1. Jade #2
“What happened?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out except a sob.
What happened? Everything. Everything happened. My husband and my sister and my life and I’m pregnant and alone and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t-
“Jade.” His voice is low, urgent. “What happened?”
I can’t answer.
I just shake my head, sobbing, falling apart in front of a stranger who shares my husband’s last name.
***
Damian
I came to the office to drop off paperwork for a contract my team needs signed by tomorrow. That’s it. Fifteen minutes in and out, avoid my brother if possible, definitely avoid whatever fresh hell Mother has cooked up this week.
Simple plan.
And then Jade Castillo crashes into me like the building is on fire behind her.
I’ve met her - what? Three times? Four? Awkward holiday dinners where she sat quietly next to Donald while Mother criticized everything from her posture to her career to her failure to produce an heir.
She always looked miserable at those things, small and shrinking smaller, but she was polite.
Gracious. The kind of woman who says “please” and “thank you” and apologizes when someone else bumps into her.
She’s not polite now.
She’s falling apart.
“Jade.” I keep my voice steady, even as alarm bells are going off in my head. “Jade, look at me. What happened?”
She shakes her head, sobbing so hard her whole body convulses. Her makeup is ruined, black streaks running down her cheeks. She’s wearing a nice dress - green, the kind of thing you’d wear to impress someone - and heels that she’s barely standing in.
And she ran out of Donald’s building.
I don’t need to be a genius to do that math.
Jesus Christ, what did you do now, brother?
“Come on.” I don’t ask permission, just pull her gently toward the bench by the fountain, far enough from the building that whoever she’s running from can’t see her, close enough that she’s not exposed on the sidewalk. “Sit down. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
She sits. Or collapses, really. Like her legs can’t hold her anymore.
I shrug off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders. She doesn’t acknowledge it - I’m not sure she even notices - but she’s shivering, and the night is cold, and it seems like the right thing to do.
Then I sit beside her and wait.
She cries for a long time. I don’t try to stop her, don’t offer empty comfort, don’t do any of the things people usually do when someone is falling apart. I just sit there, a solid presence in the dark, and let her break.
Finally, when the sobs have faded to hiccups and her breathing has started to even out, she says: “I saw them.”
Her voice is raw. Shattered.
“Saw who?”
“Donald and...” She chokes on the name. “And my sister.”
Fuck.
My jaw tightens. I’m not surprised - I wish I could say I was - but the confirmation still lands like a punch to the gut.
“I’ve suspected for months,” I admit quietly. “I’m sorry.”
She looks at me then, really looks, and I watch the emotions cycle across her face: shock, betrayal, anger. “You knew?”
“Suspected. I didn’t have proof.” I hold her gaze, willing her to see the truth. “And I didn’t know how to tell you. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, we’ve met three times, but I think your husband might be fucking your sister’?”
She flinches at the words, but she doesn’t look away. “You could have tried.”
“Yeah.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I could have. And I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”
Silence stretches between us. The fountain burbles quietly behind us. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn honks.
“Why?” she whispers finally. “Why are you being nice to me?”
It’s a good question. A fair question. I’m the black sheep of the Castillo family, the disappointment, the rival, the brother who was never good enough. I have no reason to help Donald’s wife.
But she’s not really Donald’s wife, is she? Not in any way that matters. She’s a woman who just had her entire life ripped away from her, and she’s sitting here in the dark asking me why I’m being nice.
“Because you deserve better than what they’re doing to you,” I say.
It’s the truth.
And the way she looks at me when I say it - like no one has said anything kind to her in years - tells me everything I need to know about what her life in this family has been like.
“Come on.” I stand, offering her my hand. “Let me buy you a cup of tea. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
She stares at my hand like it might bite her.
“Why?”
“Because you’re shaking. Because it’s cold. Because you look like you haven’t eaten in hours.” I keep my hand extended, patient. “And because whatever comes next, you need to think clearly. You can’t do that if you’re falling apart on a park bench.”
She takes my hand.
Her fingers are ice cold.
***
I take her to a diner three blocks away, the kind of 24-hour place that serves questionable coffee and doesn’t ask questions. I order her tea she doesn’t drink and a sandwich she doesn’t eat, and I sit across from her and let her talk.
She tells me about the pregnancy test. About calling Vivian. About planning the romantic dinner. About Donald’s text and her decision to go to the office and the moment she heard her sister’s laugh through the cracked door.
By the time she’s done, her voice is hoarse and my hands are clenched under the table.
My brother is a piece of shit. I’ve always known that. But this - this is something else entirely.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” She wraps her hands around the mug of tea she hasn’t touched, like she’s trying to steal warmth from it. “I’m pregnant. With his baby. I can’t just-”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
She looks at me. Really looks. And I see her clearly for the first time, not as Donald’s wife, not as a Castillo family accessory, but as a person. A woman. Someone who deserves so much more than she’s gotten.
“Why are you helping me?” she asks again.
“I told you-”
“No.” She shakes her head. “The real reason. You hate your brother. Everyone knows that. So why are you sitting here with his wife at two in the morning instead of... I don’t know, letting me fall apart and using it against him somehow?”
Because you’re real, I want to say. Because you’re the first real thing I’ve seen in that family in years. Because I’ve watched them destroy you slowly for three years and I’ve hated myself for not doing something sooner.
“Because some things are more important than family grudges,” I say instead. “And because you don’t deserve to be alone right now.”
She stares at me for a long moment.
Then, quietly: “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I know. But I am. Thanking you.” A ghost of a smile crosses her face, barely there, gone in a second. “You’re the first person who’s been honest with me in... I don’t even know how long.”
That hits somewhere I didn’t expect it to. Somewhere soft.
Don’t, I tell myself. She’s vulnerable. She’s pregnant. She’s your brother’s wife. Don’t.
“Let me drive you home,” I say, standing. “It’s late.”
***
The ride is quiet.
She stares out the window, watching the city pass by, and I watch the road and try not to think about the way she looked when she thanked me. The way her eyes were soft and broken and something else I don’t want to name.
I pull up in front of her building - Donald’s building, technically, that sleek high-rise where the Castillo golden couple lives their perfect life - and cut the engine.
“You going to be okay?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps staring out the window.
“He’s not home yet,” she says quietly. “His car isn’t here.”
Still at the office. Still with her sister.
“Jade-”
“Thank you.” She turns to face me, and her eyes are clearer now. Calmer. The storm has passed, leaving something harder behind. “For tonight. For... all of it.”
“Anytime.” I mean it. “I mean that.”
She opens the door, and my jacket slides off her shoulders. She catches it, looks at it for a moment, then hands it back to me.
“Goodnight, Damian.”
“Goodnight, Jade.”
She gets out of the car. Walks toward the building.
I should drive away. Should go home and forget this night happened and stay the hell out of my brother’s mess.
Instead, I wait.
I watch her disappear through the doors, into the lobby, into the elevator.
And I don’t drive away until the light in her apartment comes on.
***
Jade
Donald isn’t home.
Of course he isn’t.
I stand in the doorway of our apartment and stare at the remnants of the romantic dinner I prepared: cold food, melted candles, that pathetic wrapped box still sitting on the table.
He’s with her right now. They’re laughing about me. Planning their future. And I’m standing here holding a pregnancy test like it’s going to save me.
I should feel something. Rage, maybe. Or despair. But all I feel is numb. Empty. Like someone scooped out everything inside me and left only the shell.
I move through the apartment on autopilot. Throw away the cold food. Dump the candle stubs in the trash. Pick up the box with the baby shoes and hold it for a long moment, staring at the silver wrapping.
What do I do? What the hell do I do?
I don’t have answers. I don’t have a plan. I don’t have anything except a positive pregnancy test and the shattered remains of a life I thought I was living.
Tomorrow, I tell myself. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.