite conversation. The script we follow every night, the performance of normalcy we've perfected over three years.
"Not bad." He chews, swallows, dabs his mouth with the napkin in that methodical way he has. Everything Daniel does is controlled, measured, deliberate. "What about yours?"
Guilt slams into me so hard I almost choke on the bite I just took. Yours was spent with a student's hand between your legs. Yours was spent becoming exactly the kind of woman you swore you'd never be.
"Oh, same stuff," I say, forcing myself to swallow past the tightness in my throat. Take another bite. Act normal. Pretend you're not a liar. Pretend you're not already damned.
We eat in silence for a while. I count my chews—twenty per bite, the way my mother taught me back in Nebraska when she was preparing me for a better life than she'd had.
Ladylike. Refined. All those lessons in manners and comportment that were supposed to help me fit into a world beyond our small town.
The chicken tastes like ash in my mouth but I keep eating, keep performing the ritual of a normal dinner, keep pretending this is what marriage is supposed to look like.
Daniel breaks the silence first. "So I have a lunch meeting tomorrow, but I'll be back in time to get ready for the gala. You just need to be ready to leave by six."
I nod while I finish my bite, giving myself time to swallow before responding.
The political fundraiser. Another night of playing the perfect wife for cameras and donors and people who think they know what our marriage looks like behind the carefully constructed facade.
Another night of his hand on my back, possessive and proprietary, while I smile until my face aches.
"Okay," I say after I swallow, my voice carefully neutral. Then I put my fork down and drink my water, working up the nerve for what comes next.
My heart hammers against my ribs. This is it. No more waiting, no more pretending I don't know.
"Daniel."
He looks up at me, those cold blue eyes patient. Waiting. The expression on his face is pleasant, open—the same expression he wears for voters and journalists, the public mask that makes people think he's a good man.
I hesitate. The words stick in my throat like broken glass, sharp-edged and dangerous. I don't know what he'll do with this information, can't predict which version of Daniel I'm about to meet.
"What is it?" he asks, his voice mild. Curious but not concerned.
I clear my throat. Force the words past my lips before I lose my nerve completely. "I'm... I'm pregnant."
The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
He doesn't say anything for a full minute—I count the seconds in my head, sixty of them ticking by while my pulse thunders in my ears.
Just sits there, glass halfway to his mouth, his expression unreadable.
Then he drinks his water slowly and sets the glass down with the same careful precision he applies to everything.
"Are you sure?" His voice gives nothing away. No anger, no joy, nothing. Just a question requesting confirmation.
"Well, the home pregnancy test said I'm pregnant," I say, the words coming faster now, tumbling over each other in my nervousness. "But I've made an appointment with the OBGYN on Tuesday to confirm, but yeah. I'm... I'm pretty sure."
He sits there for another minute. The silence feels like it might crush me.
My pulse thunders in my ears so loudly I'm surprised he can't hear it.
I can't read his face, can't predict which version of Daniel I'm about to meet—the charming politician who plays devoted husband for the cameras, or the man who lives in our bedroom and marks my body with bruises no one else sees.
Then a smile breaks out across his face. Slow at first, then widening into something that might almost look genuine.
He stands, his chair scraping against the hardwood with a sound that makes me flinch, and walks over to me with measured steps.
My body tenses automatically, every muscle coiling tight in preparation for violence.
Three years have trained my nervous system to recognize danger in his movements, to prepare for impact even when his face shows nothing but warmth.
When he reaches for me, I flinch out of habit—can't help it, not after learning that his hands mean pain more often than anything else—but I force myself to stand with him, my legs shaking slightly as I rise from my chair, nervous about what he's about to do.
But he wraps his arms around me in a hug.
A hug.
Not a fist. Not fingers around my throat. Just his arms encircling me, pulling me against his chest.
I stand there frozen, my arms trapped at my sides by his embrace, trying to process this response. Trying to understand what's happening, what angle he's working, what this means for me and for the unwanted life growing inside me.
"I'll come with you on Tuesday," he says into my hair, his breath warm against my scalp.
"You don't have to." The words come automatically, a reflex born of years learning not to expect anything from him.
He never comes to my appointments. Never cares about anything related to my body unless he's using it, claiming it, marking it as his property.
The last time I had a doctor's appointment, he didn't even ask what it was for.
"I want to."
The words sound almost sincere. Almost. I swallow hard, still trying to process this unexpected gentleness. "You're not mad?"
"Mad?" He pulls back just enough to look at me, that smile still in place. Still looking almost genuine, almost like the man I thought I was marrying years ago. "No. I want us to be a family."
Relief washes over me so suddenly I feel dizzy, my knees going weak with it.
At least he's not going to hurt me for this mistake.
Even though I'm not happy about this—not even close to ready to bring a child into this nightmare, into a house where violence is currency and control is love—I'm glad he is.
Glad he sees it as something other than another way I've disappointed him, another failure to add to my growing list.
"This is the best news," he whispers into my hair as he hugs me tighter, his arms a cage disguised as comfort.
Sometimes he can be nice. In between the beatings, the sexual assaults that he never calls rape because you can't rape your own wife, he acts like a normal husband—aside from the fact that he acts like those events never happened.
He will literally beat the shit out of me one night, leave me curled on the bathroom floor with blood in my mouth, and then act like nothing happened the next morning.
Bring me coffee in bed. Ask about my day.
Kiss my forehead with the same lips that called me a worthless cunt twelve hours earlier.
It's the weirdest thing. The most disorienting part of living with him.
At first I fought it. Wanted to address it, demand acknowledgment, force him to admit what he'd done in the light of day.
But eventually I became thankful for the amnesia, grateful for these brief reprieves.
Grateful for days of a normal husband before it happened again the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that.
This is one of those times. Standing in his arms, letting him believe we're celebrating something together, pretending the bruises on my ribs from last week don't exist. Pretending I don't know exactly how little this moment of tenderness means, how quickly it can evaporate into something else entirely.
I close my eyes and let myself have this. Just for a moment. Just for tonight.
Tomorrow I'll go back to being afraid.