Chapter 12
Chloe - Six Days After Chloe’s Birthday
The drive home took twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white, twelve minutes of replaying Jenna’s words on a loop, twelve minutes of trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
We talked about it over breakfast this morning.
Breakfast. While I’d been watching baby alpacas and texting Sam about our talk this afternoon, he’d been having breakfast with Jenna. Or had he? Nothing made sense.
I pulled into the driveway and sat in my truck for a moment, staring at the house we’d shared for eight months.
My house, technically. I’d bought it before Sam and I got serious.
But we’d made it ours together — choosing paint colors, picking out furniture, turning the spare room into our shared home office.
All of it was about to change.
Or was it?
The thought came unbidden, cutting through the fog of Jenna’s words. Sam wouldn’t do this. Not like this. The Sam I knew wouldn’t have breakfast with her, planning my dismissal while texting me “I love you” and “can’t wait to see you.”
That wasn’t Sam. That was…
That was Sean. But Sam wasn’t Sean.
So why was I believing Jenna?
I let myself in through the front door and dropped my bag on the kitchen counter. The house felt too quiet, too empty, giving me too much space to think.
I needed to be rational about this. Logical. I was a veterinarian — I dealt in facts, evidence, diagnoses. What were the actual facts here?
Fact: Sam had a son he hadn’t told me about. Fact: He’d been distant and secretive for six days. Fact: Jenna showed up at my clinic with a very specific story.
But also fact: Sam had been trying to talk to me, and I’d been too exhausted to listen. Also fact: The Sam I knew for two years wasn’t the kind of man who would abandon someone he loved without a conversation. Also fact: Jenna was a stranger who had every reason to want me out of the picture.
Wait.
I stopped, hand on the counter, as something clicked into place.
Why would Jenna come to me? If Sam was planning to tell me this afternoon anyway, why would she show up at my clinic to tell me first? She said Sam would be “furious” with her for coming. That he’d told her he was going to tell me today.
So why jump the gun? Why risk his anger?
Unless… unless she was lying. Unless Sam wasn’t planning to leave me at all, and Jenna was trying to push me out before I had a chance to talk to Sam. Before he could tell me whatever he actually wanted to say.
I pulled out my phone, looking at Sam’s text from this morning: “Can’t wait to see them. And can’t wait to see you. Love you.”
That didn’t sound like a man planning to break up with me in a few hours. That sounded like Sam. My Sam.
And breakfast this morning? Sam had texted me at 9 AM from the bar. When would he have had time to have breakfast with Jenna and discuss logistics? It didn’t add up.
Maybe I was being played. Maybe Jenna’s whole performance — the tears, the “I want us to be friends,” the careful way she’d positioned everything as Sam’s noble sacrifice — maybe it was all manipulation. A calculated attempt to make me leave before Sam and I could talk.
I should hear what Sam had to say before jumping to conclusions. I should trust the man I’d planned to spend my life with over a woman I’d met twice.
I should—
The home phone rang, cutting through my thoughts. We barely used the landline anymore — it was mostly for emergencies, for people who couldn’t reach our cells.
I picked up the cordless handset from the kitchen counter. “Hello?”
“Oh, hi, Dr. Parker! Thank goodness. This is Jimmy Alden. I’ve been trying to reach Sam all morning, but he’s not answering his phone.”
“He’s at the bar,” I said. “Is everything okay with the house?” Jimmy and his wife, Marta, were Sam’s long-term tenants. They’d been renting his house for years.
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Look, I wanted to let Sam know we can move out immediately. We can be out in two days.”
“Move out? Two days?” My heart started pounding.
“I know, I know, it’s quick. We’d expected to need the full thirty-day notice, but everything’s fallen into place. We’ll still pay the full month’s rent, obviously. I’ve been trying Sam’s cell all morning, but it keeps going to voicemail, and when I called the bar, nobody answered.”
“I’ll let him know,” I heard myself say, my voice sounding distant. “I’m sure that’s fine.”
“Great, thanks so much. We really appreciate the understanding. Tell Sam we’ll have everything cleaned and ready to go by the end of the weekend.”
I hung up and stared at the phone in my hand.
The end of the weekend. Sam’s house would be available by the end of the weekend. His tenants were moving out.
He wanted to wait until he had everything figured out. Where we’d live. When we’d be moving in together.
Jenna’s words echoed in my head, and suddenly the tenant’s call wasn’t a coincidence. It was confirmation.
Sam’s house. Available this weekend. Right when Jenna said they’d be moving in together.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
The evidence wasn’t circumstantial anymore. It was a pattern, clear as any diagnosis I’d ever made. Sam had been pulling away for a week while I’d been lost in my head. Jenna had just told me Sam wanted to give them a try as a family. And now, perfectly timed, Sam’s property was suddenly available.
He’d planned this. Maybe not the exact timing, but he’d been working toward this. Getting ready to move his new family into his house.
I should call him. Should demand answers. Should give him a chance to explain.
But I couldn’t. Because I’d been here before.
Four years ago, I’d loved someone who kept secrets.
Sean had been distant for months before I found out why.
I’d made excuses for him — he was stressed about work, tired from long hours, dealing with family stuff he didn’t want to burden me with.
I’d believed him when he said everything was fine, that he loved me.
And then I’d found the messages to Kaitlyn. My best friend. The woman I’d confided in about my worries, who’d held me while I cried about Sean’s distance, who’d told me I was being paranoid, who’d looked me in the eye and assured me Sean loved me.
The messages went back six months. Six months of Sean telling Kaitlyn he loved her while coming home to me.
Six months of Kaitlyn arranging secret dates with him while having coffee with me and telling me I was imagining problems that didn’t exist. Six months of both of them watching me plan a wedding that never happened.
I’d confronted Sean. Asked for an explanation, for honesty, for some way to understand how the man I loved could lie to my face for half a year. He’d told me he loved us both. That he’d been trying to figure out what to do. That he’d been protecting me from the truth until he could make a decision.
He’d begged me not to end it. Had gotten down on his knees in our living room, crying, telling me it was a mistake, that he’d been confused, that he chose me.
Kaitlyn had called too, sobbing her apologies, swearing it was just feelings, nothing physical, just emotional support that had gotten confused.
I could still see his face, desperate and pleading. Could still hear the crack in his voice. So I’d stayed. Three more months of trying to rebuild what they’d broken.
But the doubt never left. Every time he was late coming home, every time his phone buzzed, every time he said he was working late — I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I’d become someone I didn’t recognize, someone who needed constant reassurance that he wasn’t with her.
And then I’d come home early from work one Tuesday afternoon. Sean’s car was in the driveway when he should have been at work. I’d walked upstairs, telling myself there was a reasonable explanation, that I was being paranoid like Kaitlyn used to say.
I’d opened our bedroom door. Even now, I could still see it. Sean and Kaitlyn. In the bed I’d shared with him. The sound Kaitlyn had made when she saw me. The look on Sean’s face. Panic. Like I’d caught him doing something inconvenient.
I’d shut down completely. Hadn’t yelled, hadn’t cried, hadn’t said a word. I’d simply closed the door, walked back downstairs, gotten in my truck, and driven.
I’d driven for days. Checked into motels where I paid in cash, turned off my phone, and didn’t tell anyone where I was. When I’d finally come back, I’d packed my things while Sean begged me to listen, to understand, to give him another chance.
I’d left that day and never looked back. Started over, built a new life where no one knew about the woman I’d been — the one who’d been stupid enough to believe a man who cheated on her more than once.
That woman had been pathetic. Broken. Everything I’d promised myself I’d never become again.
And yet here I was. I could feel myself slipping back into that broken version of Chloe, the one who wasn’t enough, who couldn’t be trusted with the truth, who had to be protected from reality.
The difference was, this time I could see it happening. I could feel myself starting to break, starting to become that anxious, doubting person again. I couldn’t sit here waiting for Sam to come home and tell me he’d made his choice.
This time, I could choose to leave before I became that broken person again. I could walk away with whatever dignity I had left, spare us both the ugly talk, the fight, the resentment.
I moved through the rooms, seeing everything through the lens of what Jenna had told me.
The kitchen where Sam made Sunday morning pancakes – would he be making them for Leo now?
The living room where we’d planned our future together – a future that apparently didn’t include room for me once Sam’s real family entered the picture.
The office where I’d found the engagement ring receipt three weeks before my birthday, back when I’d thought I knew what my life was going to look like.