Chapter 17
Callum
I lingered on the porch long after everyone else had disappeared into the house. My entire body felt numb, and I just stood there watching the door, completely motionless
I’d heard the doctor say she needed rest. Calm. Zero stress.
I wanted to be in there with her, supporting her, but I knew that I couldn’t help her now. With everything that I had done recently, I would only add to her stress. Somehow, I had transformed myself from her loving husband into stress personified.
I sat down on the porch stairs, elbows braced on my knees, staring at the ground while my pulse hammered in my ears. I kept glancing at the front door, half hoping Ginny would call out my name… half terrified she might.
I didn’t know where to put myself, so I stayed rooted to the spot, every muscle tense.
Footsteps approached. My parents emerged from the door, my mother first, my father a step behind her.
They both looked shaken in a way I had never seen.
My mother’s eyes were puffy and tight around the corners.
My father’s jaw was locked, the muscle twitching the way it did when he was trying hard not to feel something.
They didn’t say anything right away. They moved like they’d already discussed this privately. Like they had agreed on exactly how this conversation needed to go.
My mother lowered herself into the stair beside me. My father stayed standing for a long moment, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the ground instead of on me. That silence was worse than any shouting could have been.
“Callum,” my mother said quietly. “We need to talk.”
I sat up straighter automatically.
“Ginny is not stable yet,” she began. “The doctors said her stress levels were dangerously high.”
I nodded, throat tight.
My mother held up a hand when I opened my mouth. “Let me finish.”
She inhaled shakily. “Her body went into a panic-mode. Do you understand how serious that is? Another spike, another shock, another emotional hit… and it could happen again. She just had a procedure, and nothing is more important than her rest and recovery.”
My stomach twisted.
My father still wouldn’t look at me.
“She needs safety right now,” my mother continued. “Safety and calm. Nothing unexpected. Nothing stressful.”
“I’m not going to upset her,” I said quickly, desperately. “I want to help—”
My father’s voice cut across mine like a blunt blade. “You weren’t there when she needed help.”
The words landed with brutal accuracy.
My mother spoke again, softer but no less devastating.
“Callum… maybe you didn’t physically cheat on her.
Maybe you never intended for any of this to become what it did.
But this wasn’t a one-time mistake. We know that.
But we also know that this wasn’t a one time thing.
We know you’ve been neglecting your wife, lying to her. We know that she deserves better. ”
My chest tightened painfully.
“You abandoned her,” she said. “And to someone who has already lived through more loss than most people ever will… that is so much worse.”
I closed my eyes, because hearing it aloud was like being forced to swallow shards.
My father finally raised his head and looked at me, really looked at me, and the disappointment in his eyes nearly cracked me open.
“She tried to call you,” he said, voice low but full of meaning. “And she didn’t think you’d answer.”
“I didn’t see it,” I whispered, raw. “If I had—”
My mother’s expression pinched. “Honey… that doesn’t matter to her right now. What matters is that when she needs someone, her first instinct won’t be to call her husband anymore.”
I didn’t have an argument for that. I didn’t even have a defense. Just a hollow, crushing ache.
My father pushed away from the house and stepped closer.
“This isn’t about blame anymore,” he said. “It’s about preventing another health emergency.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I insisted.
“Not on purpose,” my mother said. “But stress isn’t always about fights or shouting. Sometimes it’s about emotional overload. And seeing you too soon, when she’s this fragile, could send her right back into another episode.”
My father nodded once, firm. “And we won’t let that happen.”
A cold, heavy dread settled in my chest. “What are you saying?”
My mother’s lips trembled before she steadied them. “Callum… you need to go home tonight.”
I froze, staring at her and then my father. “What? No. No, I’m not leaving her. I want to be here when she wakes up.”
“If she wakes up tonight, she needs calm. She needs rest. She needs to feel safe.” My dad said.
“I am safe,” I said, voice cracking.
“Not right now,” he replied. “Not to her.”
My breathing fractured.
My mother leaned forward, voice soft but unshakable.
“We love you. You are our son. But she is our daughter-in-law, and right now, she’s the one collapsing on floors and clutching her chest because her world feels like it’s falling apart.
In this moment, she needs us, and in this moment, we are choosing her. ”
Her throat worked around a tight breath.
“And part of her falling apart was you. Even if you didn’t mean for it to be.”
It was the truth.
Undeniable, immovable.
I pressed my palms into my eyes. “I’m trying to fix it. I want to be here.”
“And you will,” my mother said. “Just not tonight. Tonight she needs stillness. Predictability. Comfort.”
My father’s tone was firm. “You go home. Sleep. Come back tomorrow, if she feels ready.”
That “if” gutted me.
My mother stood and placed a hand lightly on my shoulder, gentler than I deserved. “This is not punishment, sweetheart. It’s protection. For her.”
“And consequences,” my father added quietly.
I felt something in me unravel. Slowly. Irreversibly.
But I nodded, because fighting them could only hurt Ginny more.
“I don’t want to scare her,” I whispered.
“Then you leave tonight,” my mother said. “And let her heal.”
My father walked to the front door and opened it, the gesture final but not cruel.
I stood, unsteady, hollow, and watched as my mother stood up.
She squeezed my arm once. “Tomorrow,” she murmured. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Without glancing at me again, she turned and walked through the door. My father closed the door behind her with a soft, controlled click.
Not a slam.
Just the sound of a boundary being drawn.
A consequence settling into place.
The sound of me losing something I still loved.
I stood there on the front step, my parents’ porch light casting a dim circle around me, and for the first time in my adult life, I didn’t know where to go.
Home wasn’t home right now.
Ginny wasn’t in my house.
And I wasn’t welcome in hers, not tonight.
I walked to my car in a daze, each step uneven, like my body hadn’t decided whether it wanted to hold me up or just let me sink onto the pavement. My hands shook as I unlocked the door. By the time I slid into the driver’s seat, the shaking had spread to my arms.
The door shut with a dull thud, sealing me into a silence that felt too thick to breathe through. I dropped my head against the steering wheel and exhaled a sound, half-shudder, half-whimper, that didn’t feel like it belonged to me.
They were right.
Every word my parents said.
Every warning.
Every disappointment.
Ginny needed quiet, stability, and safety.
And I had become the opposite of all three.
I’d never thought I could be dangerous to her, not emotionally, not physically, not in any way. I had spent years believing I was her protector by default, that loving her was the same thing as being safe for her.
But I hadn’t been safe. Not even close.
I’d let chaos walk into our lives wearing the face of someone I thought I had left behind. I’d let myself be pulled, manipulated, distracted. I’d let Ginny stand alone while I tried to rescue someone who didn’t need my rescuing.
Now she didn’t trust me.
And I couldn’t blame her.
I forced myself upright. The motion made my throat burn.
I had to do something. Anything. Sitting here wasn’t enough.
I grabbed my phone and scrolled to the contact I should’ve blocked weeks ago.
Ashley.
Her name alone sent a wave of disgust rolling through me, at her, at myself, at everything I’d let happen.
My thumb hovered for half a second.
Then I hit block, severing my connection to her like cutting off a gangrenous limb that threatened to take hold of the rest of me.
Before I could second-guess myself, I deleted her messages, erased the attachments, and tried to remove every trace of her from my life. I couldn’t stand the thought of keeping any of it, everything associated with her felt contaminated, and it was all my fault.
And when it was done, when she was gone in the only ways I could control, my chest finally caved in.
I folded forward over the steering wheel again, choking on a sound that was too close to a sob.
I didn’t physically cheat on Ginny, but I had violated something. Something sacred.
Trust wasn’t just about actions, it was about attention. Focus. Loyalty. Presence. And I had handed pieces of those things to someone else.
My parents were inside comforting the woman I should have been holding. Thalia was probably sitting at her bedside. Ginny was lying in the quiet of the guest room, feeling lonely despite the company, chest still hurting, body still trembling from what I’d done to her, directly or indirectly.
And I was outside in my car because I wasn’t safe for her right now.
The thought gutted me.
I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, breath shaking. I turned the key in the ignition, though I had no idea where I was going. Home felt like a punishment. But staying here wasn’t allowed.
I backed out of the driveway slowly, like any loud movement might break something already fragile.
As I pulled down the street, a cold certainty settled in my bones:
This was rock bottom.
Nothing in my life had ever felt like this before, not fear, not heartbreak, not failure.
This was the moment that would either remake me or destroy everything left.
And I didn’t know which one I deserved.