Chapter 25 #3
Adair nodded, even though he looked like he wanted to disappear. “She worked at my firm,” he said. “Sabine always had a feeling about her. She saw the way Corrine hovered. Waited after meetings. Texted late. I swore it was nothing and…in the beginning…it wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t but the second we separated, somehow that it wasn’t turned into her on your dick pretty quickly,” Sabine scoffed.
“Yes, but I wasn’t even in my right mind baby. You left me. Took Ade and left.”
“Why did it have to be her?”
“I’m sorry…she was…she was just always fuckin’ there. Always around. I was fucked up when it happened. Can barely remember.”
“Sabine,” she said gently, “how did you experience Adair’s relationship with Corrine, especially after the loss?”
“I felt erased,” she said. “Like I didn’t even matter anymore. Like she’d been waiting her turn and finally got it. She knew who I was. Knew we weren’t divorced yet.”
“What you’re describing is betrayal that isn’t just about infidelity. “Adair,” Pie continued. “Why her? Why Corrine, knowing what she represented to Sabine?”
“Because she…she was easy,” he said honestly. “I…I was weak.”
“You were a coward.”
“Sabine. That anger is valid. You have a right to it but I want to also reflect what I hear from both of you: beneath the pain, there’s still longing. Not even simply for the relationship you had but for understanding. For truth.”
Sabine turned her head and stared at the wall.
She wiped one tear. Then another. “I still don’t say her name out loud,” she whispered.
“Not at home. Not around Ade. I keep her in a box in my closet. This was my first time in a very…long time…I don’t think I’ll ever forgive what happened but I want to at least stop choking on the grief every time I say her name. ”
“Ariyah,” Adair said softly.
“Don’t!”
“Is that because it hurts to hear him say it?” Pie tilted her head. “Or because it reminds you he didn’t say it back then when it mattered?”
Sabine’s mouth opened. Closed then opened again.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“I want to hold space for both of you right now. Not just as individuals grieving what was lost, but as two people who are still here. Still breathing. Still capable of transformation. You don’t have to agree on how you got here…but you do have to be honest about where you are.”
Adair stared down at his hands.
“I’m in hell…I’m not asking for pity. I’m not even asking to be taken back but if there was a world where I could crawl back through time…
back through every moment I ignored her voice, every time I didn’t answer the phone, didn’t hold her when she asked…
I’d do it. I’d burn through every breath in my body to change that night. ”
“You don’t know what it’s like to push out death and then hold it. And still…still call you.”
Adair’s lip trembled. “I’d give my life to take that night from you.”
Sabine inhaled sharply. Her arms folded tighter, like if she let go, everything would pour out. Pie watched them both with rooted stillness.
“What if,” she said softly, “this space could be the start of something different? Not a reconciliation. Not a quick fix but a release.”
Sabine looked up.
“Release doesn’t mean forget,” Pie continued. “It means making room. For peace. For truth. For the things you never got to say because other things just so happen to always come first.”
Adair swallowed. “Then let me say this…I’m sorry, Bine.
I’m so sorry baby. Not the kind of sorry that you pat on the head and move past. But the kind of sorry that cracks your chest open and leaves you bleeding vulnerably.
The sorry that my ego isn’t attached to.
I’m sorry for breaking your heart. For not answering the phone.
For letting you go through the worst moment of your life without me.
I failed you. As a husband. As a father.
As a man.” He leaned forward. “If it would bring her back…if it would mean you never felt that kind of pain again…I’d trade places. I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Sabine’s face broke then—just a little. Her bottom lip quivered, but she bit down hard, shaking her head. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to erase it by wishing you could.”
“I’m not trying to erase it,” he said quickly. “I’m trying to hold it. With you. If you’ll let me.”
The silence afterward was heavy. Heavier than any of them could carry within their arms—then finally Sabine let go.
She cried—deep, broken sobs that shook her entire frame.
She wept for Ariyah. For herself. For every unanswered call and every night spent pacing with swollen ankles and a bruised heart.
For the silence. For the betrayal. For the fact that she was still here, even after all of it.
Her hands covered her face, her body curling inward as if trying to shrink from the weight of everything she’d finally said aloud.
The sound of her grief filled the room, raw and unapologetic. She didn’t hide it this time.
Adair didn’t move at first. His jaw clenched, his throat working through the impossible tightness there.
Then, slowly, he looked over at Dr. Pie who gave him a subtle nod and without hesitation he rose, closing the space between them.
He knelt beside her, not touching her yet, just letting his presence be the first thing she felt.
Then he reached for her. She didn’t lean into him at first. She stiffened. Fought it but when his arms wrapped around her, when he buried his face into the side of her neck and whispered, “I’m so sorry,” over and over, something in her broke open again. She hit him.
First on the shoulder. Then his chest. Small fists pounding once. Twice. Then again, as the tears doubled and her voice cracked with something between rage and devastation.
“You weren’t there,” she cried. “You were never fucking there when I needed you.”
“I know,” he whispered, tightening his hold. “I know, baby. I know.”
“I screamed your name while pushing our daughter out, and you didn’t come.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Sabine. I would give my own life to go back. I swear to God.”
Sabine kept sobbing, choking on her own breath between every word and he just held her. He didn’t stop her hands. Didn’t try to soothe her with words she hadn’t asked for. He just stayed there, solid and still, taking every hit. Every curse. Every broken cry.
Dr. Pie didn’t interrupt. She let the moment stretch. Let it do what it was meant to do. Sabine eventually collapsed fully into him, her face buried in his shoulder, her hands gripping his shirt like it was the only thing tethering her to this earth and still, Adair didn’t let go.
“I’m here,” he murmured. “I’m right here.”
When her sobs finally quieted to shudders, Dr. Pie leaned forward slightly. “What you just did,” she said gently, “wasn’t small. That was the grief. The rage. The part of you that needed someone to witness your pain without trying to fix it.”
Sabine didn’t lift her head, but her fingers tightened in Adair’s shirt.
“And Adair,” Pie continued, “you didn’t justify it. You didn’t redirect it. You received it. That is how repair begins.”
Adair nodded against Sabine’s shoulder, tears still slipping quietly down his face.
“This room is just a start,” Pie said. “You won’t leave here whole but you will leave lighter because now someone else is holding the truth with you.”
Sabine let out one last shaky breath. Adair kissed the side of her head. “I’ll never let go of you again without a fight. I swear baby.”
Sabine didn’t respond with words but she didn’t move away either and for the first time in years, they both began to breathe again.
“This,” Pie said, “is what healing looks like. Not pretty. Not easy. But real…honest. You don’t have to finish anything today. You don’t even have to decide where this goes but you did something brave. Both of you.”
Sabine wiped her face, her voice hoarse. Her breath hitched again, but the sobs were slowing no, less like a storm, more like a passing rain and for the first time in years, she didn’t feel like she was crying alone.
Adair was still holding her. Solid. Grounded. His chest against her cheek, his arms around her back, not letting go. He didn’t flinch when she hit him, didn’t pull away when her rage poured out. He took it. All of it. Just…took it.
She felt the weight of his hands and maybe for the first time since Ariyah died, Sabine felt held.
Not in the vague, useless way people use when they say, “holding space.” No.
This was physical. Tangible. A body pressed to hers, a heartbeat in her ear.
Warmth. Strength. He was carrying it now.
The grief. The guilt. The thing that had crushed her alone for too long.
She blinked through the blur of leftover tears, through the blur of grief still clinging to her lashes and felt something inside her shift.
Not forgive.
Not forget.
But loosen.
Something had loosened.
It was in the way his breathing matched hers, the way his hands stayed right where she needed them.
The way he whispered, “I know,” not to defend himself, but to say I hear you now and he did.
She could feel it in the way he held her tighter when she said Ariyah’s name.
In the way his voice cracked when he said he would’ve given his own life to have their baby girl back.
It wasn’t enough to undo it. However, it was something.
It was him…present, finally. Not with a check or a solution but with his whole body.
His whole self, the man she’d begged to show up years ago and Sabine felt just a little bit lighter as if the grief wasn’t hers to carry alone anymore.
As if maybe he finally understood the ruin he'd left her to rot in.
“Now…we breathe,” Pie reassured, letting this moment end the session. “And next week? We begin again.”
Adair looked down at Sabine and for the first time in a very long time—
She didn’t look away.