Chapter 16
Luna
For a second, he just looks stunned.
Then he moves fast. Too fast. He is around the bed before I finish speaking.
His hand grabs mine, fingers wrapping around my arm before I can pull away.
Instinct makes my skin crawl where we touch. I instinctively try to shake him off.
But he holds on. Not tight enough to bruise, but firm enough to keep me close.
“Please, don’t,” he says, voice shaking now. “Don’t say it like that. Don’t—don’t make it sound like it’s already decided. Just … let me try to explain.”
I still, because I don’t have the strength to fight him. And I want to know why. Why?
“I felt so alone,” he says, the words tumbling out. “I didn’t know what to do, Luna. You were there, but … you weren’t. And I-I didn’t know how to reach you.”
I say nothing.
“Never should have gone to the pub with them. I regret that. I regret all of it.”
Of course you do. Now you regret it.
“After so many years, it’s easy to forget the bad,” he continues.
“You just remember the good. Chloe … she just—she seemed supportive. It was nice, sitting together as a group, talking about the old days. She said she wanted to be a friend like before. Said she was depressed back then, but now she is on medication and doing better. She seemed a totally different person from the one who forced me to marry her.”
I don’t react. I knew what she was the moment I met her. I guess he was too close to see it. Or maybe he didn’t want to.
“She messaged constantly after that. About everything. And nothing. And it was like …” He exhales shakily.
“Like turning the radio on when the house feels too empty. Remember?” he asks quietly.
“When I was away for training in France, and you said you used to leave the radio on? I told you it might help when you said the house was too quiet.”
I remember.
“She messaged every day,” he goes on. “At least a few times. I replied maybe once or twice. It just became … a thing. A routine. I swear, she never came onto me. And I just felt she was a sounding board.”
A routine. Someone to share your life with? Then what was I?
“All the messages are still on my phone,” he adds quickly, reaching for his phone. “I can show you. You’ll see—it wasn’t—”
“I don’t want to look. I don’t want to know about the secret life you were leading with your ex.”
“Luna—”
“I said I don’t want to look right now,” I shout, then regret it when Amelie starts to fuss before settling.
Isaac stops, but he doesn’t let go of my arm.
“After the delivery …” he says more quietly, “I messaged you too. All the time. And you—”
“Don’t.”
“You almost never replied,” he finishes anyway. “Just … single words. Mostly nothing.”
“I was barely holding it together,” I say. “You don’t know what it was like inside my head … You don’t know …”
He closes his eyes briefly.
“I used them,” Isaac admits. “Her messages to fill the gaps. It was like white noise. Because I was scared of … you. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Or make it worse.”
That’s honest, at least, but way too late.
“I’m sorry.” He sobs. “I’m so sorry, Luna. I love you. I love you so much. I love our daughter. I cannot carry on without you. Whatever it takes, I will do it.”
I cannot move. I don’t think he would let me anyway. It feels like my heart is rupturing from within.
“I don’t know why I did it. Why I said what I said. I just—” He swallows hard and pulls my stiff body close. “I can’t take it back.”
No, you can’t.
“You know why Chloe and I split up,” he rushes on.
“But Mum … she didn’t. And I didn’t want her to feel like she had lost a daughter.
So, when she kept pushing me to help her when she moved back here six months ago, I just relented.
Chloe told her the same story. That she’s being treated for depression and—” Isaac exhales sharply, like he’s losing control of the thread.
“But after Amelie came, I was struggling, Luna. With everything at home. You didn’t want me near you.
You wouldn’t let me touch you, wouldn’t let me help you. ”
All true. But the solution is still not texting your ex and telling her you still dream of her.
“I understand now,” he says quickly. “I do. But I didn’t then. It felt like my best friend was gone. Like you were replaced by someone I didn’t recognise.”
My chest feels too tight, like I can’t breathe.
I stare at the blanket.
He keeps going.
“So, when Chloe asked me to come out, some old school friends were in town. Mum was here with you, and … I went. I asked you if it was alright.”
A flicker of anger stirs.
“I remember you texting,” I say.
“Yeah.” A hollow laugh. “You didn’t reply at first, and then you messaged ‘fine’. And I was … angry, I guess. Feeling sorry for myself, like a complete twat.”
Couldn’t agree more.
“So, I went. And it felt … good just to be with friends. It reminded me of before. Me, Chloe, Jack, Rowan. No pressure.”
His grip loosens slightly, but he doesn’t let go.
“There was nothing romantic in her messages,” he says firmly.
“I’m not interested in her like that. It just …
felt easy. And after that, she kept messaging, reminding me of how things used to be when we were small.
It was an escape.” He swallows. “I slipped. I had this stupid dream about all of us, and I—”
His voice peters out, and he sees me glaring like I want to kill him.
“It wasn’t a dream like that, I swear. It was just a strange version of a class trip. Nothing more. I wanted to take it back immediately. It sounded like I meant something else. I d-didn’t,” he stammers.
He is getting nothing from me but artic freeze, the dumbarse. Then—
“How did you see it?”
I close my eyes briefly. That memory comes anyway. The one before I …
“Your WhatsApp was open on your laptop.”
That’s all I can say. I am not going to explain why I was reading his messages.
Isaac looks like I’ve hit him.
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry for being a fucking prick.”
He steps closer.
“Luna … I’m not trying to justify it. It was wrong. I know that.” His hand tightens around mine again. “I’m begging you. Just … give me a chance.”
I look at the man I still love.
And for a moment, I wish I felt only indifference.
“I don’t know if I can,” I tell him, letting him see the absolute exhaustion in my eyes.
“Because you are only thinking about you and you and you … When are you going to start thinking about your daughter? About me? I am sorry you were feeling helpless. Sorry I made you feel that way when I could barely get out of bed. When I felt separate from everything … even my own daughter. So, forgive me if I was not supportive while you were having your little emotional meltdown with your ex. Did you go crying to her with, ‘Nobody loves me anymore’?”
I just want to scream at him, throw the laptop at his stupid head, make him hurt, rip his heart out, like he is tearing out mine.
A whimper from the crib pulls me back.
“When you start thinking about us and not just yourself, and are ready to admit that you were in an emotional affair with your ex, that will be the moment we can talk like adults. For now, I would appreciate it if we don’t separate immediately,” I repeat my earlier words.
“Because Amelie needs me, and I need her.”
I say it to the wall behind Isaac, not to him.
I don’t want to see his face.
“You think …” His voice is different now. “You think I would take her away from you?”
My fingers tighten into fists.
“If they deem me an unfit parent …”
“No. No—Luna, I would never do that. To you or to her. Never.”
I nod once, because what else is there to do with that?
“But can you let me stay?” he asks, softer now. “Can you let me try to undo this? I’m begging you. I don’t want you to forget, but … can you forgive?”
Forgiveness.
That belongs to another version of me—one I don’t recognise anymore.
“There’s something I need to know,” I finally say.
“Anything.”
“Have you done anything else with Chloe?”
He looks like I have punched him.
“No. Never. I would never … I don’t even like her,” he says, frustration bleeding through. “I let my insecurities—this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there for you. And I wasn’t. I know that. I’ve failed you.” His voice drops. “But Luna … Never again.”
A promise too late.
“I will never touch Chloe. Or anyone else. I only want you.”
A heartbeat passes.
“You’re all I see.”
The words make me feel uncomfortable.
I don’t let them take root in my heart because I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know if I believe them.
And even if I do, I don’t know if it changes anything.
Amelie shifts softly in the crib.
A small sigh. A reminder of what I might lose.
I close my eyes for a second, then open them.
“Fine,” I say. “You should sleep on the pull-out.”
The battlelines are drawn. This is not forgiveness.
It is not trust.
It is not even acceptance.
A temporary ceasefire is all I have to give.